EYFS 3 I's

Intent – Why do we teach what we teach?

At Stoke Damerel Primary Academy our aim is to create a learning environment and build relationships that support, enhance and invite a child’s curiosity, confidence and individual competency to flourish regardless of backgrounds, circumstances, or needs.  We want all of our children to be resilient, capable, confident learners who have accessed a broad and meaningful curriculum which equips them with the knowledge and skills to continue their learning in Year 1 and beyond.

Implementation – How do we teach what we teach?

Pupils learn through a balance of child-initiated and adult-directed activities.  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.  These sessions are followed by group work where children work with a member of staff to develop their individual targets.  This focused group time means the teacher can 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.   

Children are provided with plenty of time to engage in ‘exploration’ throughout the variety of experiences carefully planned to engage and challenge them in the provision. The curriculum is planned for the inside and outside classrooms and equal importance is given to learning in both areas. The curriculum is planned in a cross-curricular way to enable all aspects of the children’s development including understanding the world and expressive art and design as well as to promote sustained thinking and active learning.

Daily briefings allow all EYFS staff to reflect and alter planning to ensure provision enhancements and activities remain relevant and successful.   During these sessions the teaching team reflect on three questions: “What do our focus individuals need to learn or are curious about? What embedded learning have we observed in this area?  What can be changed to exploit the learning and interests of the children/individuals in this area?”  In this way, we ensure that the children have agency over their environment and that the provision leads to depth of learning across the curriculum.

Our inclusive approach means that all children learn together but we have a range of additional intervention and support to enhance and scaffold children who may not be reaching their potential or moving on children who are doing very well. This includes, for example small group interventions focusing on play skills, fine motor development, RWI phonics.  We also work closely with our Local Authority Speech and Language Team who support us to run intervention groups to improve clarity of speech sounds for children that need it.

The Early Years lead regularly reviews the CPD needs within the EYFS team and liaises with Senior Leadership to provide regular and supportive professional development.  This ensures that all adults are confident and competent to make accurate judgements about where each child is and their next steps for learning.

Impact – How do we know what pupils have learnt and how well they have learnt it?

Our curriculum needs to meet the needs of our children, including our disadvantaged pupils and those with SEND, so we spend time looking at and evaluating how children are learning.  This is achieved through quality interactions with children, looking at their work, observing their learning experiences and analysing data and progress by year group, class, groups and individuals.

A baseline assessment is carried out within the first few weeks of children starting school in Reception.  This allows us to monitor and track their progress throughout the year.  We assess children using the supporting document ‘Development Matters’.  Every full term this data is collated on to ‘OTrack’ which allows us to analyse and track trends and anomalies to ensure our teaching and curriculum are robust and effective.

Half termly phonics assessments ensure that children are grouped by ‘stage not age’ allowing quick intervention for those not making expected progress and suitable levels of challenge to ensure consistent progression.

Our curriculum and its delivery ensure that children make good progress. Children in our early years, on average, arrive with lower starting points than national.  During their time in our EYFS, children make rapid progress so that we meet the national expectation for GLD at the end of the year.  Pupils also make good progress toward their age-related expectations before transitioning into Year One.  We believe our high standards are due to the enriched play-based exploration alongside the rigour of assessment and teaching the children have as they move through the early years – a rich diet of balanced learning experiences is undoubtedly the best way to develop happy, curious children.

Samantha Lampard

EYFS Lead 2023