Nursery Policies

Farlington School Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) Policy

Date Approved: March 2010

Author/owner: Foundation Stage Leader

The purposes

to have agreed expectations for all staff working within the Stage.
to voice the entitlement for all children at Farlington within the Foundation Stage.
to establish and continually refine the curriculum within the Stage, explaining to staff, parents and carers the methods, skills and planning involved.
to promote continuity and coherence across the Stage.

Definition

Since September 2008, the EYFS has been the mandatory framework within all school settings attended by children from birth, to the end of the academic year in which a child has their fifth birthday. At Farlington, this means the Nursery Class (3-4 years) and Reception Class (4-5years). The EYFS principles which guide the work of all staff are:

A Unique Child
Positive Relationships
Enabling Environments
Learning and Development
Each principle is as important as any other and underpins effective practice within the two classes.

The Curriculum and Expectations

The expectation is that for the majority of children, the end of their Reception year will be the end of the Foundation Stage and the start of the National Curriculum guidance. All staff are committed to helping the children achieve the Early Learning Goals by the end of the Reception Year.

The Curriculum is organised into six areas of learning, each with its specific strands, and showing progression whilst allowing for individual diversity.

The areas are:

Creative development
Physical development
Personal, Social and Emotional Development
Communication, Language and Literacy
Problem Solving, Reasoning and Numeracy
Knowledge and Understanding of the World.

Please follow the link to the separate documentation for more detail about each of these areas.

The EYFS states that “None of these areas of Learning and Development can be delivered in isolation from the others. They are equally important and depend on each other to support a rounded approach to child development.”

Aims

The curriculum for the Early Years Foundation Stage should always seek to promote the following, within the 6 areas of learning already stated:

personal, social and emotional well-being
a positive attitude towards learning
social skills
attention skills
perseverance.

These skills are, as the name of the stage implies, vital as the foundation for future learning and development.

Equal Opportunities and Inclusion

All children begin their time in the Foundation Stage classes with different abilities and life experiences. When planning for their learning, we aim to take into account this diversity to give our children every opportunity to achieve their best. We set realistic and challenging expectations for all our children to help them achieve the Early Learning Goals, and maybe progress beyond this point.

We do this in the following ways:

by planning opportunities which build upon and extend the children’s knowledge.
developing self-esteem and confidence.
using resources which are free from stereotyping or discrimination.
by providing a safe and supportive learning environment in which children, parents and carers and staff are valued.
ensuring that all staff (including the wider school) are aware, through regular shared meetings, of any concerns or achievements relating to children within the Foundation Stage classes.

Organisation

The learning environment within the Nursery and Reception Classes, including the shared outdoor learning area, should be well planned and show continuity and progression. It should include and reflect all of the following throughout the year:

attractive and comfortable areas to look at books
writing areas with a variety of tools and paper to mark-make, draw or write
role play areas, with changing focus
a variety of creative media to model and explore e.g. paint, clay, wood
a variety of building and construction materials to work with
Sand and water experiences, with a variety of both predictable and unusual equipment
opportunities to grow and to bake, with the correct safety features and equipment.
a variety of small world playscapes, animals, people et cetera, reflecting the multi-cultural nature of this country.

All resources should be organised in such a way as to help children make their informed choices with ease, independently selecting what they need and taking responsibility for clearing away.

Learning Outdoors

A variety of outdoor play equipment is available all day, every day, to children. We place great emphasis on the purpose and provision of the outdoor environment. Resources should be available for independent choice to encourage responsibility, in the same way as indoor resources. The Nursery Class has wet weather leggings as part of its uniform to encourage and help all-weather access to outdoors. Both classes go on regular “Wellie walks” around the school grounds and use the grounds as an outdoor classroom.

Assessment

The children come into both classes with a variety of assessment material from parents’ anecdotes, nursery reports and West Sussex County Council (WSCC) documentation. A baseline assessment is made (Reception Class) in the first half term with Performance Indicators at Prep School (PIPS). The follow up takes place in Prep 1, a year later.

Throughout the two years of the Foundation Stage (N.B. not all pupils attend the Nursery Class, and not all nursery pupils go on to the main school), we will use a range of assessment strategies to inform our planning. These will include:

skillful and well planned observations of individuals and groups. This may include written observations, samples of children’s work, Cds of photographs, and these will help inform written assessments.
a statutory assessment profile will be presented to WSCC at the end of the Reception year and will form the basis of individual reporting to the Year 1 staff.
working partnerships with parents.
continuous evaluation of indoor and outdoor provision.
looking at staff training needs via performance reviews and current government reports and reviews.

Leadership and Management

The Foundation Stage Leader will be responsible for the curriculum and staff within the stage, managing a specific budget when appropriate. She/he will report to the Head teacher of the Prep School and liaise closely with the Pre-Prep Dept. Head. Management roles and responsibilities will be discussed and reviewed as part of the performance review structure.

It is important that all staff are aware of the requirement of the Foundation Stage and the importance of this stage in relation to the continuation of learning at Farlington.

The Role of parents and Carers

All staff at Farlington acknowledge the importance of the relationship between school and home. Parents and carers have a crucial role in the education and development of their children. To enable the child/home/parent /school relationship to develop fully, everyone needs to understand how the school works, and share its vision and philosophy. To this end, the following processes have been developed:

Nursery

After an initial visit to look round, parent (s) and child are invited back for a series of half-day sessions, prior to the child starting. An introduction to Nursery booklet is given to the parents/carers.

After starting, time is made for individual feedback whenever the parents/carers require some, in person or by phone.

There are two Parents’ Evening Sessions, one in September and one in March.

A written Summer Report is provided to all pupils, although this may not be the final report for some children who may leave at different times, and will receive another written report at the time of leaving the Nursery Class.

Reception Class

All children generally begin in the September of the school year in which they are 5 years old; for some that means that they are just 4 years old, and part time schooling is available as an option.

They will have already met at the Assessment Fairy Party in January. They will meet next on two Induction afternoons in June. At the first one, parents will be invited to join with the Headteacher of the Prep School to answer any questions, and to go through the “Welcome to Reception” information booklet.

When the children start school, an “Introduction to Reception” talk is held the first afternoon, for parents and carers, followed by a talk on “Learning to Reading” in two weeks.

Written reports are given to parents at the end of the Autumn and Summer terms, with Parent Discussions in the Autumn and Spring Terms.

There are many opportunities throughout the year for all children in the Foundation Stage to show their parents/carers their learning environment and achievements.

Review

It is intended that this policy should be reviewed every two years.

Date of next review: March 2012