Welcome to Foundation

Adults in our Classroom

Class Timetable

Friday: Reading folder – Change reading books

Friday: PE kits

Week Day	AM	AM	PM	PM
Monday	Phonics	Literacy	Maths	Mastering number
Tuesday	Phonics	Literacy	Maths	Mastering number
Wednesday	Phonics	Understanding the world	Maths	Understanding the world
Thursday	Phonics	Literacy Club	Maths	Mastering number
Friday	Phonics	Literacy Club	PE	Interventions

Our Curriculum

EYFS: Intent, Implementation & Impact

Intent

At J H Godwin Primary School, we endeavour to provide all children with a purposeful, progressive, language rich curriculum, which is developed through the aims and objectives of the Early Years Foundation Stage.  We make sure that our curriculum is engaging and inclusive of all, encouraging children to be inquisitive throughout their time at the school and beyond.it. Our EYFS curriculum is designed to recognise children’s prior learning, both from previous settings and their experiences at home to then provide first hand learning experiences, whilst allowing the children to build resilience, ambition and integrity. Every child is recognised as a unique individual and we celebrate and welcome differences within our school community. Our aim in EYFS is to encourage children to become resilient, capable, confident and self-assured through the learning environment. It is our intent that children who enter our EYFS begin their lifelong learning journey by developing physically, verbally, cognitively and emotionally whilst also embedding a positive attitude to school and a love of learning. We do this by building on children’s life experiences and aim to develop children’s knowledge and skills through a balanced play based curriculum allowing them to explore and learn in the environment.

We work in partnership with parents, carers and other settings to provide the best possible start at JH Godwin, ensuring each individual reaches their full potential from their various starting points. In our provision, we develop caring, respectful, professional relationships with the children and their families. We recognise that children learn and develop well when there is a strong partnership between practitioners and parents and/or carers. We place high priority on parental engagement through family breakfast, Literacy workshops, open door policy, parent evenings, dojo reward system and sharing children’s progress on Class dojo.

Our enabling environments and warm, skilful adult interactions support the children as they begin to link learning to their play and exploration right from the start. We create an indoor and outdoor environment which supports learning opportunities, consolidates and deepens knowledge to ensure children meet their next steps. The areas in the classroom reflect this through a variety of resources to develop social interactions, inviting reading areas to encourage a love of books and literature with a language rich environment. It is important to us that all children in the provision are safe and we guide the children with choices to help them develop this important life skill using our behaviour system Ready, Respectful and Safe. 

By the end of the Reception year our intent is to ensure that all children make at least good progress from their starting points and are equipped with the skills and knowledge to have a smooth transition into Year 1. Every child has access to a broad, balanced and differentiated curriculum which prepares them for now and for the future in terms of opportunities and experiences. Following personal interests and individual needs, allows us to plan and provide opportunities throughout our EYFS curriculum to support learning and development to achieve their next steps.

Our EYFS curriculum aims to enable our children to be:

Competent and creative learners; who are curious about the world around them.

Secure and confident; who enjoy coming to school and learning new skills and knowledge building on their existing learning.

Skilful communicators; who connect with others through language and play, ensuring that they play in a vocab rich environment.

Implementation

At JH Godwin we follow the Early Years Foundation Stage framework. This is made up of four overriding principles which our early year’s education is based upon:

• Unique Child – Every child is unique child who is constantly learning and can be resilient, capable, confident and self-assured.
• Positive Relationships – Children learn to be strong and independent through positive relationships.
• Enabling Environments – Children learn and develop well in enabling environments, in which their experiences respond to their individual needs and there is a strong partnership between practitioners and parents and carers.
• Learning and Development – Children develop and learn in different ways. The framework covers the education and care of all children in early year’s provision, including children with special educational needs and disabilities.

The curriculum provides a play-based and experiential learning environment, combined with focussed teaching and basic skills, to ensure children make rapid progress before moving onto Year 1. They engage in planned, focussed activities as well as self-initiated and free flow activities. The learning experiences within our Early Years are linked to the seven areas of learning and development within the EYFS. These areas are split into three prime areas and four specific areas. The three prime areas are those which the children should develop first and are considered most essential for the healthy development and future learning of our children. These include:

• Personal, Social and Emotional Development – involves providing opportunities for young children to be active and interactive; and to develop their co-ordination, control, and movement. Children must also be helped to understand the importance of physical activity, and to make healthy choices in relation to food.
• Communication and Language – involves giving children opportunities to experience a rich language environment; to develop their confidence and skills in expressing themselves; and to speak and listen in a range of situations.
• Physical Development – involves helping children to develop a positive sense of themselves, and others; to form positive relationships and develop respect for others; to develop social skills and learn how to manage their feelings; to understand appropriate behaviour in groups; and to have confidence in their own abilities.

As children grow and make progress in the prime areas, this will help them to naturally develop skills within the four specific areas. These are:

• Literacy – the early teaching of literacy involves encouraging children to link sounds and letters and to begin to read and write. Children are given access to a wide range of reading materials (books, poems, and other written materials) to ignite their interest.
• Mathematics – the early teaching of mathematics involves providing children with opportunities to develop and improve their skills in counting, understanding and using numbers, calculating simple addition and subtraction problems; and describing shapes, spaces, and measures.
• Understanding the World – this involves guiding children to make sense of their physical world and their community through opportunities to explore, observe and find out about people, places, technology and the environment.
• Expressive Arts and Design – this involves enabling children to explore and play with a wide range of media and materials, as well as providing opportunities and encouragement for sharing their thoughts, ideas and feelings through a variety of activities in art, music, movement, dance, role-play, and design and technology.

Children benefit from meaningful learning across the curriculum and staff plan resourcefully for opportunities for communication, sustained shared thinking and physical challenge to build on existing skills taking into account the Characteristics of Effective Learning. We provide rich first hand experiences (inside, outdoors, visitors and school trips) to widen experiences, awe and wonderment. Exploratory learning and thinking creatively including problem solving across all areas of learning. New vocabulary and concepts through reading that excites and engages all learners. The curriculum will promote and support children’s emotional security and development of their character enabling children to take risks in a safe and secure environment. Supporting children to be active and to develop physically including giving clear messages to children why it is important to eat, drink and exercise as well as to be kind to others.

Through our knowledge of each child and formative assessments the EYFS team plan exciting and engaging activities that will move the children’s learning forward and give them context for their learning. This may involve following a class theme and also may include following individual children’s interest.

The school follows Read Write Inc systematic, synthetic phonics scheme from the first week children start full time in Reception. Through this all children learn to read and write with accuracy, fluency and automatically. The scheme provides support for parents, staff are trained and monitored regularly to ensure a consistent and successful approach. Children read daily in class and the books are matched specifically to the phonic stage they are learning, ensuring they are able to read independently.

Impact

The children at JH Godwin experience a smooth transition between Nursery, Reception and beyond. Effective communication and collaboration ensure the children leave the EYFS with a solid foundation of learning of which to build upon. The children are able to articulate their suggestions of topics of interest so this will lead learning throughout the years thus ensuring our curriculum reacts to and meets the needs of our children, whilst stimulating the enthusiasm in learning. Children will be actively engaged in their learning and the enjoyment of this learning will be apparent in their daily provision. All children will have experienced a curriculum that provides exciting and enriching learning experiences and opportunities for them to learn through educational visits and practical experiences. Cultural capital is promoted to enhance and enrich our curriculum offer with a variety of trips, experiences and visitors. Trips are planned around topics, interests and where children have not been, our children take part in one trip per half term and during our people who help us topic we invite visitors from different professions to come and talk to the children about their job. The trips extend and enrich children’s life experiences and form part of our curriculum and inspire questions and direct learning experiences.

Through family breakfast, parents evening, letters home, messages/information on dojos and observations on learning book which is a digital learning journey, all parents are encouraged and given opportunities to be involved in their child’s learning. Therefore, the majority of parents support their child’s learning at home. All parents will be logged onto both dojos and learning book during the transition week, therefore, be kept up to date and informed about their child.

As a team, we carry out regular internal and external moderation sessions and also ensure that staff attend external meetings and training to ensure that we feel confident with our judgements and that these judgements are consistent with a range of other settings. Assessment starts with careful observations which are then used to inform planning. All children on early interventions such as, Wellcomm, ELSA, ginger bear, speech and language make good progress and new targets are set to increase the speed of progress and close gaps. At J.H. Godwin ongoing assessment is an integral part of the learning and development processes. Staff observe pupils to identify their level of achievement, interests and learning styles. We make regular assessments of children’s learning and we use this information to ensure that future planning reflects identified needs. These observations are recorded in children’s individual learning Journeys. At our school we attend regular moderation meetings to ensure our judgements are consistent and the head teacher regularly observes class teacher too ensure the EYFS curriculum is delivered effectively. Learning walks by the head teacher focuses on the indoor and outdoor environment to ensure it reflects effective learning.

We know that by the end of Foundation Stage at JH Godwin our children will have developed the essential knowledge and skills required for everyday life and lifelong learning. We believe the children at JH Godwin will be happy, inquisitive and successful learners who have bright futures.

                  J H Godwin Primary’s Long-Term Plan Team Reception

	Autumn 1	Autumn 2	Spring 1	Spring 2	Summer 1	Summer 2
Literacy Counts Units	The Something -Rebecca Cobb	Star in a Jar by Sam Hay	Juniper Juniper by Lizzy Stewart	Little Red by Bethan Woolvin	The Extraordinary Gardener by Sam Boughton	The Storm Whale by Benji Davis
Science	Animals & Seasons	Space The Earth	Life-cycles/ Healthy Eating	Materials Homes Environments	Plant Natural & Man-made Environments	Under the Sea Floating & Sinking
Computing		Computing systems and networks 1	Programming 1: All about instructions	Computing systems and network 2	Programming 2: Programming Bee-Bots	Data handling: Introduction to data
Geography	Seasons: Weather	Communities & Traditions: other Parts of the World	Communities & Traditions: How People Live	Environments: House & Homes	Animals & Plants: What lives where?	Our World: Natural Things, Rivers, Mountains & Forests
History	Own Life Story – How we change	Toys in the Past	Lives of People Around Them	Past & Present Events	Sunflowers – Change Over Time	Stories/pictures of the past
Art	Painting & Mixed Media: Print My World		Drawing – Marvellous Marks		Sculpture and 3D: Creation station
DT		Structures: Junk Modelling		Textiles: Bookmarks		Structures:  Boats
Music	Musical Instruments	Celebration Music	Exploring Sound	Music & Movement	Musical Stories	Big Band
PE	Body Management	Dance	Gymnastics	Manipulation & Coordination	Speed Agility Travel	Cooperate and solve problems
PSHE/RSE	My Brain & Self-Regulation: My Feelings	Building Relationships Special Relationships	Managing Self: Taking on Challenges	Self-Regulation Listening & Following Instructions	Building Relationships: my Family & Friends	Managing Self: My Wellbeing
RE	Hindus -Feelings	Christmas – Nativity	Chinese New Year	Easter	Islam -Eid Festival	Communities & Traditions
Trips	Pumpkin Farm	Grosvenor Museum	Fire Station Manchester Airport	Chester Zoo	Farm – with Country Trust	Colwyn Beach

Early years foundation stage profile: 2024 handbook (publishing.service.gov.uk)

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