Early Years Curriculum
Our Early Years Curriculum and Pedagogy
At Crosslee Community Primary School our EYFS curriculum is deeply-rooted in cognitive science research. It aims to provide opportunities for our children to develop as independent, confident, successful learners with high aspirations who know how to make a positive contribution to their community and wider society. The curriculum in Early Years is designed to provide a language rich, broad and balanced education that meets the needs of all pupils. It facilitates them to gain essential skills, knowledge and understanding, as they start out on their educational journey, supporting them to progress from their individual starting points and preparing them for the next stage of their education.
The Units we have chosen for Nursery are centered around Development Matters (2021). In Reception, we allow children to progress and widen their subject knowledge by teaching the same units and a wider way, allowing schema to build effectively, with new learning building on and connecting to prior knowledge, securing encoding in long-term memory and considering the management of intrinsic cognitive load (J. Sweller, 1998). Our goal is to ensure that all children are happy and engaged in learning across all units.
Our units are as follows:
| Nursery: | Reception |
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Wonderful Me The children will learn that they have physical similiarities and differences to others and will begin to identify these, including age, height and hair, skin and eye colour. They will also begin to identify their own likes and preferences. They will talk about how they fit into their families and the school community. They will learn about their senses and will use them in exploration activities. |
Myself and my Health Building on from Nursery, the children will explore ideas around themselves, their family and their community. As the children settle into Reception, they will be introduced to strategies to help identify and regulate their emotions. They will then start to focus on their personal history, the people who are familiar to them and compare and contrast different types of families. The children will build their understanding of healthy lifestyles, including the importance of diet, exercise and mental health. |
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Family and Celebrations The children will learn about different celebrations, including birthdays, Diwali, Harvest, Bonfire Night, Rememberance Day and Christmas. They will learn about the similarities and differences between the celebrations and will begin to identify the celebrations celebrated in their own families. |
Festivals of Light Building on from Nursery, the children will explore ideas around different celebrations. In Reception, they will explore the Hindu, Jewish and Christian celebrations of light and name their places of worship. They will learn about day and night, and light and dark. The children will observe the natural world around them by looking at seasonal change, nocturnal animals and shadows. |
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My Favourite Story The children will learn about how stories are structured and will learn story language through traditional tale texts. They will explore how the stories are similar and different. |
Stories old and new, from far and wide Building on from Nursery, the children will explore different traditional tales including those from other cultures. They will begin to hear different twists and versions of these familiar stories and begin to invent their own. The children will look at aspects of the stories that relate to the past and compare them to their lives today. |
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Travel and Journeys The children will learn about different ways of travelling e.g. train, car, bus etc. They will make connections with their own experiences linking to places around the world |
Travelling around the World Building on from Nursery, children will begin to compare and contrast life in this country to different places around the world. They will begin to explore famous landmarks and the cities they are in. They will explore different cultures and languages. They will consider a range of transport types and when these would be used. They will draw maps of their school and local area. |
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Growing The children will learn about plants and animals/minibeasts and how to care for them. They will learn about the human life cycle and have the opportunity to observe the life cycle of real butterflies. The childen will learn about how to be healthy in order for them to grow. We will focus on healthy eating and having a healthy lifestyle. |
Growing and changing Building from Nursery, the children will learn further detail about the life cycle of plants, with the opportunity to plant and grow seeds. They will focus on the life cycle of chickens.The children will articulate what they have observed around weather and seasonal changes throughout the year. The children will engage in scientific exploration around ice melting |
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Amazing Animals The children will learn about farm and zoo animals and where the animals live. They will learn young animal names and will learn about how they grow. |
Animals and their Habitats Building from Nursery, the children will learn about animals and their habitats. They will learn about differing habitats around the world and why they are suibtale for each type of animal. They will learn people’s role in caring for the planet including animals habitats by reducing, reusing and recycling waste. |
Through the seven areas of learning we provide topics that excite and engage children, building on own interests and developing their experiences of the world around them. We deliver our curriculum through a combination of adult-led, teacher taught sessions as well as a wealth of stimulating continuous provision opportunities.
Through the EYFS curriculum that we provide the children continually demonstrate their ability to;
- Play and explore
- Learning actively
- Create and think critically
At Crosslee Community Primary School we understand and value the importance of working in partnership with our parents to enable our pupils to be happy, independent learners who thrive in school and reach their full potential.
We recognise every child as a unique individual and we celebrate and welcome differences within our school community. We hope that all children will be inspired and motivated to actively participate in the curriculum; experiencing enjoyment and transitioning into key stage one with the confidence to meet the challenges of the ever changing world.
Find out more about your child's Early Years Curriculum using the following links:
Crosslee's Flexible Nursery Curriculum
Crosslee's Flexible Reception Curriculum
How our teaching in Nursery and Reception links to KS1 and KS2
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