EYFS

Early Years Curriculum

Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) is how the Government and early years professionals describe the time in your child’s life between birth and age 5. For Sacred Heart this means children in our Nursery and Reception classes.

This is a very important stage as it helps your child get ready for main school as well as preparing them for their future learning and successes. From when your child is born up until the age of 5, their early years’ experience should be happy, active, exciting, fun and secure; and support their development, care and learning needs.

Nurseries, pre-schools, Reception classes and childminders registered to deliver the EYFS must follow a legal document called the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework.

From September 2021 we have implemented the new framework in our setting embedding all the key messages and principles in our setting.

The EYFS sets the standards that schools must meet to ensure that children learn and develop well and are kept healthy and safe. It promotes teaching and learning to ensure ‘school readiness’ and gives children the broad range of knowledge and skills that provide the right foundation for good progress through school and life.

The children are given opportunities to play and explore, to investigate and experience things and to ‘have a go’. They are active and develop their own ideas. They are all unique and will have different interests and abilities. The areas of development have been divided into two groups:

Three Prime areas:

Communication and Language
Physical Development
Personal, Social and Emotional Development.

These prime areas are those most essential for your child’s healthy development and future learning.

As children grow, the prime areas will help them to develop skills in four specific areas:

Literacy
Mathematics
Understanding the World
Expressive Arts and Design.

These seven areas are used to plan your child’s learning and activities whilst also being designed to be really flexible so that staff can follow your child' needs and interests.

At the end of Reception the children will be assessed against the 17 Early Learning Goals and their progress shared with parents.

Characteristics of effective learning. (COEL)

COEL are ways in which the child engages with others in their environment. They underpin learning and development across all areas of the curriculum and when we observe your children in their setting we will often comment on what COEL they are showing.

How can you help your child at home?