Starting Reception

Welcome to Looe Primary Academy. We are delighted that you have chosen our school for your child. Please find below some information which will help you to support your child when they start school.

Your child's class teacher will be in touch before they start to explain the transition process.

If you would like any further information please contact:

rhughes@looeprimary.co.uk

What is the EYFS?

The early years foundation stage (EYFS) sets standards for the learning, development and care of your child from birth to 5 years old. All schools and Ofsted-registered early years providers must follow the EYFS, including childminders, preschools, nurseries and school reception classes. We are firm believers that ‘No job is more important than working with children in the early years.’ (Development Matters, 2021).

The EYFS is about how children learn, as well as what they learn. Children need opportunities to develop their own play and independent exploration. This is enjoyable and motivating. They also need adults to ‘scaffold’ their learning by giving them just enough help to achieve something they could not do independently.

Helping children to think, discuss and plan ahead is important, like gathering the materials they need to make a den before they start building. These are ways of helping children to develop the characteristics of effective learning.

Children learn and develop more from birth to five years old than at any other time in their lives. If children are at risk of falling behind the majority, the best time to help them to catch up and keep up is in the early years. Every child can make progress, if they are given the right support. When we give every child the best start in their early years, we give them what they need today. We also set them up with every chance of success tomorrow.

Our Approach

Our approach is underpinned by providing the children with developmentally appropriate opportunities for learning through an ambitious curriculum.

When the children start with us, we spend lots of time getting to know them and their abilities, interests and characteristics of learning. We use this knowledge of the whole child to carefully pitch learning to ensure each child individually makes progress and succeeds.

Our structure of the day reflects the children’s needs. We balance the ratio of adult-directed and child-led learning and, very importantly, consider the needs of the children as the year progresses.

We put the children at the heart of our curriculum. We plan from their interests and interweave this alongside what they need to learn and develop in their knowledge and skills. We plan for all areas of the curriculum in a holistic way and lots of the children’s activities will be supporting many areas of learning and development at the same time.

In our indoor learning environment, we focus on providing the children with real-life, purposeful experiences. In our outdoor learning areas, we encourage the children to take risks in a supportive atmosphere, to challenge themselves and to experience the awe and wonder of the natural world.

All of this ensures that our children leave our EYFS with a love for learning and they have developed the knowledge which has been built up and rehearsed over time to be confident and independent learners, ready to tackle Year One.

Our Parnership with Parents

We strongly believe that it is important for us to have strong and respectful partnerships with our parents. This helps to build the foundations for children to thrive at Looe Primary Academy.

We recognise and celebrate parents and carers as major stakeholders in their child’s education. This is reflected in our robust approach to transition within the early years and into Year One.

We promote and encourage our parents and carers to work closely with us in supporting their child’s learning and development. This is achieved with regular feedback and handovers with our parents/carers, home learning opportunities provided by our school, workshops throughout the year, information packs on learning, liaising with parents/carers about their child’s successes and next steps, communication between home and school through Seesaw, and much more! We share with our parents/carers that the help they give their child at home has a very significant impact on their child’s learning and development.

The EYFS Curriculum

Prime areas of learning and development lay the vital foundations the Early Years. The three prime areas describe the aspects of early childhood development. All three prime areas are always in action for a young child. In every activity, the child is experiencing feelings, developing a sense of self and others, is physically engaged through their senses and movement, and is learning to understand and communicate with others. It is through these aspects that a child accesses the world around them and builds relationships with other people, which in turn opens the door to learning in all areas.

The specific areas of learning and development provide children with the knowledge, skills and experiences to flourish in school and society.

Many aspects of these areas arise naturally for young children as they make sense of their experiences, such as an awareness of quantities, enjoyment of telling and hearing stories, finding out how the things work, rhythm and movement.

Children often begin to represent what they understand with their own actions, marks or words.

There are also ways of representing understanding with more formal systems, such as numbers, writing, and other cultural tools and methods for sharing and recording ideas, as well as large bodies of knowledge to be shared with children.

Our Provision

We use the term ‘provision’ to describe the learning experiences and opportunities we provide for all children.

It includes:

• Whole class adult-led learning

• Continuous Provision – inside and outside

• Enhanced Provision – our topic or interest enhancements

• Small group learning (including interventions for additional support as required)

• Child-initiated learning

• Opportunities for uninterrupted play

• Child-initiated then adult scaffolding/supported learning