Our Early Years Curriculum
The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) is a play-based curriculum for children from birth to five years, which allows children to explore and learn in an environment that is secure and safe, yet challenging. Play opportunities are non-stereotypical and available to all children promoting the teaching and learning from a skilled workforce.
At Caterpillars we aim to provide the following:
Quality and consistency - Ensuring every child makes good progress
A Secure foundation of learning - Opportunities to learn and continuous provision
Effective partnership working - This is between staff, parents, outside agencies and governing bodies.
Equality of opportunity - We support Anti-discriminatory practice and promote inclusive services for all.
Every child has the chance to join in with other children and adults to live, play, work and learn together and is helped to take forward his/her learning and development by being helped to build on what they already know.
The aim of our early year’s curriculum is to provide high quality care and education for children attending our setting who are below statutory school age. We work together with parents to help children learn and develop encouraging and promoting equality and diversity.
Parents are regarded as members of our setting who have full participatory rights. These include the right to be valued and respected, kept informed and consulted and to be involved and included at all levels.
We also aim to ensure that every child is in a safe and stimulating environment, is given generous care and attention with the help of staff ratios of qualified and voluntary staff.
Each child will have a personal key worker who makes sure they make satisfying progress.
Children start to learn about the world around them from the moment they are born. The care and education offered by our setting helps children to continue to do this by providing all of the children with interesting activities that are appropriate for their age and stage of development. The Early Years Foundation stage is spilt into Prime and Specific areas.
Prime areas are fundamental to be able to work together and move through and support development in all other areas.
Specific areas include essential skills and knowledge for children to participate successfully in society.
Our approach to learning, development and assessment.
Learning through play
Play helps young children to develop through playing and talking, which research has shown to be the means by which children learn to think.
Here at Caterpillars we use the Early Years Foundation Stage to plan and provide a range of play activities which help children to make progress in each area of learning and development.
In some of these activities’ children decide how they will use the activity and, in others, an adult takes the lead in helping the children to take part in the activity. In all activities the information arises from the Early Years Foundation Stage has been used to decide what equipment to provide and how to provide it.
Assessment
We assess how young children are learning and developing by observing them frequently. We use information that we gain from observations, as well as photographs and videos of the children, to document their progress and where this may be leading them.
We believe that parents know their children best and we ask them to contribute to assessment by sharing information about what their children like to do at home and hoe they as parents are supporting development.
We make periodic assessment summaries of children’s achievements based on our on-going development records.
These form part of children’s records of achievement. We undertake these assessment summaries at regular intervals as well as times of transition, such as when a child moves into a different group or when they go on to school.
Records of achievement
Caterpillars keeps developmental records for each child containing information, children’s work and photographic evidence.
Children’s records help us to celebrate together his/her achievements and to work together to provide what children need for his/her wellbeing and to make further progress.
Each child has a key worker who will keep these records up to date. To do this staff will collect information about each child’s needs, activities, interests and achievements.
This information will enable the key person to identify your child’s stage of progress. The key person will then decide how to help move your child onto the next stage.
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