The Squirrel - Our Foundation Stage Department

  A visit to The Squirrel is an opportunity to observe how our staff promote warm and nurturing relationships. We believe these relationships underpin high quality teaching of learning and care in our Foundation Stage Setting.

  Our initial aims are to establish the children’s Active Learning Skills: listening, speaking, concentration, synthesising information, memory, reflection and working collaboratively with peers. These skills are promoted in a happy and secure environment so that every child can have the best possible start in life through equality. 

  Our Music, PE and Drama Teachers offer the pupils a chance to learn the foundation knowledge and skills that will be built upon each year. We value that high quality specialist teachers deliver these lessons so that they can use their expertise to unlock a child’s creative and sporting talents and help to foster a positive attitude, whilst improving emotional well-being and enabling the children to fulfil their highest potential. 

  Across the Foundation Stage, members of staff work closely with each other to ensure all children receive the best start to their education journey. Long term planning has been carefully designed to cover all aspects of the EYFS curriculum: using a range of formal teaching practices and carefully linked continuous provision activities. The key knowledge and skills for these areas have been mapped through Cornerstones Curriculum Maestro, which puts spiritual, moral, social and cultural education at the heart of our curriculum. Our educational planning is shaped using the Seven Key Areas of Learning and Development from the EYFS Statutory Framework 2021.

  Our practice has been designed using four guiding principles; The Unique Child, Positive Relationships, The enabling Environment and Learning and Development. These themes are important as they work together to ensure that young children make good, strong progress in their earliest years.

PSHE

  Following the guiding principles stated above, the PSHE curriculum has been embedded throughout the Early Years curriculum. Nursery chiildren and Recption join Key Stage 1 for PSHE Assemblies in addition to what they experience in the wider provision of the Early Years. This gives our children the starting foundations for personal, social and emotional development.

English 

  Within the Foundation Stage, we are aware that a child’s first exposure to reading sets the foundation for life-long learning. In addition to this, we are also aware of our nation’s rich and varied literary heritage, which is why our English curriculum has been designed with two dimensions: word reading and language comprehension. 

  Word Reading:  In the foundation stage, we use the Twinkl Phonics Scheme. This scheme progresses from Nursery to Year 2 to ensure consistency and early intervention when children are learning the basics of word reading (decoding). In the foundation stage, children cover levels 1-4.Children are taught two sounds per week with a day to consolidate their taught phonemes; segmenting and blending skills and common exception words. The themes of Twinkl Phonics have been carefully mapped to match the same Topic as the Cornerstones Curriculum. This has been designed so children are exposed to a breadth of knowledge around that Topic and make connections to their learning. 

  Language Comprehension:  In the foundation stage, we aim to inspire the love of reading. We couple Twinkl Phonics with Rhino Readers to give children a firm foundation for their entire learning journeys. These books are decodable from the taught phonemes to provide children a chance to showcase their skill of reading. In addition to this, we promote a wider range of books that are Topic focussed for children to read or look at with peers and staff.  Language comprehension only develops when adults talk with children about the world around them and the books (stories and non-fiction) they read with them. This is why we ensure planned opportunities are given for children to enjoy books, rhymes, poems and songs together.

Maths 

  Developing a strong conceptual understanding of numbers is essential so that all children develop the necessary building blocks to excel mathematically. We do this by using the scheme White Rose Maths. We use White Rose Maths to provide frequent and varied opportunities to build and apply children’s understanding of numbers 0 - 10 including spatial and reasoning skills of shape, space and measure. We have coupled this planning with formal strategies so that children can transition into Year 1 smoothly. We believe that it is our responsibility to foster positive attitudes in Mathematics and for children to become resilient when faced with challenges or new learning. 

Curriculum Topics 

• Cycle A: Me & My Community, Once Upon a Time, Starry Night, Dangerous Dinosaurs, Sunshine and Flowers, Big Wide World
• Cycle B: Let’s Explore, Marvellous Machines, Long Ago, Ready Steady Grow, Animal Safari, On the Beach

7 Areas of Learning

• Personal, Social and Emotional Development
• Physical Development
• Communication and Language Development
• Literacy Development
• Mathematics
• Understanding the World
• Expressive Arts and Design

  We believe that in the Early Years it is a child's first experience of school and for laying solid foundations for their future education. Our Foundation Department offers a small, nurturing, family environment in which children flourish and develop. The children learn the key skills needed to become strong, confident individuals who are capable of achieving their highest potential through positive relationships - with an understanding that every child is unique.

ALL LEARNING, ALL GROWING, ALTOGETHER