Learning In Nursery
What is the Early Years Foundation Stage?
The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) is how the Government and early years professionals describe the time in your child’s life between birth and age 5.
This is a very important stage as it helps your child get ready for school as well as preparing them for their future learning and successes.
At Sunbeams Nursery and St Alphege C of E Infant school we seek to ensure that your child’s early years experience is happy, active, exciting, fun and secure; and that every member of our Early years team makes the support, development, care and learning needs of your child their absolute focus.
We follow a legal document called the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework, which exists to support all professionals working in the EYFS to help your child, and was developed with a number of early years experts and parents.
Click on the link below to access this document.
It sets out:
- The EYFS Framework explains how and what your child will be learning to support their healthy development.
- Your child will be learning skills, acquiring new knowledge and demonstrating their understanding through 7 areas of learning and development.
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Assessments that will tell you about your child’s progress through the EYFS
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Expected levels that your child should reach at age 5, usually the end of the reception year; these expectations are called the “Early Learning Goals (ELGs)”
How my child will be learning?
Children should mostly develop the 3 prime areas first. These are:
- Communication and language;
- Physical development; and
- Personal, social and emotional development.
These prime areas are those most essential for your child’s healthy development and future learning. As children grow, the prime areas will help them to develop skills in 4 specific areas. These are:
- Literacy
- Mathematics
- Understanding the world; and
- Expressive arts and design.
These 7 areas are used to plan your child’s learning and activities. The adults teaching and supporting your child will make sure that the activities are suited to your child’s unique needs.
This is designed to be really flexible so that staff can follow your child's unique needs and interests.
Children in the EYFS learn by playing and exploring, being active, and through creative and critical thinking which takes place both indoors and outside.
At Sunbeams Nursery and St Alphege we strive to work together to provide an exciting and irresistible learning environment and opportunities making the most of our creative, cultural and coastal surroundings in Whitstable.
The Characteristics of Learning
The 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
- creating and thinking critically – children have and develop their own ideas, make links between ideas, and develop strategies for doing things
The diagram below gives examples of the areas of learning and development and shows the links between the way in which your child learns and what they learn
Planning in the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS)
At St Alphege and in Sunbeams Nursery we take account of the statutory framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage, which states;
‘Each area of learning and development must be implemented through planned, purposeful play and through a mix of adult-led and child initiated activity.’
Our planning is effective because it:
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Reflects, supports and extends individual children’s current interests, learning styles, enthusiasms and the stage of development of each child.
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Is a flexible, working document, which is responsive to spontaneous events.
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Enables all adults working with the child to contribute, understand and articulate why experiences have been planned.
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Enables children, parents and practitioners to have a voice in the planning process.