Welcome to EYFS - Reception

“Every child deserves the best possible start in life and the support that enables them to fulfil their potential. Children develop quickly in the early years and a child’s experiences between birth and age five have a major impact on their future life chances. A secure, safe and happy childhood is important in its own right.” - Statutory framework for the early years foundation stage, Department for Education 2021

Our Intent and Aims Within Early Years at Overdale CP School we aim to;

•  give each child a happy, positive and enjoyable start to their school life within a safe and secure environment.

•  establish solid foundations and foster a deep love of learning. • enable each child, through encouragement and high expectations, to develop socially, emotionally, physically and intellectually in order to thrive in a diverse and ever changing world.

•  offer a structure for learning that has a range of starting points and unlimited opportunity for development.

•  offer a broad and rich curriculum.

•  encourage children to develop independence within a nurturing and supportive atmosphere.

•  support children to build relationships through the development of social skills such as cooperation and sharing.

•  help each child to recognise their own strengths and achievements by experiencing success and developing their confidence to work towards personal goals.

Implementation

Structure of the EYFS

The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) applies to children from birth to the end of the Reception year. Our Early Years Foundation Stage accommodates children from the age of 3 to 5 years. In our school we have space to accommodate two full time Nursery classes and two full-time Reception classes. Each Reception class has a teacher and a teaching assistant. To ensure best practice and continuity, our foundation stage classes ( Nursery and Reception) work closely together and share planning and an outdoor learning environment.

You can see all of our EYFS staff on our staff page.

The importance of learning through play

Play is essential for children’s development. As such, experiences are planned for the indoor and outdoor environments and spontaneous child led play also features greatly. Following particular ideas and interests of the children. In Reception we provide continuous provision so that children become masters of their own play. We add enhancements to areas that provide challenge based on the children’s learning needs and their interests. Building on what children already know and like helps to deepen their learning and achieve a good level of age related progress.

"The single most important activity for building the knowledge required for eventual success in life is reading."

Each child is provided with a free book bag, reading record and reading book. We ask that you read with your child at least 3 times per week, either their home reading book or their own books, and record this in their reading records. Reading the same book time after time gives children confidence and allows them to become expert story tellers. Books will be changed once a week and book band levels are carefully matched to our school phonics scheme Little Wandle.

Our whole school approach to phonics, through Little Wandle, provides a clear and structured routine to learning letter sounds. Each day we learn a new sound which is followed up by oral blending, writing opportunities and word building activities. Each week you will receive a summary of our focus sounds to support with pronunciation and letter formation at home along with flash cards to build visual recognition and fluency.

Our aim is to develop children into mathematicians – who can notice quantity, relationships and patterns within things in the environment. We build our knowledge through following a focus number each week making connections between other mathematical areas such as shape, space, measure and time. We focus on developing children’s understanding so that they can explain what they see and know. We do this alongside the NCETM Numberblocks Episodes that the children may be already familiar with.

Useful information

Our classes use Class Dojo as a platform for class activities and events. For more details, please login to your Class Dojo account below. You can send us photos of exciting things that you do as a family or achievements on your child’s class profile page. During each session children will have a drink and a snack: fruit, toast, flapjack etc. They will also be offered a carton of milk each day. Personal water bottles are name and picture labelled so your child can access them freely throughout the day. Each child is provided with their first P.E. top in their house team colour. P.E. kits remain in school on the children’s pegs and are sent home at the end of each half term to be cleaned.

You can see all of our EYFS staff on our staff page.

Useful Class documents

Please find useful class documents to help your child in and out of School.

Class photos