Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum (EYFS)
Our curriculum has been designed to enable children to succeed through cooperative and
collaborative learning principles. As such, there is a strong emphasis on the Prime Areas of learning;
Personal, Social and Emotional Development and Communication and Language.
We believe that high level engagement ensures high level attainment. We therefore provide an
engaging curriculum that maximizes opportunities for meaningful cross-curricular links and learning
experiences, as well as promoting the unique child by offering extended periods of play and
sustained thinking. In our provision we offer a range of open-ended resources to help foster and
promote children’s naturally creative instincts. We believe in child-initiated activities that are led by
children’s ideas and experiences. Loose parts objects are available in all areas along with block play
and deconstructed role play areas that offer endless possibilities for imaginative play. We also
provide a free choice workshop area and a self-select paint station for investigation and exploration.
We make full use of our extensive school grounds to to develop children’s appreciation of the world
around us through a variety of outdoor learning activities.
Each term, staff introduce a new theme to provide inspiration for learning, whilst providing the
flexibility for children to follow their own interests and ideas. Children learn through a balance of
child-initiated and adult-directed activities.
The timetable is carefully structured so that children have whole class teaching sessions during the
day. These sessions are followed by small group work. This 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. The timetable
changes throughout the year to take into consideration the changing needs of the children.
In the Ruislip Gardens EYFS we put early language at the heart of our curriculum. We know that the
development of children’s spoken language underpins all seven areas of learning and development
and in the EYFS we plan specific learning opportunities to enhance children’s communications and
language skills. We promote a storytelling curriculum through interactive poems using the Poetry
Basket initiative, the Helicopter Stories approach where children develop their narrative skills
through dictating and acting out their own stories with their class and our whole class literacy
sessions which involve immersion in the text through actions, retelling, and story maps. We also
have a “Read to Me” Lending Library where we provide picture books for children to take home and
enjoy with their family.
Phonics is taught daily in EYFS. Nursery children learn using phase one activities which develop
phonological awareness and build on their speaking and listening skills. Reception children are
taught using the DfE validated Twinkl scheme. We read one to one with the reception children
throughout the week. Firstly, with books with no text to encourage story language, prediction skills
and comprehension. Once children have started phase two phonics they read phonetically
decodable books at their phonics level.
Maths whole class sessions are supported by group work and active learning opportunities in the
continuous provision. We promote the use of manipulatives to embed the concrete concepts of
number and to support children’s understanding as they move to the symbolic and abstract aspects
of maths. In Nursery we focus on children’s innate ability to use their visual memory to subitise small
amounts without counting. These subitising skills are the tools that enable children to begin to
investigate the composition of larger amounts and to develop an understanding of counting and
number. In Reception we follow the White Rose Maths Scheme which builds on the number skills
developed in Nursery to further deepen children’s understanding and knowledge of number,
pattern, shape, space and measure.
Our wider curriculum is taught through the learning areas, Understanding the World and Expressive
Arts and Design. Our termly themes are designed to provide exciting, purposeful activities and
experiences to build on children’s natural curiosity and creativity. For example, in our Theme All
About Us we invite parents to send in photos of their child with their family and use these photos as
inspiration to develop vocabulary based on the children’s lives, promote a sense of self and family
history, discuss similarities and differences and promote positive reflection on differences. Building
further on our language focus, staff model and encourage the use of subject specific language and
terminology in these learning areas to further developing children’s language skills.
Nursery Curriculum
Reception Curriculum
Progression of Skills and Assessment Checkpoints
Personal Social and Emotional Development
Physical Development - Fine Motor Handwriting Focus