Early Years Curriculum
Welcome to The Vine Early Years Foundation Stage.
We aim to provide an exciting and creative education and we hope that you and your child will enjoy your time here. If you need any further information, please don’t hesitate to ask any of the staff.
We follow Development Matters (2021). A link to this document can be found at the bottom of this page.
The framework sets out the three prime areas that underpin everything in the early years:
- communication and language
- physical development
- personal, social and emotional development
The four specific areas help children to strengthen and apply the prime areas:
- literacy
- mathematics
- understanding the world
- expressive arts and design.
Intent
In Foundation Stage at The Vine we follow the school’s intent, in that we develop skills that are transferable to the next stage in their education. We carefully plan our continuous provision so that their skills can be developed through play. We incorporate a variety of learning styles such as Reggio Emilia, Montessori and Scandinavian approaches to influence our pedagogy. We also follow The Vine designed curriculum which focus’ on other skills we feel pupils need as they move on throughout the school. We believe in preparing children for key skills they need in life and have included this is our wider curriculum beyond the Development Matters (2021) framework.
Implementation
Activities and provision are carefully planned and the indoor and outdoor learning environments are set up in order to challenge and support children in reaching their next steps. Children are encouraged to develop as independent learners who are confident and capable within school and the wider community. The team focuses on skills and consolidate these throughout the week. Many of the learning objectives are addressed through practical and engaging activities that may be led by an adult. The children learn through a thematic and ‘topic based’ approach within which they are firmly placed at the centre of their learning. The children are encouraged to take ownership over their learning and contribute to topic selection and planning. This approach ensures high levels of interest and engagement from children, which in turn drives their learning and progress.
We also support children in becoming resilient, life-long learners through promoting and celebrating the ‘Characteristics of Effective Learning’ within our learning environment and daily interactions.
The three 'Characteristics of Effective Learning' are:
- Playing and exploring
- Active learning
- Creating and thinking critically