EYFS
Here at Gossey Lane Academy, we pride ourselves on our Early Years provision. A child starting school can be a daunting experience for parents and children so our experienced staff ensure the process is a positive and happy one. This is the first stage of your child's learning journey so we help this process by:
- a full induction programme for children and parents which includes meetings and visits to the school prior to September start.
- providing a wealth of information about getting ready for school and life at Gossey Lane Academy.
- communicating and visits with the pre-school your child is already attending.
- a home visit, before your child has their first day in school.
- A two week staggered entry in September.
- Meetings with the school SENDCo regarding any additional or medical needs you child may have, prior to them starting.
We use the Early Years Foundation Stage Statutory Framework 2021 as our base for the opportunities and provision that we provide to children in their first year of school. Initially there is a great emphasis on learning through direct,
s, Reading and writing lessons as the year progresses. This allows children to develop the skills needed in preparation for their National Curriculum education that commences in Year 1.
At Gossey Lane Academy, our Early Years education is based upon the following aims and principles:
- Building on what your child already knows and can do.
- An objective-led planning approach where learning is taught through formal teaching and children's play, based on rigorous tracking and daily observations.
- The use of topics and current trends taken from the children’s interests are used to plan the learning and skill development.
- Delivery of the curriculum is led through purposeful, planned, taught and play opportunities and enhancements of provision, where adults observe and intervene with higher order questioning and engagement to extend the learning taking place
- Adult-led activities that introduce new skills and extend learning.
- Content, provision and resources matched to the needs of the current cohort of children which are changed throughout the year in line with the development of the children.
- A well developed and nurturing environment where the children can independently access resources as and when they require and feel safe to take risks and make mistakes.
- Free-flow learning where children have access to the indoors and outdoors.
- A positive, safe environment where children have an 'I can' attitude and take risks and challenge themselves.
- Embedding children's personal, social and emotional development so children are happy in school and making friends. A happy child is happy to learn!
Our curriculum is based upon 7 broad areas of learning; each child's progress and development is reported to the Department for Education at the end of their Reception year against set Early Learning Goals. These areas of learning include:
The Prime Areas
Personal, Social and Emotional Development through which children gain confidence and self-awareness, the ability to manage their feelings and behaviour and learn about building effective relationships with others.
Communication and Language through which children learn about listening, attention, understanding and speaking.
Physical Development which children learn Gross and fine motor skills.
The Specific Areas
Literacy: Early reading and writing skills, explicit daily teaching of phonics, recognising common and irregular words, reading and understanding simple sentences and talking about what they have read; children will begin to use their phonic knowledge to build and write words and construct simple sentences. At Gossey Lane we follow the Talk for Writing scheme of work from the second half of the Autumn Term.
Mathematics: Number and numerical patterns are the areas we are deepening the children’s knowledge and understanding in. We follow White Rose Maths and the Maths Mastery programme to ensure high quality Maths provision in all areas.
Understanding the world: Enables children to base their learning on what they understand of the world around them through the strands of Past and Present; children will talk events within the world around them and their own families, People Culture and Community; being aware of the differences and similarities between others and among families, communities and traditions; The Natural World; children will observe the differences in their environment, learn about plants and animals and talk about changes in the environment.
Expressive Arts and Design: Children will sing songs and create their own music and dance. They explore a range of materials, tools and techniques to look at different colours, design and texture in their artwork and are given opportunities to be imaginative through art, music, role play and stories.
Please follow the links below for more details about our curriculum. We hope you find the information useful.
Gossey Lane Early Years Foundation-Stage EYFS Policy
EYFS Curriculum Map
Transition into Year 1.
Preparing children for the next phase of their journey is an important part of our vision. As the children move towards the end of their time in Reception the staff will begin to consider preparing the children for this change. One key factor is how we provide every child with a solid platform to all the individual National Curriculum subjects. Please follow the link below to a document which demonstrates how each subject begins its journey in Reception.
