EYFS
Welcome to the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS)
Welcome to all our Cedar Park children and their families.
We look forward to an action-packed half-term full of fun learning.
Please see a member of staff if you have any questions.
Mrs Franek and Mrs Van
The EYFS Team:
Mrs Franek - Nursery teacher, Forest School and Early Years Lead
Mrs Van - Reception teacher
and our fantastic teaching assistants:
Nursery based
Miss Ashfield (Monday-Friday)
Reception based
Mrs Warner HLTA and EYFS PPA teacher cover
(Monday-Friday)
Miss Taylor (Monday-Friday)
Miss Sturgess (Tuesday-Thursday afternoons)
Our topic for Autumn 1 is:
All About Me!
We are looking forward to an action-packed half-term full of fun learning.
Weeks 1-3: Settling in timetable. Getting to know where things are kept and making new friends. We will be talking about our families, homes and the things we like to do.
Who is your family? What is a friend? Can you name your friends? What do you like to play with your friends? Where do you live? How many people live in your home? Can you describe your home? What is your favourite activity at home and in school?
Focus: My Friends / My Family / My Home
Key Text:
Nursery: Pumpkin Soup, by Helen Cooper/ Families, Families, Families! by Suzanne Lang / This is Our House, by Michael Rosen.
Reception: Selection of poetry
Week 4: Feelings. What makes you feel excited? Can you tell me something that makes you very happy? What might make us upset sometimes? How can we feel happy again? Do you know the names of other emotions?
Focus: Our Emotions
Key Text:
Nursery: The Squirrels That Squabbled, by Rachel Bright, I Have Feelings! by Jana Novotny-Hunter, and In Every House, On Every Street by Jess Hitchman
Reception: Selection of poetry
Week 5: Healthy Eating and Staying Safe. We will be learning about healthy food choices, regular exercise and how to stay safe. Can you name some fruit and vegetables? What is a snack? What do you eat for breakfast? What is a salad? Is it okay to eat cake and crisps? Can you name different types of exercise? Do you have a favourite sport? Can you jump 10 times? How do we stay safe in school and at home?
Focus: Food and exercise
Key Text:
Nursery: Eat Your Greens Goldilocks, by Steve Smallman
PowerPoint non-fiction about exercise and sports.
Reception: TBA
Week 6: My Body. We will be talking about our bodies and how they move. How many parts of your body can you name? What is a 'funny bone'? How many teeth do you have? What are our ears and eyes for? Do you know the song 'Head, shoulders, knees and toes'?
Focus: Positional language and following instructions by using our bodies to move in different ways.
Key Text: How we move to do different things
Nursery - Rosie's Walk, by Pat Hutchins.
Reception - Funny Bones, by Allan Ahlberg
Weeks 7 and 8: Harvest time. We will be talking about how we harvest crops on farms. What do you know about farms? Do you know what wheat, barley and maize are? What is flour? How do we make bread? What do we use bread for? Can you name different types of bread? Would it be easier to do things together? What is sharing?
Key text:
Nursery and Reception: The Little Red Hen – a traditional tale.
Do you think the Little Red Hen needed some help to make the bread? Who could have helped her?
In addition to:
Nursery: The Puffin Book of Fantastic First Poems, by June Crebbin
Reception: TBA
For further information about our learning, please look out for our half-termly EYFS Curriculum Newsletter which will shortly be available and located at the bottom of this page, in addition to our Tapestry posts.
Please feel free to add any learning in your child's journal on Tapestry.
Mrs Franek and Mrs Van
Schemes that support our learning in EYFS:
EYFS Phonics:
Supersonic Phonics Friends:
https://www.supersonicphonicfriends.co.uk/
Nursery:
Maths
https://masterthecurriculum.co.uk/nursery-maths-scheme/
Reception:
Power Maths
https://www.pearson.com/international-schools/british-curriculum/primary-curriculum/power-maths.html
Read to Write
https://www.literacycounts.co.uk/readtowrite
Nursery and Reception:
PSED
http://www.jigsaweducationgroup.com/
PE
https://pe.getset4education.co.uk/
https://pe.getset4education.co.uk/lesson/eyfs/introduction-to-pe-unit-1?years=1006,1007
Art
https://www.accessart.org.uk/primary-art-curriculum/
Developing Experts (Science) - EYFS planning overview will be available shortly
https://www.developingexperts.com/
Music
RE
http://www.jigsaweducationgroup.com/
A weekly guide:
Reading and shared wordless books
Wednesday (return day)
Reading and shared (wordless) books, reading records and library books:
These need to be returned so they can be changed and ready to go home every Friday.
Nursery children will not have a shared (wordless) book until after half-term.
Friday (going home day)
Reading and shared (wordless) books and reading records:
Books go home. Please make a short comment about your child's reading and interest in their book/s. If you have any queries, please come and see us.
Reading books and records should be kept in your child's book bag every day as they may be shared with an adult in school (see above for return details).
Reception children - books will not be sent home until week 4 (30.09.23)
Library:
We have a fantastic school library with an excellent range of picture books for our EYFS children to enjoy choosing from and to share with their family at home.
We plan to visit the library every Friday to select one book to bring home every week. Please make sure that your child's library book is returned after five days (the following Wednesday morning). Unfortunately, we are not able to issue a new book unless the previous one has been returned.
PE:
Children wear their PE kit to school for the day:
Their usual jogging bottoms (shorts in the spring / summer) with their House t-shirt and trainers (no lace-ups).
Please refer to the school uniform list.
General Information:
Our Philosophy
At Cedar Park School, our philosophy is to value every child as a unique individual, who enjoys learning and thinking for him or herself. Our aim within the Early Years Foundation Stage is to provide a happy, safe and stimulating environment, which allows all children to feel secure and valued and therefore ready and eager to learn. We provide a supportive and secure environment in which every child can flourish and learn at their own pace and in their own individual way. Our role is to stimulate and encourage their development and enjoyment of learning through a variety of different activities, both adult directed and child initiated in secure indoor and outdoor situations.
We believe the relationships which the children develop in the Early Years, with each other and with our staff, are central to their happiness and will lay the best possible foundation for them to become independent lifelong learners.
Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum Intent
Children in our Early Years phase follow the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum, which consists of seven areas of learning. We teach children by ensuring challenging, playful opportunities across both the prime and specific areas of learning. We recognise that all children develop and learn at different rates and so our EYFS curriculum is designed flexibly to meet the needs of all individuals. We support individual learning through our skilful interactions and observations which lead to detailed next step planning. The Characteristics of Effective Learning underpin our curriculum and pupils learning, through an enabling and well-planned environment we ensure we provide meaningful opportunities for playing and learning, active learning and creating and thinking critically. As children utilise and develop these characteristics, they become effective and motivated learners who demonstrate high levels of well-being and involvement.
Characteristics of Effective Learning
The characteristics of effective learning underpin our pupils learning within the Early Years Foundation Stage. The ways in which they engage with others and their environment – playing and exploring, active learning and creating and thinking critically – underpin learning and development across all areas and support children to remain effective and motivated learners. We make judgements about a child's demonstration of the Characteristics of Effective Learning at their particular age / stage of development and whether or not the learning behaviours defined within these characteristics describes the child.
Leuven Scales of Well Being and Involvement and Well Being
The Leuven Scales acknowledge the critical importance of a child’s emotional well-being on the quality and depth of learning. We use the Leuven Scales to indicate a child's level of Well-Being and Involvement at the time of assessment (low, medium or high level).
Well-being is defined as ‘the state of being comfortable, healthy, or happy’. Involvement is defined as ‘the fact of being involved with or participating in something’. The Leuven Scales support accurate and authentic summative assessment of a child’s knowledge, skills, understanding and learning behaviours.
Tapestry
We use Tapestry to record children’s knowledge, skills and learning dispositions in individual Learning Journals, and to assess the characteristics of effective learning. It is a consistent and reliable way of demonstrating progress through the EYFS.
Through daily observation and interaction, we can build a rich and accurate understanding of each child across all aspects of learning and development. Observations are shared with families. You can share all the wonderful things you do with your child at home using Tapestry, by uploading via the website or App.
Whilst we would love to show you all the wonderful things your child has been doing throughout the day, it is not practical as we value the importance of being with the children and not always having a tablet in between us. Therefore, some weeks you will have more observations than others because we have been engaging and playing and didn’t want to stop the flow to take a photograph or video clip. Our observations are then used to support our ongoing assessments on Target Tracker.
Assessments are meaningful and impact on our children’s learning and development as we use them to inform next steps, which are personalised and challenging.
At the end of Reception, Learning Journals can be downloaded for you to keep and treasure.
Forest School at Cedar Park
Forest School is a magical place....
Forest School is an inspirational process that offers all learners regular opportunities to achieve and develop confidence and self-esteem through hands-on learning experiences in a natural environment with trees.
Principles Of Forest School:
Forest school....
Takes place in a woodland setting on site which children cannot access during break times; this supports the development of a relationship between the learner and the natural world.
Uses a range of learner-centred processes to create a community for development and learning.
Aims to promote the holistic development of all those involved, fostering resilient, confident, independent and creative learners.
Offers learners the opportunity to take supported risks appropriate to the environment and to themselves.
Thank you for your support.
Please feel free to ask if you have any questions.
Mrs Franek (Forest School Lead)
Further information about the EYFS can be found on 'Parent Zone' - 'Information for EYFS Parents' and on Tapestry.
- Early Years Foundation Stage Statutory Framework: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-years-foundation-stage-framework--2
- Development Matters (Non-statutory curriculum guidance for the early years foundation stage / Characteristics of Effective Learning - information for parents.docx:
- What to Expect, When? (information for parents): https://foundationyears.org.uk/files/2021/09/What-to-expect-in-the-EYFS-complete-FINAL-16.09-compressed.pdf
- Book trust: https://www.booktrust.org.uk/books-and-reading/tips-and-advice/reading-tips/
Being Safe Online: