Very young children
do not separate their learning into subjects. What to the child is play,
however, can be separated out into subjects and analysed by a teacher.
So when a three or four year old reports that he has played all day,
he has actually been following carefully planned activities which focus
on skill development. From a planning perspective, we divide the Early
Years Curriculum into six discrete areas:
1. Language and literacy
2. Mathematics
3. Personal, Social and Emotional Development
4. Knowledge and understanding of the world
5. Physical development
6. Creative development
Within each of these areas are the Early
Learning Goals. Between the ages of 3 and 5 (the Foundation Stage) children
are provided with learning opportunities to work towards and achieve
the goals. Children progress at their own rates but by the end of the
Reception Year most children are expected to achieve all the Early Learning
Goals and progress to the National Curriculum.
The Foundation Stage Learning
Goals
Personal, Social and Emotional Development
This area is concerned with how a child
relates to others and becomes more independent, how children learn to
behave well and take responsibility for their actions and how they develop
an understanding and respect for different cultures in our society.
By the end of the Foundation Stage, or The Early Years, most of our
children should:
-
continue to be interested, excited
and motivated to learn;
-
be confident to try new activities,
initiate ideas and speak in a familiar group;
-
maintain attention, concentrate
and sit quietly when appropriate;
-
have a developing awareness of
their own needs, views and feelings and be sensitive to the needs, views
and feelings of others;
-
have a developing respect for their
own cultures and beliefs and those of other people;
-
respond to significant experiences,
showing a range of feelings;
-
form good relationships with adults
and peers;
-
work as part of a group or class,
taking turns and sharing fairly, understanding that there needs to be
agreed values and codes of behaviour for groups of people, including
adults and children, to work together harmoniously;
-
understand what is right, what
is wrong and why;
-
dress and undress independently
and manage their own personal hygiene;
-
select and use activities and resources
independently;
-
consider the consequences of their
words and actions for themselves and others;
-
understand that people have different
needs, views, cultures and beliefs, which need to be treated with respect;
- understand that they can expect
others to treat their needs, views, cultures and beliefs with respect.
Language and Literacy
This area of learning is concerned with
children acquiring skills of communication, both orally and through
reading and writing. By the end of the Reception year, children can:
-
enjoy listening to and using spoken
and written language, and readily turn to it in their play and learning;
-
explore and experiment with sounds,
words and texts;
-
listen with enjoyment and respond
to stories, songs and other music, rhymes and poems, and make up their
own stories, songs, rhymes and poems;
-
use language to imagine and recreate
roles and experiences;
-
use talk to organise, sequence
and clarify thinking, ideas, feelings and events;
-
sustain attentive listening, responding
to what they have heard by relevant comments, questions or actions;
-
interact with others, negotiating
plans and activities and taking turns in conversation;
-
extend their vocabulary, exploring
the meanings and sounds of new words;
-
retell narratives in the correct
sequence, drawing on the language patterns of stories;
-
speak clearly and audibly with
confidence and control and show awareness of the listener, for example
by their use of conventions such as greetings, 'please' and 'thank you';
-
hear and say initial and final
sounds in words, and short vowel sounds within words;· link sounds to letters, naming
and sounding the letters of the alphabet;
-
read a range of familiar and common
words and simple sentences independently;
-
know that print carries meaning
and, in English, is read from left to right and top to bottom;
-
show an understanding of the elements
of the stories, such as main character, sequence of events, and openings,
and how information can be found in non-fiction tests to answer questions
about where, who, why and how;
-
attempt writing for various purposes,
using features of different forms such as lists, stories and instructions;
-
write their own names and other
things such as labels and captions and begin to form simple sentences,
sometimes using punctuation;
-
use their phonic knowledge to write
simple regular words and make phonetically plausible attempts at more
complex words;
- use a pencil and hold it effectively
to form recognisable letters, most of which are correctly formed.
Mathematical Development
This area highlights the importance of children
acquiring skills and understanding in early mathematical work.
Children are able to:
-
say and use number names in order
in familiar contexts;
-
count reliably up to 10 everyday
objects;
-
recognise numerals 1 to 9;
-
use language such as 'more' or
'less', 'greater' or 'smaller', 'heavier' or 'lighter', to compare two
numbers or quantities;
-
in practical activities and discussion
begin to use the vocabulary involved in adding and subtracting;
-
find one more or one less than
a number from 1 to 10;
-
begin to relate addition to combining
two groups of objects, and subtraction to 'taking away';
-
talk about, recognise and recreate
simple patterns;
-
use language such as 'circle' or
'bigger' to describe the shape and size of solids and flat shapes;
-
use everyday words to describe
position;
- use developing mathematical ideas
and methods to solve practical problems.
Knowledge and Understanding of the
World
This area includes elements of history,
geography, science and technology. It is an area where we arrange visits
to places of local interest and visitors come into school with interesting
things to show us or tell us about. Children have the opportunity to:
- investigate objects and materials
by using all of their senses as appropriate;
-
find out about, and identify some
features of, living things, objects and events they observe;
-
look closely at similarities, differences,
patterns and change;
-
ask questions about why things
happen and how things work;
-
build and construct with a wide
range of objects, selecting appropriate resources, and adapting their
work where necessary;
-
select the tools and techniques
they need to shape, assemble and join the materials they are using;
-
find out about and identify the
uses of everyday technology and the information and communication technology
and programmable toys to support their learning;
-
find out about past and present
events in their own lives, and in those of their families and other
people they know;
-
observe, find out about, and identify
features in the place they live and the natural world;
-
begin to know about their own cultures
and beliefs and those of other people;
- find out about their environment,
and talk about those features they like and dislike.
Physical Development
This area is concerned with fine motor co-ordination
(such as pencil, brush, cutting skills) and gross motor development
— using outdoor equipment and sufficiently challenging climbing
and play equipment with confidence, control and with a concern for safety.
Our educational programme enables children
to:
-
move with confidence, imagination
and in safety;
-
move with control and coordination;
-
show awareness of space, of themselves
and of others;
-
recognise the importance of keeping
healthy and those things which contribute to this;
-
recognise the changes that happen
to their bodies when they are active;
-
use a range of small and large
equipment;
-
travel around, under, over and
through balancing and climbing equipment;
- handle tools, objects, construction
and malleable materials safely and with increasing control.
Creative Development
This area is concerned with art, craft,
music, dance, role-play and all forms of imaginative work.
Children are able to:
- explore colour, texture, shape,
form and space in two and three dimensions;
-
recognise and explore how sounds
can be changes, sing simple songs from memory, recognise repeated sounds
and sound patterns and match movements to music;
-
respond in a variety of ways to
what they see, hear, smell, touch and feel;
-
use their imagination in art and
design, music, dance, imaginative and role play, and stories;
-
express and communicate their ideas,
thoughts and feelings by suing a widening range of materials, suitable
tools, imaginative and role-play movement, designing and making, and
a variety of songs and musical instruments.
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