Early Years Foundation Stage

The Nursery and Reception are the first 2 years in our school. They lay all the crucial foundations for your child’s education.  At this stage, children learn primarily through play.  Rich learning opportunities are created by our staff in both the indoor and outdoor environments to develop social, language and physical skills.   The areas of learning within the Foundation Stage are:

• Communication and Language
• Physical Development
• Personal, Social and Emotional Development
• Literacy
• Mathematics
• Understanding the World
• Expressive Arts and Design

Our Reception children spend part of the morning based in one of our 4 learning zones:

• The Language and Communication Zone provides rich exposure to creative vocabulary and expression.  The children have many opportunities for story telling, dress up, role play and small world play.  Much of the play relates to stories which have been enjoyed together and as the year progresses, the children are encouraged to use their growing phonic skills to begin expressing their own ideas in writing.
• In the Maths Zone the children  can explore, number and mathematical concepts as they sort, measure compare and sequence while they play and solve challenges.
• The messy Creative Zone is full of the sort of exciting resources that parents might hesitate to explore at home such as playdough, gloop, mud, shaving foam, glitter and wet spaghetti!  Through exploring these wonderful tactile experiences, the children broaden their creative vocabulary and expression whilst developing all important fine motor skills necessary for writing.  Opportunities to explore construction materials encourage creative design and collaborative problem solving.
• The Outdoor Classroom mirrors all areas of indoor learning.

Within each zone, children will be exposed to new concepts and skills through explanations and adult modelling. During much of the rest of the day the children have free access to many of the resources and activities on offer during the morning.  During this time it is exciting to watch them choosing to independently return to challenges or creative activities which allow them to use the skills they have previously learnt.

We strongly encourage prospective parents/carers to make an appointment to visit the school to see our EYFS curriculum in action.

Hilltop EYFS Policy document