EYFS

We believe that all our children can become fluent readers and writers. This is why we teach reading through Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised, which is a systematic and synthetic phonics programme. Our children start phonics in Nursery and this develops as they enter Reception, click to find out more Little Wandle Parent Support and Early Reading.

At the end of their Reception year children will be able to;

• say a sound for each letter in the alphabet and at least 10 digraphs
• read words consistent with their phonic knowledge by sound-blending and read aloud simple sentences and books that are consistent with their phonic knowledge, including some common exception words.
• Writing, along with reading, makes up literacy, one of the four specific areas of theEarly Years Foundation Stage (EYFS). The Early Learning Goals for writing come from both literacy and physical development. At the end of their Reception year children will be able to;
• write recognisable letters, most of which are correctly formed, spell words by identifying sounds in them and representing the sounds with a letter or letters.
• write simple phrases and sentences that can be read by others.

Skills within Reading and Writing are taught through a range of strategies, such as; child and teacher-led activities and within our continuous provision.

EYFS and KS1 will continue working on the Mastering Number programme this academic year. Children will explore the relationships between numbers and patterns to help build their confidence with number. The short sessions are engaging and often use clips from the popular show Numberblocks. The videos can be accessed through YouTube and are a fun and useful tool to support learning in maths at home.

At the end of their Reception year children will be able to;

• have a deep understanding of number to 10, including the composition of each number, subitise (recognise quantities without counting) up to 5.
• automatically recall (without reference to rhymes, counting or other aids) number bonds up to 5 (including subtraction facts) and some number bonds to 10, including double facts.

We use different topics and themes to deliver other areas of our curriculum, as well as celebrations and awareness days. We ensure to provide enriching learning experiences for all children that are inclusive, fun, engaging and creative. Please refer to our long term overview below to find out our topics for this academic year.

We want Court Farm to be a place where children are read to, enjoy, discuss and work with high-quality books. These ‘essential reads’ would be a store of classics, creating a living library inside a child’s mind. This is the ‘Reading Spine’. We have provided the Pie Corbett reading spine in our classrooms so that children have access to these high-quality texts. Please see the attached document, to see what great books have been recommended for our year group.

Pie Corbett says…“Great books build the imagination. The more we read aloud expressively, and the more children are able to savour, discuss and reinterpret literature through the arts, the more memorable the characters, places and events become, building an inner world. A child who is read to will have an inner kingdom of unicorns, talking spiders and a knife that cuts into other worlds. The mind is like a ‘tardis’; it may seem small but inside there are many mansions. Each great book develops the imagination and equips the reader with language. Great stories speak to us as individuals and some children will return to certain books again and again. Great stories also build our language because around 75 per cent of our vocabulary comes from our reading. Reading develops the ability to think in the abstract; to follow lines of thought. Schools that have a reading spine, build a common bank of stories that bind the community together. These are shared and deeply imagined common experiences.”

My Happy Mind is a science-backed programme for early years which is grounded in the latest science and research about what it takes to create positive wellbeing. We believe that all children deserve to learn tools and techniques to help them thrive from the earliest ages. Please see the topics we will be focussing on this year.

• Early Years – Topmarks Search
• PhonicsPlay
• BBC iPlayer – Alphablocks
• BBC iPlayer – Numberblocks
• Development Matters – Non-statutory curriculum guidance for the early years foundation stage (publishing.service.gov.uk)