Curriculum

Our Early Years team provide the highest quality care and education for all our Early Years children, giving them a strong foundation for their future learning.

We offer a safe and happy creative environment with a wide range of varied motivational and enjoyable learning experiences each day enabling our children to become confident and independent learners. We value individuals and work alongside parents/carers to meet every child's needs and help them reach their full potential.

We believe that children learn best through play, enjoyment and by giving them new and memorable experiences. We work hard to ensure that each child’s Early Years’ experience is happy, active, fun and exciting and will support their development and learning needs.

We adopt free flow continuous provision model of delivery with children moving freely between indoors and out to access the wealth of learning opportunities and activities available to them each day. Our outdoor space is in a phase of re-development, having been refurbished in the summer of 2024, and affording our children additional independent access to our learning sheds, mud kitchen and ride on style equipment. Each day our children enjoy a carousel of teacher led, teacher directed and independent activities and are introduced to the foundations of Power Maths through practical exploration and the beginning of their Little Wandle phonics journey through the EYFS Little Wandle daily Phonics programme.

Our EYFS curriculum is built upon the 3 defined Characteristics of Learning

• Engagement through playing and exploring
• Motivation through active learning
• Creating and thinking critically

These characteristics underpin the 7 areas of learning and development outlined in the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum. These 7 areas are in turn subdivided into 3 areas of prime learning and 4 areas of specific learning as outlined below:  

The Prime Areas are defined as:

• Personal, Social and Emotional Development

• Communication and Language

• Physical Development

The Specific Areas are:

• Literacy

• Mathematics

• Understanding of the World

• Expressive Arts and Designs

At Penruddock, these 7 areas of learning and development are taught using a cross-curricular approach and are in line with the class learning themes for our older children in Years 1 and 2. We ensure that the Characteristics of Learning are planned for across a variety of provision areas in order to develop independence, curiosity, resilience, collaboration and reflection, as we believe these are essential skills for success.

Assessment

The statutory Reception Baseline Assessment across all areas of learning is undertaken within the first 6 weeks of entry into the unit to ascertain your child's starting point.  Continuous assessment occurs throughout the year through observations, photographs, games, activities and through group, whole class and individual work. A special learning journey booklet is put together to document each child’s experiences, achievements and progress.

The Early Years profile is completed by the end of the EYFS as children prepare to move into Year 1 and the National Curriculum. The profile is used to measure the progress your child has made from the baseline in September. The profile is moderated internally with other schools and, in addition, may be moderated externally by the Local Authority.

Preparing to Start in EYFS

Our Little Mell Fell Nursery is available to our Nursery Early Starters the term after their third birthday. Nursery is open 5 days a week within school hours although hours and days vary across the year. (Contact the school office for current availability.)  Children begin their compulsory schooling or EYFS Reception in the Autumn Term after their 4th birthday and attend for 5 full days a week from September.

We offer Stay and Play sessions each half term for parents and their pre-school children to familiarise themselves with our learning space and to get to know our staff team and make friends with the EYFS children. In the Summer term, we provide a number of transition sessions in class for our new starters to prepare them for the coming year and meet with parents at our information evening where you can find out all about the coming year for you and your child.

See our Nursery and Wraparound Care tab for more details.

EYFS Gallery