The learning areas of the EYFS are essentially the ‘subjects' that we teach your child. Unlike primary and secondary schools, these areas are not distinct. They all cross over with each other. So one activity can be teaching several ‘subjects’.
There are 7 broad ‘subject’ areas that we need to cover with your child.
- Communication & Language Development
- Personal, Social & Emotional Development
| - Expressive Arts and Design
|
How Do We Cover These?
Communication and Language Development
This 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.
We do this through:
▪
Cafe
▪
Story time
▪ Co-operative play like puzzles and role play
Physical Development
This 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.
We do this through:
▪
Climbing frames and outdoor
activities
▪
Dance
▪ Yoga
Personal, Social and Emotional Development
This 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.
We do this through:
▪
Circle time
▪
Co-operative play
▪ Outside play
Literacy Development
This involves encouraging children to link sounds and letters and to begin to read and write. Children must be given access to a wide range of reading materials (books, poems, and other written materials) to ignite their interest.
We do this through:
▪
Story Time
▪ Music and nursery rhymes
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.
We do this through:
▪
Messy play
▪
Constructive games
▪ Visits and role play
Mathematics
This involves providing children with opportunities to develop and improve their skills in counting, understanding and using numbers, calculating simple addition and subtraction problems; and to describe shapes, spaces, and measures.
We do this through:
▪
Constructive games
▪
Role play
▪ Outdoor play
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, roleplay, and design and technology.
We do this through:
▪
Messy play
▪
Crafts
▪
role play
In planning and guiding children’s activities, we reflect on the different ways that children learn. Three characteristics of effective teaching and learning are:
- playing and exploring - children investigate and experience things, and ‘have a go’;
- active learning - children concentrate and keep on trying if they encounter difficulties, and enjoy achievements; and
- creating and thinking critically - children have and develop their own ideas, make links between ideas, and develop strategies for doing things.
The Early Learning Goals
The Early Learning Goals (ELGs) are the levels that your child should reach at age 5, usually the end of the reception year. This is considered the end of the Foundation Stage and will take place during your child's first year of primary/first school, after they leave us. These can be found below:
Communication and Language
Listening and attention: children listen attentively in a range of situations. They listen to stories, accurately anticipating key events and respond to
what they hear with relevant comments, questions or actions. They give their attention to what others say and respond appropriately, while engaged in another activity.
Understanding: children follow instructions involving several ideas or actions. They answer ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions about their experiences and in response to stories or events.
Speaking: children express themselves effectively, showing awareness of listeners’ needs. They use past, present and future forms accurately when talking about events that have happened or are to happen in the future. They develop their own narratives and explanations by connecting ideas or events.
Moving and handling: children show good control and co-ordination in large and small movements. They move confidently in a range of ways, safely negotiating space. They handle equipment and tools effectively, including
pencils for writing.
Health and self-care: children know the importance for good health of physical exercise, and a healthy diet, and talk about ways to keep healthy and safe. They manage their own basic hygiene and personal needs successfully,
including dressing and going to the toilet independently.
Personal, Social and Emotional Development
Self-confidence and self-awareness: children are confident to try new activities, and say why they like some
activities more than others. They are confident to speak in a familiar group, will talk about their ideas, and will choose the resources they need for their chosen activities. They say when they do or don’t need help.
Managing feelings and behaviour: children talk about how they and others show feelings, talk about their own and others’ behaviour, and its consequences, and know that some behaviour is unacceptable. They work as part of a group or class, and understand and follow the rules. They adjust their behaviour to different situations, and take changes of routine in their stride.
Making relationships: children play co-operatively, taking turns with others. They take account of one another’s ideas about how to organise their activity. They show sensitivity to others’ needs and feelings, and form positive
relationships with adults and other children.
Literacy
Reading: children read and understand simple sentences. They use phonic knowledge to decode regular words and read them aloud accurately. They also read some common irregular words. They demonstrate understanding
when talking with others about what they have read.
Writing: children use their phonic knowledge to write words in ways which match their spoken sounds. They also write some irregular common words. They write simple sentences which can be read by themselves and others. Some words are spelt correctly and others are phonetically plausible.
Numbers: children count reliably with numbers from 1 to 20, place them in order and say which number is one more or one less than a given number. Using quantities and objects, they add and subtract two single-digit numbers
and count on or back to find the answer. They solve problems, including doubling, halving and sharing.
Shape, space and measures: children use everyday language to talk about size, weight, capacity, position, distance, time and money to compare quantities and objects and to solve problems. They recognise, create and describe patterns. They explore characteristics of everyday objects and shapes and use mathematical language to describe them.
Understanding the World
People and communities: children talk about past and present events in their own lives and in the lives of family members. They know that other children don’t always enjoy the same things, and are sensitive to this. They know about similarities and differences between themselves and others, and among families, communities and traditions.
The world: children know about similarities and differences in relation to places, objects, materials and living things. They talk about the features of their own immediate environment and how environments might vary from one another. They make observations of animals and plants and explain why some things occur, and talk about changes.
Technology: children recognise that a range of technology is used in places such as homes and schools. They elect and use technology for particular purposes.
Expressive Arts and Design
Exploring and using media and materials: children sing songs, make music and dance, and experiment with ways of changing them. They safely use and explore a variety of materials, tools and techniques, experimenting with colour, design, texture, form and function.
Being imaginative: children use what they have learnt about media and materials in original ways, thinking about uses and purposes. They represent their own ideas, thoughts and feelings through design and technology, art, music, dance, role-play and stories.
Each staff member is responsible for a certain area of the curriculum:
Communication and Language Development - Kimmaree
Physical Development - all staff
PSED - Sarah
Literacy - Kimmaree
Mathematics - Laura
Understanding the World - Sarah
Expressive Arts and Design - Hayley
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