Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS)

At St. Jude’s Catholic Primary School we believe in providing a secure foundation for future learning and development for our children. We are proud of Nursery and Reception class and all that our pupils achieve.

EYFS Curriculum Intent

Our EYFS curriculum allows children to develop interpersonal skills, build resilience and become creative thinkers. We aim to provide a fun, secure, challenging and rich educational environment that enables each individual to thrive. Reception and Nursery work closely with each other to ensure continuity and consistency across the foundation stage.

Our Mission statement ‘We live, love and learn together joyfully in Jesus’ name’ is at the heart of everything we do.

We place a strong emphasis on the religious, spiritual, moral and cultural development of all our pupils. Learning at St. Jude’s Catholic Primary School centres around the values and virtues of the Catholic Schools’ Pupil Profile where pupils are taught to be, for example, Compassionate and Loving or Learned and Wise.

Our values shape how we behave, what we say, how we build relationships and how we learn. They are incorporated in every aspect of life at St. Jude’s. Every child is recognised as a unique individual. We celebrate and welcome differences within our school community.

EYFS Curriculum Implementation

The St. Jude’s EYFS curriculum is designed to develop the characteristics of effective learning:

Creating and thinking critically – children have and develop their own ideas, make links between ideas, and develop strategies for doing things.
Active learning – children keep on trying if they encounter difficulties, and enjoy their achievements.
Playing and exploring – children investigate and experience things, and ‘have a go’.
Developing the skills that are needed so that the wider curriculum can be accessed and understood as pupils move through the school.

We use approaches to promote positive attitudes to learning which reflect the values and skills needed to promote responsibility for learning and future success.

The EYFS framework includes seven areas of learning and development that are equally important and inter-connected. However, three areas known as the prime areas, are seen as particularly important for igniting curiosity and enthusiasm for learning, and for building children’s capacity to learn.

The St. Jude’s EYFS Curriculum engages all children and ensures that all children make good progress from their starting points. A number of key resources are used to support the development of the curriculum including Development Matters, EYFS Number Blocks, Letters and Sounds, Rocket Phonics Guided Reading Scheme and WELLCOMM. Developing strong early learning in the basics of communication, language, phonics and number is highly valued.

Where possible, the children’s own interests are used by the adults to engage the children in higher level thinking and deeper learning. Child initiated learning is valued and encouraged. Each area of learning and development is implemented through planned, purposeful play, and through a mix of adult- led and child initiated activities.

At St. Jude’s Catholic Primary School we believe that the whole curriculum can be covered in a well planned outdoor environment, and that there is some learning that can only take place outdoors. The children have the right to the outdoor environment all the year round and access to the area is available daily throughout the session with constant adult supervision and interaction. There is no such thing as bad weather in the EYFS!

Parents are valued as first educators and every effort is made to inform them of the EYFS curriculum whilst providing them with the tools to continue in learning at home. Parents are encouraged to share their child’s achievements. Each week we have focus children where parental contribution is key to observing and planning children’s next steps. Strategies to include and inform parents include transition sessions, phonics and reading workshops, reading records, sharing board, class pages on the website, our open door policy and parent consultation meetings.

EYFS Curriculum Impact

We want each child to get the best possible start in life and to be ready to thrive in KS1. At St. Jude’s we do this by ensuring ongoing assessment is an integral part of the learning process. Staff observe pupils and these observations are used to plan next steps.

Each child has a Learning Journey where assessments are recorded and evidenced.

At the end of EYFS, staff completes the EYFS profile for each child. Pupils are assessed against the 17 early learning goals. In the academic year 2022/23, 69% of pupils achieved a Good Level of Development.

The EYFS team meet for regular meetings and receive necessary training linked to the SDP .Teachers attend in house and external moderations and attend regular pupil progress meetings to ensure progress is being made for each individual child.

The EYFS staff are committed to raising standards by attending relevant CPD and ensuring each child at St. Jude’s has the best start on their school journey.

EYFS Staff

Nursery Teacher – Mrs S Eblett
Reception Teacher – Mrs J Cape (EYFS Lead)
Teaching Assistant – Miss L Ward
Play Worker – Miss E Hicks

Our Learning

Find out about our learning in EYFS:

Assessment in EYFS

Assessment plays an important part in helping parents, carers and practitioners to recognise children’s progress, understand their needs, and to plan activities and support. As a school we ensure that ongoing assessment is an integral part of the learning and development process.

This starts prior to the children starting at St. Jude’s during the transition process in the Summer term. Staff have discussions with parents/carers and the children’s current setting if there is one. We enjoy making home visits to talk to parents and children and inviting them to a series of transition events including open mornings/afternoons and story-time sessions. All of these allow staff to informally observe children, plan next steps and plan for a smooth transition for pupils helping them to succeed. During this time, staff also make expectations clear to parents so that each child is ‘school ready.’

When the children start school, practitioners observe the children to understand their level of ability, interests and learning styles, and to then shape learning experiences for each child.

In Nursery and Reception, staff assess the children throughout the year. In September baseline assessments are conducted in both classes to include foundation skills such as communication and listening skills, gross motor skills and pencil grip. These foundation skills are then built on throughout the curriculum and supported throughout the daily provision in the classroom.

The Reception Baseline Assessment (RBA) is a statutory assessment that takes place within the first six weeks of a child starting Reception class. The RBA is a short, practical assessment that measures a child’s early communication, language, literacy, and mathematics skills. It’s a snapshot of a child’s abilities when they start Reception, and it helps teachers get to know the child and identify areas that may need extra support. You do not have to do anything to prepare your child for the assessment. Your child is unlikely to even know that they are doing an assessment when they are completing tasks and activities.

You can read more about the RBA on the Gov.UK website

Once we have assessed the children, we use this to inform our planning and provision.

The ways in which we gather evidence to inform our assessments are:

Observations of the children learning through play.
Photographs and videos.
Examples of mark-making and writing.
Pieces of art or constructed models.

The majority of our assessments are recorded using Sonar Assessment.

We use both formative (daily/weekly) assessment and summative (termly and end of year). At the end of Reception year, the teacher has to make a final judgement about each child’s development against the 17 Early Learning Goals (ELGs). There will be a simple statement, for each ELG, as to whether your child has reached an ‘expected level of development’ or not. This will be reported to you as part of your child’s annual school report in July.

What is a ‘good level of development’?

A child is judged as having achieved a ‘good level of development’ (GLD) if they are assessed as reaching ‘the expected level of development’ in each of the Prime Areas of Learning as well as the Specific Areas of literacy and mathematics (as described above).

In addition to use of the Early Learning Goals, we have chosen our own end of Nursery and Reception goals that we work towards throughout a child’s time in EYFS. These goals aim to prepare children so that they are ready to access the National Curriculum in Year One. Staff work hard to prepare children for the demands of full-time education and the social and emotional challenges associated with this. Our EYFS progression documents (above) detail these goals and their progression.