Early Years Foundations Stage
Our Early Years Program is a quality ‘Christ-centered’ program that provides an educationally rich, safe and secure environment meeting both the physical and emotional needs of our young learners while attaining high international standards.
We follow the ‘Early Years Foundation Stage’ (EYFS); a program developed and followed across the UK that focuses on a ‘Learning Centered’ approach. This approach encourages exploration, experimentation, curiosity, and a sense of wonder through both independent play and teacher led activities. It places a strong emphasis on open ended questioning and high quality interactions to develop critical thinking, cognitive flexibility, independence and problem-solving skills.
The EYFS guidance sets out 8 distinct areas of learning:
- Communication and language
- Physical development
- Personal, social and
- Emotional development
- Literacy
- Mathematics
- Understanding the world
- Expressive arts and design
It is our responsibility and aim to ensure that through our high quality interactions, teaching and child led play activities that the children all have opportunities to learn across these 8 areas in their own unique and individualized way. We are constantly observing, assessing and planning the next learning pathway to ensure this is achieved to the optimum level for each child. We incorporate a strong foundation in Literacy and Numeracy, into our program with a focus on daily phonics lessons across the department.
We pride ourselves on our close liaison and relationships with parents and value their thoughts and ideas as an essential part of each child’s ‘learning journey’. To encourage this we use an online platform called ‘Tapestry’ which enables parents and ourselves to regularly post on the children’s learning and developmental milestones as their time in Early Years progresses.