EYFS

‘Guiding all our flock to flourish’

Our Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) setting is called Little Acorns.

Our aim is to create confident individuals who are ready for Year 1 and who are empowered to be the citizens we want them to be. Flourishing for us means independent, well-rounded, happy, safe, settled children who can think for themselves, show intellectual curiosity, and be proudly unique. 

We guide this in many ways, not least by supporting vocabulary and modelling thinking skills. We set clear expectations and heap positive praise readily. Our focus is not what’s in books but what they are thinking about as they engage in a learning opportunity and celebrate their creations and achievements.

Our curriculum is designed to provide opportunities to revisit, practise and extend their learning and our environment is carefully set up to support this. Our children first learn through play and rich experiences that promote exploration, critical thinking and curiosity. We encourage back and forth talk, and guide the children to make links to their own experiences and existing knowledge.

Our curriculum is written around the seven areas of learning; physical development, personal, social and emotional development, communication and language, literacy, mathematics, expressive arts and design, and understanding the world.  Reading and writing are recognised as fundamental to unlocking broader learning opportunities and are taught systematically and progressively so that each stage builds on the knowledge and understanding from the previous stage. 

Our successes are based on the different ways we interact with the children, whether that be through playfulness, observation or directed tasks and scaffolding. We are proud of the positive and trusting relationships we build with our children and focus on communication skills and emotion regulation as primary areas of development. These values are embedded in our Early Years provision and continued as our children transition through their primary years.