EYFS Phase Manager: Mrs Melanie-Jane Franks-Llewellyn

The Willows’ EYFS curriculum has been designed alongside the revised EY framework. It focusses on developing pupils’ vocabulary and language as an absolute priority. In addition to this, there is a strong focus on building literacy skills and number sense. At the heart of our curriculum is ensuring that pupils have the fundamental skills to be successful in life, such as how to stay healthy and become more independent. Our offer will give pupils a rich variety of experiences and opportunities to broaden their understanding of the world around them. This includes immersing them in knowledge about life in modern Britain. The curriculum has been built to lay firm foundations for pupils to be successful in Key Stage 1 and beyond. It has been carefully designed to ensure that pupils have a secure grasp of key concepts that will support their knowledge and development. We have deliberately kept our curriculum focussed on a small amount of key concepts that are taught in depth to ensure that pupils build a strong understanding and retain new learning.

Our curriculum model ensures that pupils revisit learning over time and some areas of learning will be given additional time so that pupils can master complex concepts or fundamental aspects of learning. Whilst we have outlined core foundational knowledge that pupils will be taught throughout the EYFS, our curriculum remains inherently flexible so that we can respond to pupils’ interests as they arise.

Strong links have been built between aspects of learning, where they are meaningful, purposeful and add value. This includes giving pupils the opportunity to write for real life context, such as writing setting descriptions of the local areas and recounting real events. Linking learning in this way helps pupils to understand the purpose of key content and to build connections between aspects of life that may be new or unfamiliar to them.

Developing children as readers is central to the design of our curriculum and provision. At the heart of our curriculum is a rich and diverse literature spine, which helps to frame learning from across the curriculum. Pupils will read and share a wide range of ambitious texts throughout the day, including songs and poems, that are designed to promote a love of reading, build pupils’ vocabulary and encourage discussion and deep thinking about key moral, ethical, social or cultural issues.