Early Years Curriculum
What is the Early Years Foundation Stage?
The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS), describes the time in your child’s life between birth and age 5. The EYFS Framework explains how and what your child will be learning to support their healthy development.
Grasmere Academy Early Years provision provides education for children aged 2 to 5 years old and runs as a unit where our Nursery and Reception children learn and grow together. Our 2 year old provision 'Little Explorer's' runs in the afternoons and we offer both funded and paid placements.
Children start to learn about the world around them from the moment they are born. The care and education offered by Grasmere Academy helps children to continue to do this by providing all the children with exciting and interesting activities that are right for their age and stage of development. Grasmere Academy provides a carefully crafted creative curriculum based on the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum and the children’s interests. The curriculum is divided into seven areas of learning, which are split into two parts:
The three prime areas – these are for all children and will always be the main focus of our planning and activities for children under 3 years.
Personal, social and emotional development
Communication and language
The four specific areas
Understanding the world
Expressive arts and design
Indoor and Outdoor Learning
Children access the curriculum both indoors and outside, this important to develop children’s self-initiated knowledge and play skills.
Indoors the children in Reception and Nursery are taught in small-group adult-led sessions for phonics, literacy, basic skills and mathematics. Children are then given the opportunity to apply their learning in the classroom environment, which has been developed to meet the learning interests and needs of the children.
We have a large outdoor area, where the children can freely access resources. Children use large scale resources and are encouraged to make noise and develop their physical, social and play skills.