Early Years Foundation Stage
The intent of our EYFS curriculum is to ensure our children develop the necessary skills, knowledge and attitude to achieve fulfilling lives. The EYFS is the start of our children’s school journey towards achieving this important purpose. The curriculum has been designed around high quality texts and projects which link to pupils’ future learning and experiences with us at King’s Park Academy. In EYFS, we lay the foundations for future personal and academic success and all classrooms have a Zones of Regulation board which pupils are taught to use to support them to self-regulate whether they are able to communicate verbally effectively or not.
Welcoming classroom environments offer a home from home provision full of resources to spark curiosity. Dedicated outdoor classroom spaces, including a well-resourced forest school area, aims to ensure pupils can explore, learn and grow with confidence. Carefully selected resources ensure children have access to a range of opportunities to develop their skills. Loose parts promote open ended resources for the children to explore.
Development Matters and the EYFS Framework inform teaching and learning and we continuously review and update our provision in response to guidance such as the EEF Early Years toolkit to ensure our provision is based around strategies that are evidence based and have been shown to have a high impact. We use Tapestry online learning journals to keep track of children’s progress. We also use Tapestry to collect data from observations at home and at school and regularly assess pupils to inform their next steps.
At King's Park Academy, we promote highly effective and professional relationships with parents as we know the huge impact this can have on pupil progress. We give parents the opportunity to have daily conversations with practitioners in the setting to ensure all adults have key information that supports pupils to thrive throughout their time in Early Years. By knowing and understanding all our families, we are confident with the differing levels of support our pupils receive and can therefore target support to pupils appropriately. Practitioners seize all opportunities such as; Stay & Play sessions, parent workshops and other engagement opportunities (e.g. Nativity performances, celebrations of pupils’ work etc.), to promote the importance to key adults in the pupil’s lives of chatting, playing and reading to their children regularly.