Long Row Primary School and Nursery Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS)

Our vision is to provide all our children in the Early Years Foundation Stage with a broad, balanced and inclusive curriculum which is tailored to the specific needs of our children. We want our children to feel safe, valued and respected so they can develop a lifelong love of learning. We do this by responding to each child’s emerging needs in a warm, nurturing manner and by providing secure routines for play and learning.

We believe play is essential for children’s development; children learn by leading their own play and by taking part in play that is guided by an adult. Play builds children’s confidence as they learn to explore, become resilient, set their own goals and solve problems whilst forming positive relationships with others.

We aim to enrich our children’s vocabulary by providing a language rich environment so they become fluent, coherent communicators which enables them to develop their capabilities to be successful learners and contribute positively to society as responsible citizens and well-rounded individuals.

Our curriculum is built around our children at Long Row Primary School and Nursery, a school at the heart of Belper - a world heritage site.

Our curriculum takes into consideration what the children already know, ensuring that learning builds sequentially on prior knowledge, skills and learning behaviours from what the children already know and can do towards clearly identified end points and outcomes.

In EYFS, the children’s learning covers each of the seven areas of learning outlined in the Educational Programmes Statements from the Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage (updated July 2023). Development Matters is used to broadly guide our curriculum as we move learners from baseline assessment on entry to meeting Early Learning Goals at the end of the reception year. The EYFS seven areas of learning are concisely covered and link to our whole school curriculum progression documents supporting a smooth and successful transition to Year 1.

The curriculum is designed in a flexible manner and is adapted and modified as appropriate, so all children’s needs and interests are met, including children who have SEND. We support individual learning using a balance of expertly modelled activities, adult guided tasks, direct teaching time and child-initiated activities; priority is given to providing sufficient sustained periods of play with support and well thought out resources. This allows our children opportunities to extend, repeat and practise their taught skill development so that they know more and remember more. Our experienced EYFS staff provide well thought out, skilful interactions with our children and constant observations are made so next steps in their learning are identified and implemented to constantly move children’s learning forward.

The Characteristics of Effective Learning underpins everything we do and allows are children to learn through an environment that is accessible to all children, offering inspiring, open-ended continuous provision which enthuses and encourages each child’s desire to learn and enables each child to flourish in their own unique way. By offering meaningful opportunities for play and learning our children become active learners who develop into creative, critical thinkers.