Our EYFS Vision and Curriculum

Our highly bespoke and inspiring EYFS Curriculum is designed to reflect the interests and needs of our children and to immerse our children in a language rich environment. We prioritise high quality interactions punctuated with adult focussed activities where appropriate. Our children guide and drive their own learning through carefully resourced continuous provision with enhancements to aid the development of skills and knowledge. It is therefore unique to West Ewell Primary School and Nursery. 

Our curriculum is developed to prioritise sequential, progressional learning, where pupils know more and can do more, building on what they have been previously taught. It is also designed to be responsive to the needs of our children, families and community.

Each thematic topic planned is individually tailored to our cohort, with the aim of ensuring that all children leaving Reception are ready to start the KS1 curriculum. Topics do not always last a specific amount of time but are developed based on the children’s learning at the time and the related core knowledge and skills which need to be taught. All topics are carefully resourced and where possible are introduced with a high quality, diverse story book or age appropriate non – fiction text that reflects the interests and experiences of our children.

Our ambitious Early Years curriculum aims to teach all children the skills and knowledge in order that they reach the seventeen Early Learning Goals described in the Early Years Foundation Stage framework. Our staff are highly skilled and confident with assessing necessary starting points based on quality baselining interactions. Staff know their children well and quickly recognise those who will need early intervention due to entering our setting with low starting points. They monitor who is and is not on track regularly, put in timely catch-up sessions and tailor future planning to provide more opportunities for skill development and progress.

As many of our activities as possible are play-based, however there is also a need for some direct teacher-led activities to ensure all children gain essential knowledge and skills. When appropriate, activities are expertly modelled using gradual release (I do, we do, you do). Priority is given to providing sufficient sustained periods of play with support and resources to allow children to repeat and deepen their taught skill development.

We use Birth to Five Matters as a rich resource to support our knowledge of child development and as a supporting document for our curriculum. We feel that this document reflects our early years vision of embedding quality interactions in a variety of playful situations. It supports our staff to create organic learning opportunities as opposed to being constrained by formal expectations.

A Parent Leaflet about the Birth to Five Matters Non Statutory Guidance