Curriculum Statement

Intent  - Why do we teach what we teach? 

At High View we believe that every child should have the opportunity to thrive in a safe and secure environment. As children’s early experiences have such a profound impact on their future life chances, they need a solid foundation to make the most of their abilities and talents as they grow up. We are dedicated to ensuring that every child develops the values, skills and attitudes needed to help them succeed during their time at High View and beyond. Our school values of perseverance, self-belief, creativity, curiosity, respect, responsibility and belonging are intertwined in all aspects of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) curriculum. 

Our enabling environment and warm, skilful adult interactions support the children as they begin to link learning to their play and exploration. We value imagination and creativity and seek to promote a sense of enjoyment and fascination in learning through a vibrant continuous indoor and outdoor provision. Our curriculum instils a sense of awe and wonder enabling children at High View to become happy and curious life-long learners. 

Our EYFS curriculum aims to create children who are: 

• Resilient, capable, competent and self-assured; who are curious about the world around them

• Secure and confident; who enjoy school and are able to persevere in the face of challenges

• Skillful communicators; who connect with others through language and play and are confident to speak up and be heard

Implementation - How do we teach what we teach?

Our curriculum follows the Early Years Statutory Framework and uses the Development Matters and Birth to 5 documents as a reference. We have used these to develop our curriculum offer to ensure that we deliver a carefully planned and progressive curriculum. Through our knowledge of each child and formative assessments the EYFS team plan exciting and engaging activities that will move the children’s learning forward and give them a context for their learning. 

Play

Play underpins learning and all aspects of children's development. Through play, children develop their language, emotional literacy, social and intellectual skills and creativity. Children in EYFS learn by playing and exploring, being active and thinking critically and creatively and this takes place both indoors and in our outdoor area. 

Each area of learning is implemented through three hours of planned and purposeful play and through a mix of adult-led, adult directed and child-initiated activities. We regard play as essential for children’s development, building their confidence as they learn to explore, to think about problems, and relate to others by providing uninterrupted opportunities for play, our children are able to access a deep level of learning as we know that children learn best when they are highly engaged in their play. We strongly believe that children learn by leading their own play. We support this by providing a workshop style continuous provision (which is independent access to resources and equipment of their choosing). We make ongoing judgements about the balance between activities led by children, and activities led or guided by adults. 

Literacy

Reading is at the heart of our curriculum and our aim is to encourage a love of reading right from the start. In EYFS, we use core books that have been chosen specifically to develop oracy, vocabulary and comprehension. Stories are embedded in our provision through activities, story sessions and on display for children to access independently. Through this, children begin to internalise new vocabulary, language patterns and begin to retell stories independently. 

In our early years provision, we use core texts that are revisited regularly to help children develop a strong understanding of language, story structure, and vocabulary. These familiar books support the development of comprehension, sequencing, and oral language skills through repetition and meaningful discussion. Alongside these, we also introduce a variety of other storybooks that are carefully chosen to build children's schemas around key concepts and themes from the EYFS curriculum. This approach lays a strong foundation for future learning, as children begin to connect ideas, build knowledge, and deepen their understanding of the world around them in preparation for the next stage of their education.

In Nursery, the children begin to understand sound patterns, rhyme and rhythm as part of Phase 1 phonics. Children are taught how to discriminate between sounds through a variety of engaging and exciting activities that allow them to develop their listening skills. 

In Reception, we use High View’s own phonics scheme which enables children to learn to read and write with accuracy, fluency and automaticity. Children read daily and ‘set’ books provided are matched specifically to the phonics they are learning, ensuring they are able to read independently. Once a sound has been taught, children are provided with an activity sheet for them to complete with their parents at home. Both the activity sheet and ‘set’ reading book gives the parents the opportunity to continue to support their children with their phonics skills. 

Maths

In Nursery, children develop a love of maths through games, songs, rhymes, and play using concrete manipulatives. There is a focus on three of the counting principles:

• The one-to-one principle; this describes the necessity to count each item in a group only once. When we count, we assign one distinct name to each number. Children need a lot of practice doing this, because they have a tendency to:

  • Skim – Children may count too quickly and miss out an object.

  • Flurry – Children may count an object more than once.

• The stable order principle; this is the idea that the names of numbers should be said in the correct order, and that the order of those numbers will not change.

• The cardinal principle; this is the understanding that the final number said when counting tells you how many objects are in that group.

In Reception, children continue to work on the first three counting principles as well as;

• The abstraction principle; this is the idea that we count everything in the same way, no matter what it is. Anything can be counted, from physical things to things that can’t be touched.

• The order irrelevance principle; this is the understanding that the order in which objects in a group are counted is not important. The number order does not change just because the counting order does. However, this principle only rings true if all the other principles are followed.

As a school, we follow the White Rose Maths scheme of work. Alongside the White Rose materials, we use many other resources to ensure that our offer is rich and varied. Activities and experiences are frequent and varied and allow children to build on and apply understanding of numbers to 10. Concrete manipulatives are a key focus within sessions, as is the use of pictorial representations including tens frames and part-whole models. Children are actively encouraged to use mathematical terminology within their understanding, with a focus on developing positive attitudes and interest in the subject. Children participate in regular maths sessions and are given time to explore mathematical concepts and practice taught skills through play. 

Wider Curriculum 

The curriculum is taught through topics which are enriched with classroom enhancements, trips and visitors. Topics are supported by quality key texts. All planning however, is flexible and responsive to children’s needs so plans can be changed and adapted depending on the interests of the children. The experiences we provide for our children are exciting and ambitious. They broaden children’s understanding of the world around them and are designed in a sequential way to ensure progress towards the end of reception goals (ELG’s) with the aim of preparing our children to seamlessly progress into Key Stage 1.

Assessment

As part of the learning and teaching process, children are assessed in relation to their progress towards the Early Learning Goals. These judgements are made on the basis of accumulative observations and in depth knowledge of the children. The assessments made from observations are used to inform planning and next steps in teaching and learning for all children throughout the year.

The judgements of our school are moderated with other schools in the Sutton Education Trust (SET) and through moderation sessions in local clusters. This means judgements are secure and consistent with government guidelines.

Impact - How do we know what pupils have learnt and how they have learnt it? 

The impact of the EYFS curriculum is reflected in having well rounded, happy and confident children. We strive to ensure each child makes a Good Level of Progress (GLD) at the end of Reception from their individual starting points in the Nursery. The children transition into Year 1 with key knowledge and overarching concepts to enable them to access the requirements of the National Curriculum. 

At High View, the children in the Early Years Foundation Stage will demonstrate high levels of engagement in both child-led and adult-led activities. By developing their speaking and listening skills, we are enabling them to access more areas of learning and communicate with adults and other children. They will develop concentration, persistence, co-operation and most importantly become willing and confident to ‘have a go’.

The children will develop a sense of the wider world around them and will draw on these experiences during interactions with others, linking this to new learning. They will also be able to apply their knowledge to a range of situations, making links by explaining their ideas and understanding. The children will be confident to take risks and discuss their successes and failures with adults, drawing on their experiences to improve or adjust what they are doing.

The teaching and pedagogy are reviewed and evaluated regularly through ongoing professional dialogue. We ensure that the areas we discuss and develop are reflected in changes and developments in our classroom practice. The impact of our curriculum is measured by assessment procedures which allow us to measure outcomes against all schools nationally. We measure the percentage of pupils achieving age-related expectations and that are on track for GLD throughout the academic year, and put supportive interventions in place if and when needed.

From their own unique starting points, we expect all children, even those at risk of disadvantage, to achieve age-related expectations and/or make excellent progress academically and socially. All children will be given the best foundations to prepare them for a life-long learning journey.

Long Term Planning

Click the attachments below to see the long term plans for both Nursery and Reception: