The early years curriculum
Within the Early Years Foundation Stage, we are constantly striving to provide an exciting and engaging curriculum which is an ever-evolving process. Communication, Language and stories are at the heart of our Early Years Curriculum. Our key aims and objectives of our Early Years curriculum are to promote the holistic development of our children by:
- Removing barriers and unlocking opportunities to address any disadvantage and develop educated citizens
- Giving children the best start in their education by creating a safe, happy environment, where all children feel a sense of belonging and can thrive
- Create life-enhancing experiences which raise aspirations of our children, families and community and equip them with the cultural capital that they need to succeed
- Prepare our children to take advantage of the responsibilities and experiences of life in modern Britain through the development of new knowledge and skills
- Having high expectations of all children and providing tailored support to help children achieve excellent outcomes.
Our philosophy in the Early Years at Platt Bridge is that all young children learn best through play. Our curriculum has been carefully designed to broaden children’s experiences, build on their prior knowledge and skills and prepare children for the next stage in their education, based on the Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum and adapted through our knowledge of each ‘unique’ individual underpinned by our bespoke continuums.
Our curriculum is based, primarily, on high quality texts and stories which children read, learn and understand. We operate a thematic approach where we build the early years curriculum around these stories and texts to enable them to make links within their learning, develop their vocabulary and become well-rounded learners.
The text spine which is followed for each class within our early year’s setting can be found below along with the core coverage for the other areas of the curriculum:
Teaching and Development
In our Early Years setting, we balance the use of explicit instruction and small group time with high quality, focused continuous provision where pupils can engage with adults and their peers in high quality interactions.
Example Timetables for the ‘School Day’ for both Nursery and Reception can be found below:
Nursery
Our ambitious Early Year’s curriculum aims to teach all children the skills and knowledge in order that they reach the seventeen Early Learning Goals described in the Early Years Foundation Stage.
Personal Social and Emotional Development
We strive to enable children to be safe, happy and confident individuals. We support children to understand and make sense of their emotions and the emotions of others. We initially support children to regulate their emotions through co-regulation strategies, teaching skills and strategies to enable them to manage their emotions, which we then encourage them to use independently. We support children to use these skills and strategies to self-regulate as much as possible and introduce rules and boundaries through modelling good behaviour and reflection time. Through adult modelling and guidance, the children learn how to make strong friendships and are supported to resolve conflicts calmly. We teach the children our Platt Bridge values of Promote Belief, Create Success by celebrating the successes of ourselves and our friends. Children earn dojo points and ‘Fill the bucket’ for following our school rules and being kind friends. We use story books such as ‘The Colour Monster’ to open conversations relating to feelings and values. Children are taught how to look after themselves and their bodies including the importance of regular exercise, healthy eating and oral health by cooking and tasting healthy foods in line with our curriculum e.g. making healthy fruit kebabs when learning about ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ and growing our own vegetables to eat when reading ‘Supertato.’
Physical Development
Our fantastic outdoor environment enables us to make the most of the outdoors and we encourage children to work outside at set times throughout the day – no matter what the weather. We view our outdoor learning environment as an outdoor classroom, which provides multiple opportunities to learn and explore and to work collaboratively with peers. Our intention is that children learn how to take measured risks, solve problems and think creatively and critically. Developing gross motor skills is a priority for us in our outdoor area and we prioritise this through our large-scale art projects, climbing frame, den building and building in the construction area, where children develop proprioception, vestibular control, bilateral integration and upper body strength. We also provide a multitude of opportunities for children to develop their fine motor control. For example, our woodwork area encourages children to use hammers, nails, saws and other small tools to make their creations. Our indoor environments are enhanced, and resources are carefully planned to develop these skills, such as split pins and hole punches in the creative area, garlic pressers in the playdough area and these are progressive across all the rooms in early years. Other examples of ways that we promote pupils’ physical development include our daily Funky Fingers activities which children across the phase access daily upon entering their classroom. These activities are planned specifically for the developmental stage of the children. Reception children also take part in a weekly P.E. lesson, focusing on a range of different sports throughout the year.
Communication and Language
Communication and Language underpins everything we do at Platt Bridge Community School. We understand that children’s back and forth interactions form the foundations for language and cognitive development and so we prioritise high-quality interactions. We do this by creating our timetable in each room with lots of time in Continuous Provision for adult-child interactions. This gives opportunities for our well-trained staff to tune into what children are doing, adding language appropriately by commenting on, repeating, rephrasing, providing explanations to develop their language. We have a language rich environment, which we are continuously evaluating to provide the best possible learning opportunities to promote language within the environment. Each room has a home corner, which allows children to practise familiar language which can then be enhanced and developed by adults who interact with them. We also have ‘Let’s talk about’ books within each room which contain photographs of things the children have done outside of school, again to provide them with opportunities to talk to staff and their peers about familiar topics for them. Our reading areas are carefully designed to engage the children actively in high quality stories, non-fiction texts, rhymes and poems, and provide them with extensive opportunities to use and embed new words in a range of contexts. Our reading areas are enhanced alongside our ‘Book of the Month’ approach with props and characters to encourage children to use the new vocabulary in their play. Each Book of the Month stays in our reading area throughout the year, to allow children the opportunity to go back and rehearse the language learned.
During whole class teaching sessions, children are encouraged to listen and communicate appropriately. We use discussion guidelines within each room to set high expectations for talk. Children are given talk partners where they are encouraged to use the discussion guidelines to communicate effectively. These involve looking at the speaker, actively listening, building on the ideas of others and using the correct volume when speaking. These discussion guidelines support children to become effective communicators not only during carpet inputs, but also when interacting in the provision with their peers and to work as part of a team by sharing and listening to the ideas of others when working in the outdoor environment. Adults support children to listen and take on
Children who struggle to communicate are targeted in the provision and learning interventions such as WELCOMM.
Reading
As soon as the children enter our setting, they are immersed into a world of high-quality stories. We strive for our children to develop a life-long love of reading and stories underpin our whole curriculum. We have carefully selected a number of core stories in each of our Early Years rooms, which we want our children to know well by the time they leave each room. Through these core stories, children develop their language and increase vocabulary. We immerse the children into reading by having visits to Story Land, where characters from our key stories come to visit. We also learn stories, act them out with our friends, have ‘wow’ moments and create opportunities in our Continuous Provision for children to extend their knowledge and understanding of the story. We are so proud of the love of stories that is instilled within our children.
We follow the Read Write Inc approach to phonics. Each day, children are taught a new sound which they read and write within words. They also review previously taught sounds to ensure they are continuously practising and retrieving their knowledge. Children also read a story during the phonics session and work throughout the week to read fluently and with expression. Children work in targeted progress groups so they can all participate. No child is ever left behind. Children are assessed each half term to ensure the speediest progress. Talking is at the heart of every lesson. Children learn the routines that enable them to explain and practise what they’ve been taught with a partner. One-to-one tutoring provides quick keep up and long-term support for children who require additional help. Children take home stories to read at home that match their phonics level and are encouraged to read at home daily.
Writing
Children are encouraged to write and mark make every day and this progresses as children move through the different rooms. In our 2-3’s room, we encourage children to mark make on a large scale through messy play using a range of different tools. As the children move through our rooms, we focus on pre-writing shapes such as circles and lines and encourage children to put meaning to their marks. We use the Read Write Inc approach to letter formation and offer enhancements in provision for children to apply their skills. We also use ‘Scribble Club’ and ‘Drawing Club’ within our preschool and Reception classes, which immerses the children in a world of stories, develops children’s creativity and imagination and supports our children to write for a purpose.
Maths
Maths is built into our daily routine within all our rooms in Early Years, where children count how many children are in the class each day, talk about the days of the week, what the date is, what season it is, what the weather is like etc… We also vote for stories to read daily, again practising our counting skills and comparing quantities. We follow White Rose for our daily maths inputs in Reception, which incorporates whole class teaching, guided group work and enhancements in Continuous Provision. The Reception year is broken down into manageable blocks, and every block is divided into a series of small steps. Each step builds on the last. It all adds up to a comprehensive early maths education for children right at the start of their school journey. The scheme has been carefully designed to promote numeracy skills in an engaging and positive way. We want children to have fun with counting, shapes and more.
Knowledge and Understanding of the World
Our Knowledge and Understanding of the World curriculum is progressive across all our rooms and centres around the child. We provide real life experiences, such as visits to the woods, our local care home and bug hunts to support children to develop an understanding of the world. We talk about the children in our class and how we are similar and celebrate our differences. Our indoor and outdoor environments are set up to encourage children to explore the world around them, and their knowledge is strengthened by the support of adults during interactions. We encourage the children to be curious, immersed in their interests of the world and develop their own thoughts and ideas. We provide activities to support children’s natural curiosity and interest in how things grow and how things work though. We use our daily routines to discuss abstract concepts, such as the past, to allow children to develop an ongoing understanding of this. We learn about different cultures and festivals such as Diwali and Chinese New Year and compare them to celebrations such as our birthday and Christmas, discussing similarities and differences.
Expressive Art and Design
Our Expressive Arts curriculum is progressive across all our rooms and centres around fostering creativity and a love of the arts. We provide hands-on experiences that encourage children to explore different forms of artistic expression, from painting and drawing to modelling and music. Our indoor and outdoor environments are designed to inspire creativity, allowing children to experiment freely with colours, textures, and materials.
We introduce children to a broad range of artistic mediums, including different types of paints, drawing mediums, clay, and natural materials. They explore a variety of techniques such as mark-making, printing, collage, sculpture, and large-scale collaborative art. Throughout their creative journey, children are introduced to diverse artists who inspire and broaden their understanding of artistic expression. Sculptors like Andy Goldsworthy encourage an appreciation for nature and transient art, painters like Georgia O’Keeffe introduce bold colour and form, and cultural icons like Yayoi Kusama inspire playfulness and pattern exploration.
We encourage children to be independent in selecting, choosing and using their resources. We celebrate creativity and individuality and guide children to make their own aesthetic choices when creating their masterpieces.
Creativity is promoted, and children are supported to express themselves with confidence, whether through mark-making, constructing, or performing. We believe in the joy of creating for pleasure and provide opportunities for children to share and take pride in their work. Through our expressive arts provision, we nurture imagination, individuality, and the confidence to explore and create. Adults have the relevant subject knowledge to scaffold and support learners to express themselves artistically and children are so proud of the work they create.
Our Environment
Our Early Years environments across all of our rooms are calm and well-organized spaces designed to support children's growth and development in a thoughtful and progressive way across all rooms. Carefully planned resources are selected to engage young learners, fostering creativity and curiosity while ensuring a language-rich setting that enhances communication skills. Each area is designed with high-quality resources to inspire exploration and learning, while calm, quiet spaces provide opportunities for children to reflect and process their experiences. Through intentional planning, our environment nurtures independence, creativity, and a lifelong love of learning. Within each room, children’s pictures and work are displayed and children are proud of their classrooms.
Parental Engagement
We pride ourselves on having strong relationships with our parents and we are always looking for opportunities to develop these relationships further. Some of the ways we currently do this are:
- Home visits, where our Early Years staff find out about the child’s interests, and speak to parents about any worries they may have. These allow staff to get to know the children before they start with us, providing them with a familiar face and also give the staff opportunities to enhance the classroom based on the interests identified
- Inspire sessions which we run prior to children starting with us. These sessions are for parents and children to attend to give the children the opportunity to explore the setting with the comfort of their familiar adult with them
- We have an open door policy and parents can speak to staff before and after school with any worries or concerns they may have about their child
- We hold parental workshops across the year, where parents are invited into our Early Years setting to focus on different areas of learning e.g. mark making, phonics, nursery rhymes, reading etc…
- We use Class Dojo, where staff post regularly with key information as well as sending a weekly update to inform parents of what they have been learning that week
- Parents meetings are held in line with the rest of the school in the Autumn term and Spring term to discuss how their child has settled and how they are progressing within our setting
- In the Summer term, we hold a meeting for Reception parents to discuss the transition from Reception to Year 1 and provide opportunities for any questions to be answered
- We run a PIP project (Parents in Partnership) for selected parents and children within our Early Years department, which are ran by our HLTA’s within the department. These are book based sessions where children will have the opportunity to listen to a story, complete an activity around that story and take the books home that they have read. These sessions are always extremely successful
Key Documents
2-3’s LTP
3-4’s LTP
Reception LTP