Early Years Foundation Stage

The Early Years is the period of time in your child’s life between birth and 5 years.  This is a time when children learn rapidly developing skills, language and knowledge in a wide range of areas. During this period your child will be following the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework which focuses on 7 areas of learning and development which consist of:

The Prime Areas:

• Communication and language
• Physical development
• Personal, social and emotional development.

The Specific Areas:

• Literacy
• Mathematics
• Understanding the world
• Expressive arts and design

At Westcott C of E School, we believe in providing our early years children with rich learning experiences which spark discussion, curiosity, enthusiasm and opportunities to develop independence. We want our children to play, learn and grow together in an open-ended environment that promotes awe and wonder, enabling them to flourish and develop a lifelong love of learning.

We aim to make our teaching of Literacy and Numeracy fun and practical. Skills are introduced and developed at a pace appropriate to each child. These skills are then developed through practical activities such as cooking and gardening.

We strongly believe that learning for the young child should be fun.

In the Foundation Stage we follow the guidance for the new Early Years curriculum with a strong emphasis on learning through exploration. There is more information about this in the following documents: