EYFS
“Play is the only way the highest intelligence of humankind can unfold.”
Joseph Chilton Pearce
At Parc Eglos, our EYFS curriculum offers motivating first-hand experiences that foster resilience, ambition, and a love of learning. The Characteristics of Effective Teaching and Learning are integral to everything we do. We create stimulating environments, indoors and outdoors, that spark curiosity and broaden experiences, encouraging our children to embrace new challenges.
Child-centred and guided by the interests of our children, we build on their existing knowledge and skills and by partnering with parents, carers, and professionals, we provide the best start for every child. We celebrate each child’s uniqueness, fostering confidence, independence, and creativity, while instilling a sense of community and global citizenship.
Our curriculum prepares children for their future by ensuring they acquire knowledge, skills and values, laying the foundation for lifelong success.
We are committed to:
- The best for every child: Our inclusive approach ensures all children’s needs are met, giving everyone the chance to succeed.
- High-quality care: Positive relationships and care make children feel valued, safe and supported.
- Focused learning: Language and communication are at the heart of our curriculum, with thoughtful sequencing of the seven areas of learning to ensure depth in knowledge and skills.
We follow the Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage, offering a play-based curriculum underpinned by the characteristics of effective teaching and learning. Through play and exploration, children are encouraged to be curious, set their own challenges, and find solutions. Self-initiated and adult-guided activities help our children develop key skills for effective learning.
Each half term, a new theme inspires learning while allowing our children to explore their own interests. Daily routines balance self-initiated play and direct teaching, with focused group work allowing adults to address misconceptions and provide feedback, ensuring high levels of understanding and progress. Learning occurs both indoors and outdoors, with equal importance placed on both environments.
Key Areas:
Literacy: Our thoughtfully designed indoor and outdoor environments has been created to nurture early writing skills through playful, hands-on experiences that inspire EYFS children to explore, express, and communicate with confidence—while also promoting physical development through activities that strengthen fine motor skills, coordination, and movement.
Self-Regulation and Executive Function: Language development, supported by positive relationships and playful learning, helps children develop focus, memory, and planning abilities- essential for learning in the early years.
Mathematics: Following the guidance of the White Rose Maths Scheme and guided by the EYFS framework, we use a Maths Mastery approach, integrating resources from NCETM. All children build foundational skills such as counting, understanding quantity (cardinality), and recognising patterns; we all enjoy our mathematical learning through hands-on manipulatives, songs and play-based activities.
Wider Curriculum: Children engage with ‘Understanding the World’ and ‘Expressive Art and Design’ through activities that build curiosity and develop skills in science, geography, history, and art.
Assessment: Practitioners closely observe children’s abilities to inform future planning. Adaptations and additional interventions are available to support or challenge as needed.
Partnership with Parents: Strong, respectful partnerships with parents and carers help children thrive. We encourage parents to actively support their child’s learning at home through meaningful conversation, playful interaction, and regular reading, all of which have a powerful impact on development. To strengthen this partnership, we provide half-termly learning plans that are closely linked to our classroom themes and enriched by carefully chosen class books that spark curiosity and deepen understanding. These are further supported by our weekly ‘Ask Me’ sheets, designed to prompt reflection and discussion at home by helping children recall and share what they’ve learned during the week.
Our EYFS curriculum shapes children into well-rounded, independent learners who are happy, confident, and prepared for the next stage of their education. They arrive at school eager to build on their existing knowledge through curiosity-driven, purposeful learning experiences.
Evidence in Knowledge and Skills:
- Children develop positive attitudes, essential skills, and knowledge across all seven EYFS areas.
- They interact well with peers and adults, using an expanding vocabulary to communicate effectively.
- A love for books is evident throughout the setting, and by the end of Reception, children read fluently using their secure phonic knowledge and decoding skills—supported by a carefully chosen reading spine that introduces rich vocabulary, engaging narratives, and progressive challenge to foster both confidence and enjoyment in reading.
- Children manage their emotions, understand their impact on others, and demonstrate creativity, problem-solving, resilience, and perseverance—key characteristics for lifelong learning.
Outcomes:
- All children make progress, achieving the best possible outcomes from their starting points and are well-prepared for Year 1.
- We aim for children to meet Early Learning Goals, surpassing local and national benchmarks for Good Level of Development (GLD).
- Progress is carefully tracked through formative and summative assessments.
Assessment & Monitoring:
- Internal moderation occurs after each term’s data collection, ensuring secure, consistent assessments.
- Data is analysed to track progress, evaluate adaptations and interventions, and identify next steps for continuous improvement.