Early Years Foundation Stage
Implementation
At St Augustine’s Academy, we actively safeguard and promote the welfare of all of our children. This is driven by the Early Years Statutory Framework. We recognise that children will learn most effectively when they are healthy, safe and secure, when their individual needs are met and when they have positive relationships with the adults who care for them.
In Nursery and Reception, all children learn through a balance of child-initiated and adult-directed activities. Children in the EYFS learn by playing and exploring, being active and thinking critically and creatively, taking place both indoors and outdoors. Children make their own decisions about where they learn best and teachers ensure that there are opportunities for all areas of learning both inside and outside.
The timetable is carefully structured so that children have rigorous directed teaching in English, maths and phonics everyday with regular circle time sessions to focus on PSED and Communication and Language. These sessions are followed by group work where children work with a member of staff to develop their individual next steps. This focused group time enables the teacher to systematically check for understanding, identify and respond to misconceptions quickly and provide real-time verbal feedback which results in a strong impact on the acquisition of new learning.
At St Augustine’s, we follow the Letter and Sounds phonics programme, using a wide range of physical and online resources to support this. Letters and Sounds is used consistently throughout the school and has a positive impact on the children’s phonic knowledge, with our Year 1 phonics screening results being consistently above national average. Children receive a phonics session every day with intervention opportunities for those children who may need extra support.
We provide effective and focused intervention for those children who are finding learning challenging and are not on track to meet expectations at the end of the year. This is provided in an inclusive way and support from parents is also enlisted at an early stage to ensure that the children have every chance to achieve the Early Learning Goals.
We follow the Maths Mastery approach in Reception, taken from White Rose Maths. There is an emphasis on number, calculation and shape so that pupils develop deep understanding and the acquisition of mathematical language. Pupils learn through games and tasks using concrete manipulatives which are then rehearsed and applied to their own learning during exploration. Nursery pupils begin to develop these key skills during daily maths meetings where they explore sorting, quantities, shape, number and counting awareness. These early mathematical experiences are carefully designed to help pupils remember the content they have been taught and to support them with integrating their new knowledge across the breadth of their experiences and into larger concepts.
Within our curriculum, we love to provide children with opportunities that they have not experienced before or that enhance their learning in school. Every child has the opportunity to be a part of an exciting concept called ‘50 Things Before You’re 9’ which involves being given the opportunities to experience the 50 things which are aimed to challenge them in a wide range of contexts. We celebrate and pride ourselves on providing children with a holistic education, developing identity and nurturing a sense of wonder. Children also have the opportunity to experience school trips and visits, have strong links with our local church and community which feeds into our whole school Core Values of Love, Hope and Friendship. These core values enable us to show God’s love to others every day. Children and staff feel safe, loved and special. We are a family.
