EYFS Curriculum
The Robert Fitzroy Academy starts from Reception. In Early Years, we are committed to meeting the individual needs of every child. As a school, we understand the importance of this critical stage in a child’s development and strive to ensure that they all meet their full potential. We ensure that the Early Years curriculum provided is ambitious and designed to give all children knowledge and skills, as well as cultural capital and self-belief, that they need to progress into Key Stage 1 and ultimately succeed in life.
We follow the Early Years Statutory Framework which is the statutory curriculum followed by all childcare and Early Years settings. The framework is organised into seven areas and divided into the core and specific key areas of learning and development. They are:
Prime Areas
- Personal, Social and Emotional Development
- Physical development
- Communication and Language
Specific Areas
- Literacy
- Mathematics
- Understanding the World
- Expressive Arts and Design
At RFA, the EYFS curriculum is delivered through carpet sessions, small group activities and a carefully planned provision to allow explorative and imaginative play during ‘independent choosing time’. Focus activities are carefully planned to allow room for adaptability; this allows individual pupils who prefer to play independently to learn the same skills and topics through activities that they are engaged in when ready. The EYFS teaching team work collaboratively create a coherently planned and sequenced curriculum, which follows the whole school's topic led approach. Through this holistic approach, children are fully immersed in all 7 areas and as a result creates memorable learning, as well as the opportunity to consolidate and deepen knowledge and skills.
A key feature of this is the learning environment. We understand the importance of learning both indoors and outdoors and our learning environment is carefully considered. The Reception classes’ indoor and outdoor learning environments stimulate enquiry and develop confidence through a range of carefully planned activities which foster the characteristics of effective early learning:
- Playing and exploring
- Active learning
- Creating and thinking critically
The learning progress and next steps for each child is individually monitored and assessed through observation, learning stories and strong links with parents and other significant adults in a child’s life. Observation evidence, photographs and ‘wow’ moments form an individual learning journey which is shared with parents throughout the reception year.