Foundation Stage Overview (Nursery and Reception)

Early Years at Ley Top Primary School is happy, fun and exciting! We have a balance between play-based learning, where children access the well-resourced provision areas, and small group or 1:1 work where children learn whilst working with an adult.

We encourage and promote independence in the children, such as putting on and fastening their own coats, tidying up after themselves and independently accessing their own learning in the provision areas.

To ensure children are enthused and excited about their learning, our topics are closely linked to their interests. Topics such as ‘Let’s Explore', 'Marvellous Machines' and 'Long Ago’,. These have all been developed from Cornerstones but also from the children's ideas and the interests that they express and talk about in school.

We understand that the children learn in many different ways and having an understanding of early childhood development is very important to us. This allows us to provide the appropriate experiences for children at their developmental stage. Children have access to indoor or outdoor play and can choose to learn inside, or in in our fantastic outdoor provision. Outdoors is accessed in all weathers so that no opportunity for learning is missed!

Nursery & Reception are called the Foundation Stage - like building a house, we need to make firm foundations - which if strong and secure the future learning is built on. A child’s early years’ experience should be happy, exciting and fun as well as supporting their development, care and learning needs and is what we aim to achieve at Ley Top Primary School.

The children mainly learn through play whilst following their own interests. This is their work and is really valuable. They learn through doing - investigating & exploring it’s how they make sense of the world. They also have a phonics session each day.

Our children mainly learn through play, this is their work and is really valuable, they learn through doing- investigating and exploring. it’s how they make sense of the world. They also have a discreet mathematics and phonics session each day.

There are 7 areas of learning which are divided into two, the Prime areas & the Specific areas these are then broken down further into 17 aspects.

The Prime areas are particularly important for building a foundation for igniting children’s curiosity and enthusiasm for learning, forming relationships and thriving. The prime areas are:

Communication and language development- which covers Listening, Attention & Understanding and Speaking
Personal, Social & Emotional Development - which looks at the children’s Self-Regulation, Managing Self and Building Relationships
Physical Development- Gross Motor Skills and Fine Motor Skills

We also support our children in four Specific areas, through which the three prime areas are strengthened and applied. The specific areas are:

Literacy - concentrating on Comprehension, Word Reading and Writing
Mathematics - covering Number and Numerical Patterns
Understanding the World - so learning about Past & Present, People, Culture & Communities and The Natural World
And finally Expressive Arts and Design - which is Creating with Materials and Being Imaginative and Expressive

All of those areas of learning are connected together. The characteristics of effective teaching and learning weave through them all. That’s because children in the early years are becoming more powerful learners and thinkers. These characteristics develop as they learn to do new things, acquire new skills, develop socially and emotionally, and become better communicators.

Children’s learning and development is carefully assessed throughout the Foundation Years. A base-line assessment takes place as the children enter the Nursery/ Reception class, and this will be discussed with you at the time. Please remember that we are always willing to discuss any aspects of your child’s development with you, all you need to do is ask.

Early Years Curriculum Map

early years curriculum map cycle b 1 .docx

Foundation Stage Overview (Nursery and Reception)

You may like to check out the EYFS websites below:

Early Years Curriculum Map