Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS)

Welcome to Clifton Primary School’s Early Years Foundation Stage.

Our EYFS comprises of Nursery and Reception years, providing a rich and vibrant curriculum that aims to instil a love for learning in all our young learners through fun, engaging activities and experiences.

We take great pride in our admissions process, ensuring a warm welcome for all our new children. We arrange a formal meeting with a lead member of the EYFS team to find out more about each child. Following this meeting, we provide an opportunity for each child to meet their new class teacher or key worker through either a play and stay session (Nursery) or a Transition Time (Reception). Throughout the Foundation Stage, we build strong connections with families and offer various parent workshops to support their children’s learning journey.

To ensure the best support for each child, we begin with a baseline assessment in the first few weeks of school. We then continually assess their progress through observations, children’s work and teacher assessments. This information is shared with parents throughout the year.

Our curriculum aligns with the Statutory Framework and is delivered through a wide range of independent, child initiated and adult focus activities. We enrich the children’s experiences with a number of high-quality educational visits and visitors throughout the year. Our continuous provision allows children to access a wide range of resources such as: sand, water, messy play, outdoors, construction sets, small world and role play activities.

In the EYFS, there are seven areas of learning and development which provide a strong foundation for children’s future growth. At Clifton Primary School, communication and language is central to our approach, fostering high quality interactions with adults and encouraging daily conversations with play activities.  In addition to this, discreet oracy and language lessons are taught.

Story time is key in our EYFS to develop a life-long love for reading. Stories are shared daily with children and key discussions and questions around the story are taught such as characters, plot, settings etc. to ensure children have a sound understanding of the story. In addition to this, daily vocabulary sessions take place relating to the story to expose children to new words and their meanings ensuring children start to use these new words in their own lives and in the correct context.

We explore numbers and numeral patterns in a variety of practical hands on activities using White Rose Maths. We extend children’s understanding of these areas through problem solving activities, role play and real-life experiences.

At Clifton Primary School, we follow the Statutory Framework for EYFS, which outlines the seven areas of learning and development. These are:

• Communication and Language;
• Personal, Social and Emotional Development;
• Physical development;
• Literacy;
• Mathematics;
• Understanding the world;
• Expressive arts and design.

The document sets out the expected level of progress for each area; these are called the Early Learning Goals. In a child’s final term in Reception the EYFS Profile is completed for each pupil. Each child is assessed against the Early Learning Goals.

To help implement the statutory framework, we also use the ‘Birth to Five’ and ‘Development Matters’ documents to support children’s learning and development based on their individual needs.

We recognise that each child learns in different ways, and the Characteristics of Effective Learning underpin all seven areas of learning whereby children are able to play and explore, be active learners and think critically and creatively.  We observe and understand how each child learns, ensuring we cater to their unique learning styles.

At Clifton Primary School, we are committed to creating a nurturing environment where each child can thrive and grow as a confident and enthusiastic learner.

Please click the links below for more information:

• Statutory Framework for the EYFS
• Birth to Five Matters
• Development Matters (large file, 25MB)