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Early Years Foundation Stage

Nursery

At D’Eyncourt Primary, our 10-place nursery is set within our EYFS base. Children have access to a provision that is shared with Reception. In Nursery we work independently however there will be times when we will work together with Reception. This encourages the children to interact and build relationships with our older pupils. During their child-initiated time, this allows children to take charge of their own learning and make the choice of what activities they would like to work on. We take huge pride in creating and developing fun and exciting provisional activities that will engage the children and develop their love for learning. 

Full Time- 30 hours Funded

 We offer 30 hours. The nursery day timings are as follows: – 8:30 – 11:30 – Morning session – 11:30 – 12:00 – Lunch club – 12:00 – 3:00- Afternoon session . The expectation is that the children will remain all day and so parents are offered a place at our Lunch Club which will be charged at £20 per week. This additional charge must be paid one week in advance. 

The 10 funded places are based on families meeting the eligibility criteria. Please see https://www.gov.uk/check-eligible-free-childcare-if-youre-working  – ‘30 Hours Funding: Eligibility criteria’. There will be an additional Lunch Club where children will be supervised eating their own packed lunch.

Applying for a FT Funded place

Parents should use the online HRMC eligibility checking system at www.childcarechoices.gov.uk to obtain an eligibility code.

Once you have received your eligibility code, you will need to hand this in to the school office. The eligibility is only valid for 3 months, and you will need to reconfirm your eligibility every 3 months to pass on your new code to the school office in order to maintain the funded place. If you fall out of eligibility, you have

Lunch Club

Parents/carers must provide a packed lunch each day. Children will eat their lunch from 11.30am-12pm. Our Lunch Team will supervise our pupils at this time. Our afternoon session will begin at 12pm. There is a additional charge for this provision *£20 per week.

Curriculum

In Nursery, your child will learn through topic-based activities and initiate their own learning through play. We also encourage children to be as independent as possible and follow their interests.

The curriculum we follow is the ‘Early Years Foundation Stage’. This is the curriculum guidance for children in childcare provision, playgroups, nurseries and reception classes. It aims to provide children with rich, play-based learning that enhances communication and widens their experiences. It provides teachers and practitioners with age-related expectations and targets for seven different areas of learning. These are:

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

Your child will be assessed against each of these areas on a termly basis throughout the year. If at any point your child needs extra support to achieve their best, we will provide target-based intervention and support work. We will also work with a variety of professionals such as Speech and Language Therapists, to support children more formally when needed. Please speak to us as soon as possible if you are concerned about any aspect of your child’s development. The sooner it is addressed, the sooner your child can receive help.

Dropping Off & Collecting from Nursery

It is important that your child is brought to nursery on time to ensure they do not miss out or interrupt the learning of other children. Please take your child to the school office where you will need to sign them in.

Children must be collected promptly at the end of each session. If you are going to be late, please telephone the school office immediately so that we can reassure your child on 01902 558778.

For safeguarding purposes, on your nursery admission form, you must list the names and contact numbers of all the people who are permitted to collect your child. Your child will not be sent home with anyone who is not on this list unless you have informed us beforehand. If in doubt, we will always contact you before allowing your child to leave with someone unfamiliar. All children must be brought to Nursery and collected by a responsible person aged 16 or over.

The safeguarding of your child is paramount to us, particularly at the start and end of nursery when the main doors are open. Please feel free to pass on any quick messages, but if you need to speak to the Nursery teacher, please arrange a suitable time after your child’s session to do so.

Cloakroom, Bag & Spare Underwear

Your child will have a peg in the cloakroom with their name next to it. Please encourage your child to take off and hang up their belongings independently. It is important that they are able to do these things on their own as soon as possible. They also need to know where their peg is so that they can find it and get their coat for outside play/activities.

Your child will require a bag for Nursery. This should be a small bag for their spare underwear and wellies. Please do not put unnecessary items in your child’s bag. This bag needs to stay in nursery all year round, with the exception of holidays.

Toileting and Accidents

If your child does have an accident, staff will help them to get clean and changed, as long as you have signed your permission for intimate care on your child’s nursery admission form. If we do not have this signed consent, we will contact you in order for you to come to nursery to clean and change your child.

If your child is still in nappies/pull-ups, please make the Nursery teacher aware as soon as possible. It is advisable to ensure that your child is dry in the daytime when they start nursery, if you require assistance with this you can contact your child’s Health Visitor. Parents must provide their child’s own nappies/pull-ups and wipes.

Uniform

Our nursery children will need to wear a white polo t-shirt and a red jumper with our school logo on, black joggers or grey pinafore and black shoes. Our school jumpers can be purchased from https://www.crestedschoolwear.co.uk/.

We do our best to keep children’s clothing clean and tidy (they wear aprons for messy activities) but please remember that due to their age and style of Early Years teaching, they can, and will, get messy! 

Please ensure all of your child’s belongings are clearly labelled with their FULL name. This includes spare clothing, shoes and wellies.We cannot accept responsibility for lost items.

Jewellery

Jewellery can cause serious accidents in nursery and we will not take responsibility for any items that are lost or broken. If your child has pierced ears, they can wear simple gold or silver studs only. However, these must be removed for P.E. and Wild Tribe sessions.

Medication & Allergies

If your child has any medical conditions, please inform the teacher as soon as possible and ensure that you write it on their nursery admission form. We also need to know if they need to take any medication. For conditions such as asthma, please ask your G.P for a duplicate inhaler. Children with asthma MUST have an inhaler left in nursery that they can access whenever needed. Staff members are not allowed to administer any non-prescribed medications, i.e. over the counter pain relief (e.g. Calpol).

Attendance & Welfare Information

Attendance is very important. We usually have a long waiting list for nursery, so once you have accepted a place, it is expected that your child will attend every session and that you will adhere to the following Attendance and Welfare Information:

  • I agree that I will inform the school of any changes in social or domestic circumstances that may affect my child’s attendance.
  • I agree to inform the school on the first day of illness that prevents my child from attending nursery and to ensure that I keep in regular contact throughout any prolonged illness
  • I understand that poor attendance and punctuality has a detrimental effect to my child’s learning.

If your child has a case of sickness or diarrhoea, they must be kept at home for a minimum of 48 hours from their last bout. This is extremely important to prevent the spread of illness and germs to other children. Your child will not be admitted before this 48 hour period has passed.

Parental Involvement

We encourage parents to have an active role in their child’s learning and development. We greatly appreciate your support and, in turn, it helps to promote your child’s progress. We will invite parents/grandparents to attend stay and play sessions and to become involved by completing learning activities that are sent home weekly.

Outdoor Provision

We also have a wonderful outdoor area that we are constantly updating to ensure that the children get the most out of the area we have available. We also open the outdoor area whilst the children are free flowing during their child-initiated time, and they are encouraged to go inside and outside. The outdoor area provides our children with one of the best possible environments in which to learn. We love observing the children creating new experiences as they learn new skills and make fresh discoveries.

Wild Tribe

The Wild Tribe is an outdoor learning curriculum that we follow at D’Eyncourt Primary. Our Wild Tribe routine  includes:

  • Hunting for minibeasts and/or pond dipping
  • Natural crafts – making necklaces from elder, crowns or dreamcatchers from willow, collages from natural materials, weaving with long grasses, tree cookies, etc
  • Fire building and cooking on a campfire (KS1 and over)
  • Mud sculptures
  • Tree climbing
  • Using tools for a purpose e.g. using a knife to whittle wood to make a marshmallow stick, using a saw to cut wood to the correct size for a stick man. (KS1 and over)
  • Activities linked to English, maths, science and topic work
  • Den building
  • Using a Kelly Kettle to make hot chocolate

Sessions are planned around the group’s needs and built upon each week.  All Wild Tribe Practitioners are qualified through nationally recognised and accredited training, therefore ensuring Wild Tribe is a high-quality learning experience.  The earlier sessions will concentrate on safety; establishing boundaries and routines.  As the pupils develop in confidence and familiarity with the environment the sessions focus on the development and consolidation of skills and understanding, and link further with national curriculum areas.

Children will need to wear wellies on Wild Tribe days. 

Educational Visits

Once a year we organise a trip for the nursery children. We ask parents for a voluntary contribution towards the entrance fee and coach costs. D’Eyncourt is a cashless school and we use a system called School Gateway to collect these contributions. You will need to log onto the School Gateway website and set up your account; you can then add the trip to your ‘basket’ and ‘checkout’ as with other online shopping websites. If you would rather pay for the trip in cash, the office can issue a unique barcode to you which you can then take to any PayPoint store for them to scan and credit your child’s account when you pay your child’s contribution.

The only cash we accept in school is for fundraising activities, for example we sometimes have non-uniform days with a suggested contribution of £1, this is paid in cash as it goes towards our School Fund.

Other Information

We feel that communication between home and nursery is very important and we communicate with parents in a variety of ways. Our main way of communicating is by using an internal platform called Class Dojo to communicate. Parents are able to send messages to their child’s class teacher and receive notifications when their child has earned reward points during the day. On Class Dojo we will post weekly information about what your child has been learning that week with a selection of photographs. Events and notices will also be posted on Class Dojo. A fornightly school newsletter is uploaded to Class Dojo too. We also use text messaging to communicate with parents. Please ensure you provide us with up to date contact details and advise us of any changes immediately. Parents are able to email our school office office@deyncourtprimary.com or contact us on 01902 558778. 

If you are interested in gaining a place in our Nursery, please contact our school office on 01902 558778. 

EYFS

The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) sets standards for the learning, development and care of your child from birthday to 5 years old. At D’Eyncourt, it is our aspiration that children will become confident, self-motivated learners with the necessary skills and attitudes to achieve the best possible outcomes in their learning and development. At the same time, we want to help each child to develop the self-esteem, resilience, and confidence necessary for a full and happy life. This will be achieved through the delivery of a high-quality curriculum, the provision of a nurturing environment and the development of effective partnerships.

There are 4 key principles that underpin our practice in the EYFS at D’Eyncourt Primary School:

A Unique Child

We recognise that all children are different. We identify and celebrate their strengths and support their areas for development.

Positive Relationships

Our pupils interact well with each other and with the adults in the school. We encourage parents to be involved with their child’s education.

Enabling Environments

Our indoor and outdoor areas encourage exploration, investigation, and independent learning. Our displays and resources are well maintained and reflect current learning.

Learning and Development

Pupils achieve well and make good progress from their starting points. Learning is playful, practical, and purposeful and builds upon prior attainment. Our children enjoy coming to school.

EYFS Curriculum

“The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) sets the standards that all early year’s providers must meet to ensure that children learn and develop well and are kept healthy and safe. It promotes teaching and learning to ensure children’s ‘school readiness’ and gives children the broad range of knowledge and skills that provide the right foundation for good future progress through school and life.”- EYFS Framework 2023.

In EYFS we believe that every child deserves the best possible start in life to enable them to achieve their full potential. We know that children quickly develop in the early years and that a child’s experiences between birth and 5 years have a major impact on their future life chances. At D’Eyncourt Primary we ensure all children access high quality teaching and learning to gain knowledge and develop the skills needed to be successful learners in EYFS and beyond. We ensure that all children make good progress and that they gain a secure foundation by planning for the learning and development of each individual child and continually reviewing the impact of this.

Our curriculum has been designed by planning carefully thought out skills and knowledge to meet the needs of the children at D’Eyncourt Primary School for all of the 7 areas of learning. We used the EYFS framework (view framework) to give us a base for our learning and then considered other knowledge and skills based on research that we know are important for our children to plan an ambitious and exciting curriculum to ensure our pupils are engaged and enjoy learning and therefore make fantastic progress.

Prime areas of learning:

  • Communication and Language (Listening, Attention and Understanding; and Speaking)
  • Personal, Social and Emotional Development (Self-regulation, Managing Self and Building Relationships)
  • Physical Development (Gross motor skills and Fine motor skills)

Specific areas of learning:

  • Literacy (Comprehension, Word reading and Writing)
  • Maths (Number and Numerical patterns)
  • Understanding of the World (Past and present; People, Culture and Communities; and The Natural World)
  • Expressive Arts and Design (Creating with Materials and Being Imaginative and Expressive)

Autumn Curriculum Overview 2023

Reception Learning Environment

In Reception, we are a 45-intake cohort, which is split into two classes of 22 and 23. We only split into classes for registration and carpet times, after this we work as a unit rather than as two separate classes, encouraging the children to build relationships with all of the children and staff. The children are also encouraged to free flow between the two classrooms during their child-initiated time making sure they have access to all activities and resources.

What you will find whilst in our Reception area:

  • Writing areas containing various writing implements and papers as well as envelopes and examples of good writing.
  • A book corner containing a range of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry books.
  • Maths resource area which allows children to select appropriate items to help them solve practical problems.
  • A creative area containing resources for a range of art and design activities.
  • A construction area containing resources for developing fine motor skills, social interaction and problem-solving.
  • A small world area which allows children to extend fine motor skills, engage in imaginative play and develop language.
  • A home corner where the children can role-play and develop “real life” scenarios.
  • A physical development area for developing fine motor skills

We also have access to a wonderful outdoor space which the children have access to daily, the children are encouraged to work on their gross motor skills whilst outside. They can work on their running, climbing, riding and balancing skills. As well as having access to lots of different activities like our construction area, mud kitchens and play house.

EYFS Baseline

What is the EYFS Baseline?

All children starting in Reception participate in the reception baseline assessment (RBA) within the first 6 weeks of starting Reception. The purpose of the assessment is to provide the starting point for a new measure that will help parents understand how well schools support their pupils to progress between reception and year 6.

The baseline assessment is a short, interactive and practical assessment of your child’s early literacy, communication, language and mathematics skills when they begin school, using materials that most children of your child’s age will be familiar with. It became statutory for all schools from September 2021.

The baseline assessment is not about judging or labelling the children or putting them under any pressure. Children cannot ‘pass’ or ‘fail’ the assessment. Its main purpose is to create a starting point to measure the progress schools make with their pupils.

Please see the attached leaflet for more information:

View Information for Parents – Reception Baseline Assessment

EYFS Profile

What is the EYFS Profile?

The EYFS profile is sometimes known as the early years profile or EYFSP. It summarises a child’s attainment at the end of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS), which is when they finish in Reception. In September, the child will then move into key stage 1 as they enter their year 1 class.

The EYFS profile summarises a child’s attainment against the early learning goals. There are seventeen early learning goals (sometimes shortened to ELGs) across all the Areas of Learning. The early learning goals are the goals or targets that children are working to achieve by the end of Reception. The goals cover a range of skills that children will have been learning and practising throughout the Early Years Foundation Stage.

How will the profile be completed?

Reception teachers will use their knowledge of what each child knows, understands and can do in order to decide the outcomes presented in the profile. They will also take into account the views of other people, including parents and carers, other members of staff and other agencies, such as childminders or speech and language teachers.

For each of the seventeen early learning goals, children will be awarded an outcome.

This will be either:

  1. ‘Emerging’ – meaning that the child is not yet reaching the expected level
  2. ‘Expected’ – meaning the child has reached the expected level

These outcomes will be shared with the child’s parents/carers and their year 1 teacher. Remember, there is no need to worry if your child is given an emerging level for one or more of the goals. Children develop at different rates and the main purpose of the profile is to provide support for each child at the correct level as they continue through the school. The main purpose of the EYFS profile is to help create a smooth transition into year 1. The profile results will be shared and discussed with the child’s year 1 teacher to enable them to plan activities to meet the needs of all children in the class and to develop an understanding of each child’s needs.

Please see the EYFS Profile handbook for more information:

View EYFS Handbook

How can you help at home?

Starting Primary School is a huge step in a child’s educational journey, and it is very important that we help our children as much as we can, to ensure it is a smooth transition. There are a few things that you could do to aid this transition and to help your child settle into School life as easily as possible, such as:

  • Encourage your child to put their own coat on.
  • Encourage your child to attempt to zip their coat.
  • Encourage them to put on their own shoes.
  • Encourage your child to go to the toilet independently.
  • Encourage your child to recognise their own name.
  • Encourage your child to eat with a knife and fork.
  • Share more stories with your child which will expose them to new vocabulary.