Westbury Leigh Information about Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS)
Here at Westbury Leigh Primary School, we pride ourselves on our Early Years provision. A child starting school can be a daunting experience for parents and children so our experienced staff ensure the process is a positive and happy one. This is the first stage of your child's learning journey so we help this process by:
- offering a full induction programme for children and parents which includes meetings and visits to the school prior to the September start.
- providing a wealth of information about getting ready for school and life at Westbury Leigh Primary School.
- communicating and visiting the pre-school your child is already attending
- carrying out home visits before your child has their first day in school.
- staggered entry in September, beginning with half days and increasing to full days.
We use the Early Years Foundation Stage Statutory Framework as our base for the opportunities and provision that we provide to children in their first year of school. This is a continuation of the learning and experiences they would have accessed in their nursery or pre-school setting. There is a great emphasis on learning through direct, first hand experiences in a play based environment. This allows children to develop the skills needed in preparation for their National Curriculum education that commences in Year 1.
At Westbury Leigh Primary School, our Early Years education is based upon the following aims and principles:
- Building on what your child already knows and can do.
- An objective-led planning approach where learning is taught through the children's play and based on rigorous tracking and daily observations.
- The use of topics and current trends taken from the children’s interests are used to plan the learning and skill development.
- Delivery of the curriculum is led through purposeful, planned play opportunities and enhancements of provision, where adults observe and intervene with higher order questioning and engagement to extend the learning taking place
- Adult-led activities that introduce new skills and extend learning.
- Content, provision and resources matched to the needs of the current cohort of children which are changed throughout the year in line with the development of the children.
- A well developed and nurturing environment where the children can independently access resources as and when they require and feel safe to take risks and make mistakes.
- Free-flow learning where children have equal access to the indoors and outdoors.
- A positive, safe environment where children have an 'I can' attitude and take risks and challenge themselves.
- Embedding children's personal, social and emotional development so children are happy in school and making friends. A happy child is happy to learn!
