Early Years Foundation Stages

Provision of the EYFS

1. Early Years Foundation Stage

The Early Years Foundation Stages begin from birth. Children aged between three and five are constantly encountering new experiences and seeking to understand them in order to extend their skills. The Early Years Foundation Stages outlines early learning goals which most children are expected to achieve by the end of their reception class year at school.

The six areas of learning are as follows:

Problem solving, reasoning and numeracy
Physical development
Creativity
Knowledge and understanding of the world
Communication, language and literacy
Personal social and emotional development

2. Planning

The six areas of learning will provide the basis for our planning.

a) Each term the nursery decides which topics will be covered throughout the term; the planning and activities will also be shaped and initiated by the children’s interests. Parents are advised of the areas that are intended to be covered by way of the notice boards and newsletters and are encouraged to help their child to find items from home to support the topics/shapes and colours being studied.

b) The topics are then broken down to show which activities will be offered to cover each of the six areas of learning. The plans for the activities may be shown as a spider chart or in some other form to enable ideas to be discussed, selected and sorted.

c) The activities are then broken down again into weekly and daily lesson plans to show which goals are being encouraged from the six areas of learning.

d) To give an idea of how the nursery provides for the foundation stages and some of the learning outcomes that are encouraged a few examples are given in the table, please click on link. Learning Outcomes

3. Learning through Play

Our toys, resources and activities help to encourage the development of children in different areas so that even when children seem to be just playing they are learning at the same time.

All the toys and activities put out at Little Elms have been planned to cover certain areas of a child’s development within the Early Years Foundation Stage as shown above.

During the nursery session, the staff present the activities/ equipment to the children to encourage the planned learning outcome.

The children are observed continuously and the information gained to assess each child’s development against the predicted ages of attainment.

Example of Activities for each area and Learning Outcomes

For each area, the level of progress that children are expected to have attained by the end of the Early Years Foundation Stage is defined by the Early Learning Goals. These goals state what it is expected that children will know, and be able to do, by the end of the reception year of their education.

*Areas of Development & Learning*	*ACTIVITY AND AREAS*	ENCOURAGED LEARNING OUTCOMES
*MATHEMATICS*	Counting cups and plates at snack time Making patterns and pictures with shapes Sorting and matching	Begin to count beyond 10 Talk about, recognize and recreate simple patterns Use appropriate shapes to make representational models or more elaborate pictures
*PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT*	Practical life activities Outside play/activities Action songs Tracing pictures Picture lotto Montessori maze	Help control body movements Move with balance and coordination Relate and make attachments to members of their group
*EXPRESSIVE ART AND DESIGN*	Musical instruments Making our own instruments Cooking from around the worlds Exploring textures/art materials Group/circle time games	Tap out simple repeated rhythms and composing our own Talk about what we see and what is happening Enjoy joining in with dancing and group games
*KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING OF THE WORLD*	Listening to music and stories from around the world Exploration of the garden Discussions about what they have achieved and their experiences Cultural festivals	Examine objects and living things to find out more about them Remember and talk about significant events at home and at nursery Gain an awareness of cultures and beliefs
*COMMUNICATION, LANGUAGE AND LITERACY*	Circle time show and tell, group discussions Listening to stories, retelling stories Drawing, writing own shopping list Discussion about sunshine and rain helping things to grow/our world	Build upon attentive listening, responding to what they have heard with relevant comments, questions or actions Use writing and mark making as a means of recording and communicating Ask open ended questions often in the form of where or what
*PERSONAL, SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT*	Role play e.g. Shopkeeper, Doctor, Restaurant Sand pit , water play Looking and exploring things on the nature table	Seek out others to share experiences Have an awareness of the boundaries set and of behavioural expectations Show curiosity