At Burley, we follow the Foundation Stage Curriculum Framework in Year R and sometimes into the start of Year 1 depending on your child’s development and needs.

The Foundation Stage is how the Government and early years professionals describe the time in your child’s life between birth and age 5. This is a very important stage as it helps your child get ready for school as well as preparing them for their future learning and successes. From when your child is born up until the age of 5, their early years experiences should be happy, active, exciting, fun and secure; and support their development, care and learning needs.

What is the EYFS Curriculum?

The EYFS (Early Years Foundation Stage) Framework exists to support all professionals working in the EYFS to help your child, and was developed with a number of early years experts and parents. It explains how and what your child will be learning to support their healthy development.

How will your child be learning?

Your child will be learning skills, acquiring new knowledge and demonstrating their understanding through 7 areas of learning and development.

Children should mostly develop the 3 prime areas first.

These are: ·
-  Communication and language;
-  Physical development; and
-  Personal, social and emotional development.
These prime areas are those most essential for your child’s healthy development and future learning. As children grow, the prime areas will help them to develop skills in 4 specific areas.

These are:
- Literacy; 
- Mathematics;
- Understanding the world; and 
- Expressive arts and design

These 7 areas are used to plan your child’s learning and activities. At Burley, we plan activities which are suited to your child’s unique needs and interests. Children in the EYFS learn by playing and exploring, being active, and through creative and critical thinking which takes place both indoors and outside, and through the 7 areas of learning.

EYFS Aspirations

Each year, we review our aspirations for our children based on our current cohorts. Each cohort brings to the school a raft of different knowledge, skills, interests and experiences. We take time to embrace these before creating our cohort specific aspirations for the year.