Early Learning = Lifelong Learning

The Early Years Foundation Stage is a crucial time of whole development for your child from birth to age 5. At Holy Trinity Primary School we follow the ‘Early Years Foundation Stage Statutory Framework’ supported by ‘Development Matters’ non – statutory curriculum guidance for early years foundation stage published by the DfE.

There are seven areas of learning within the EYFS Framework:

Prime areas:

• Communication and Language
• Physical Development
• Personal, Social and Emotional Development

Specific Areas:

• Literacy
• Mathematics
• Understanding the World
• Expressive Arts and Design

Children join us in their final year of EYFS known as the ‘Reception Year’ where we settle and prepare and support them to become independent, confident and self-assured learners with a ready for the ‘National Curriculum’ as they enter key stage one.

We currently admit 30 pupils into our setting where we provide a range of carefully planned and resourced play based learning activities indoor and outdoors with the child’s needs and interests at our heart. Ensuring pupils are emotionally ready and have the skills to continue to progress towards being the best they can be and reaching the ‘expected level of development’ by the end of their first year in school.

Skilled adults understand that all children have different starting points to learning and a range of needs. We provide support to the whole child and their family ensuring strong relationships and an environment where children feel safe, happy and able to express and challenge themselves in learning and play.

Phonics is a vital part of EYFS. The development of phonics skills is a fundamental part of everyday learning at Holy Trinity. We follow the accredited ‘Bug Club Phonics’ where daily activities allow our children to flourish in phonics and enter the wonderful world of reading with confidence. Parents play a vital role with phonics – please see our phonics page to help you support your child at home.

Our Early Years Pedagogical Approach

At Holy Trinity our Early Years teaching practice encompasses the value and importance of play in order to allow our children to understand their world and our curriculum by directly experiencing it. Our approach is that ‘doing’ is learning, therefore we provide children with as many physical and ‘hands on’ activities as possible and opportunities to learn from the real world in order to ‘grasp’ the world around them. We carefully construct our curriculum so that all learning is linked and so every different area of learning can impact others. Our Early Years team is committed to creating an enabling environment in which children can remain focused and promote child-initiated play whilst encompassing every child’s individuality and curiosity so that every child is engaged and motivated. We offer a language rich environment to allow all activities to encompass different areas and continually offer opportunities for our children to talk, listen and communicate with adults and other children. We are aware that routine and repetition are important and that valuable learning should be experienced through the course of regular daily tasks and activities.

In order to implement our curriculum effectively we value the importance of starting with what children can do, not what they can’t. A key part of our Early Years pedagogy is that each child is offered play and learning opportunities that are right for their stage of development. Therefore, practitioners have the knowledge of the stage of development for each child and plan accordingly to offer the right materials and support for children at the right point in their development. Through our careful observation and assessment every child can access the school day confidently and happily, making progress at all opportunities. We hope that through our carefully created curriculum and approach to teaching and learning that has been built upon ongoing observations and assessments that every child will make exceptional progress in all areas of learning and have the opportunities to make choices, errors and decisions to help with their independence and autonomy and through our support every child will learn what is right for them as an individual.

You can read our EYFS Policy via our Policies page.