Early Years Curriculum at Tiverton September 2014

Things we will talk about… The Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum Teaching methods in Early years Maths Literacy How parents can get involved 10 minutes!

The whole child in Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum

The Effective Characteristics of Learning How children learn. Creating and Playing and Exploring Active Learning Thinking Critically Engagement Finding out and exploring Join in with open ended activities Take part in make believe and pretend Engage in role play Being willing to have ago Motivation Being involved and concentrating Keep trying when challenges occur. Enjoying achieving what they set to do Having own ideas Find ways to solve problems Choosing ways to do things Making links

Playing and exploring - engagement Pretending to be medical practitioners Experimenting with milk, food colouring and washing up liquid. Exploring artefacts linked to animals Exploring different sounds of instruments and having a go. Newly hatched ducklings

Active learning - motivation Reading to other children on ‘TV’ Drawing stories together Having fun learning about 3D shapes Making words Learning about money Reading to each other

Creating and thinking critically - thinking Reading clues: treasure hunt How to measure the lengths? Interviewing people in the local café. Actively learning about 2 D shapes Shape fashion show Making the scale balance

When all the elements of effective learning happen, children progress well in all areas of their learning and development. These children laugh at the programme they are watching on their TV in their living room. They are engaged and have confidence to have a go at different activities They have motivation to learn and explore; they keep trying until they achieve what they set out to do. Engaged and motivated children develop many ideas, make links between different areas of learning. They have confidence to experiment and find their own way of solving a problem.

How we do it at Tiverton Play Writing world Role play Maths area ICT Creative area Construction Site Outside play Independent access to all resources in workshop areas. Children are encouraged to play, explore, learn actively and think critically whilst accessing the curriculum through their play and learning activities. Opportunities and resources put in place based on children’s emerging interests to enhance learning.

Children’s independent play Resources available for children to choose! A wide range of resources across the classroom to stimulate interest. Children naturally explore when they are playing. The adults role is to observe to see what children are doing independently then intervene with questioning, modelling and support to extend learning forward.

Through careful observation we put things in place to develop children’s learning in the context of their interests.

Adult Directed activities Adult’s support and questioning teaches and extends learning. Adult Directed activities Are fun! Incorporate children’s interests Based on child’s individual needs Small group /1 :1. Differentiated weekly/daily objectives. Assessment notes. Through all of these strategies, teachers assess children according to the EYFS curriculum assessment criteria. Across 64 assessment scales children are deemed as achieving at an Emergent – expected – exceeding level at the end of Reception.

Progress in writing Pretend writing Children observe what adults do and experiment in their play Children begin to use letter shapes. At first letters do not have correlation to the sounds in words that children write. At the end of Reception class children are expected to write sentences with some words spelled correctly and others phonetically correct. When children begin to hear sounds in words they begin to represent them in their writing.

“Its fun writing words on the walls” Writing at school Independent writing for a range of purposes Encouraging emergent writing and mark making! Shared writing Adult directed Writing tasks Encouraging phonetic sounding out of words Letter formation High frequency words Support at home “Its fun writing words on the walls”

Children progress best if they are read stories at home regularly. Progress in reading Children progress best if they are read stories at home regularly. Children use story books to retell stories they know, they use pictures to make a story of their own. Children begin to decode simple regular words (c-a-t) and they also beginning to use their knowledge of High Frequency words that they learn in Reception Class. It is important to encourage your child to find / decode words in stories you read together. At the end of Reception Class children are expected to read simple sentences and understand what they are reading. It is important to talk to the child about the story they read to see if they understood what they read.

Progress in maths - numbers Children recite numbers in order to 10. They learn to do this through songs and games. Children compare groups of objects. Children count out up to 10 objects from a larger group. Children add 2 groups of objects. Children work with numbers to 20. They record their problem solving and explain what they are doing.

Shape, Space and Measure Children learn about flat and solid shapes. They use everyday language relating to money and time. They learn about pattern and sequence. They explore lengths, height, weight and capacity.

Parental / Carers Involvement You are your child’s first teacher We have an open door policy. You are always welcome to come and help with different activities.

Parental / Carers Involvement Special books - Please take your child’s Special Book home once a week. You can add something for your child’s show & tell on his or her Focused Day. Share with us your family customs and traditions. Please share with us information about your child’s development and special days and events.

Parental / carers involvement We are planning to have Curriculum Open Workshops when parents observe teachers in different curriculum areas and then discuss what they observe with the teachers. We would like to have support from you to assess your child’s learning and development. Please tell us what your child does at home. We can learn from each other. Please help us on trips. We can’t go without your support.