Welcome to EYFS at Ratby Primary School
At Ratby Primary School, we create a happy, safe and nurturing environment where our EYFS children develop their independence as learners through an exciting and engaging curriculum which inspires children to love learning. We promote a language-rich curriculum, due to understanding how essential this is, for your child’s development. Our curriculum is well planned to ensure progression from the first day of school through to the last and we always build upon current knowledge. We acknowledge how crucial the EYFS provision is in developing firm foundations for the children’s journey throughout school and beyond.
On our school grounds – both indoors and outdoors – a stimulating environment is provided to ensure your child develops resilience, friendships and positive relationships, that further aid academic growth. Children safely explore risks and challenge their own learning to prepare them for the next stage in their school life. Within the day we create a play-based approach with a mixture of teacher-directed and child-led learning.
We work closely and collaboratively with parents in order to ensure we value home experiences and develop a true reflection of the whole child. We use Tapestry to share what the children have been learning in class each week and how parents build on their learning at home. The children and parents are encouraged to post their experiences on Tapestry so that the children can share these with the class. In Foundation Stage we aim to create a positive nurturing environment where our children can thrive and lay the foundations for a secure future. We plan and provide stimulating and exciting learning opportunities which in turn help our children to become enthusiastic learners who are keen to explore and develop.
We believe that children should have the opportunity to learn through play and that it should be fun, engaging but also challenging. Our indoor and outdoor learning environment is an important part of our provision as it allows the children to develop the children’s thinking and problem-solving skills alongside helping them to develop physically. The adults in our learning environment are skilled practitioners who provide high quality interactions and are role models for learning. We strive we can be is at the heart of our ethos and we are committed to providing our children with the best possible to start to school life.
At Ratby Primary School we know how important it is for both you and your child that they have a smooth start to their school life and that they are well prepared for the adventures ahead. Our transition process begins as soon as you are offered a place at our school. As parents you will get a welcome letter and an invite to our Parents Induction Evening; this is an evening just for parents where we share our vision for Foundation Stage along with key dates and information. We work closely with our feeder pre-school ‘Bluebells of Ratby’ with the pre-school children and keyworkers visiting in small groups over the summer term. We contact every child’s early years setting and discuss how we can support them with their transition to school. We visit different settings if needed and welcome visits to the setting over the Summer Term.
There are two Foundation Stage classes:
Rainbow Class – Mrs Savage (EYFS Lead) and Mrs Shooter-Dodd (Learning Support Assistant)
Sunshine Class – Miss Hughes (Class Teacher) and Mrs Peutrill (Learning Support Assistant)
Across our EYFS, we follow the Early Years Statutory Framework. This Framework specifies the requirement for learning and development in the Early Years and provides prime and specific areas of learning we must cover in our curriculum:
Early years foundation stage (EYFS) statutory framework – GOV.UK
Prime Areas:
Personal, Social and Emotional Development
Physical Development
Communication and Language development
Specific Areas:
Literacy
Mathematics
Understanding the World
Expressive Arts and Design
The children are taught the skills required in the EYFS through termly topics which are planned to build upon the children’s current knowledge and understanding by a cumulative sequence of lessons. Provision and resources are changed frequently around the topics and interests of the children. Our enhanced provision ensures our children progress and are challenged in order to reach their full potential. Throughout the year we have two parents’ evenings where children’s progress is reported and next steps for learning are discussed. Written reports are provided at the end of the year to inform parents of their child’s progress, their characteristics of effective learning and to give them the next steps of learning ready for their transition to Year 1.
Through the delivery of a well-planned, child-led and challenging curriculum we aim that the pupils will leave the Early Years Foundation Stage as independent learners, with transferrable skills needed to start Key Stage One.
EYFS Lead
Mrs Savage