Mayfield Primary SchoolEarly Years
EARLY YEARS FOUNDATION STAGE
EYFS
Teacher: Mrs Miller
Take a look below at the summary of how EYFS works at Mayfield. Download your copies of our various early years documents & take a look at the Early Years Reading Spine at the base of the page.
Please click here for our Phonics: Resources page for the latest practical support for learning at home.
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Our first year at school and we start by getting to know each of our children. Learning their individual traits, personalities and starting points. From the outset we have a clear plan of how we aim for our children to learn in our setting, however it is this learning process that helps to shape, adapt and enhance this as we gain more about our children's needs and starting positions.
The getting to know and settling in process begins with our welcome meeting each June and then with a sequence of visits as we move towards the end of that school year in July. This includes the team learning about the children through relevant meetings and discussions. This helps to shape a potential starting position but, as we have stated above, it will quickly be shaped, adapted and refined once the children fully start in September.
We aim to have a low adult: child ratio and this is determined according to need within the year group and across school each year. There is no set model - it is about meeting need as much as we can. Our Early Years space has become more of a complex rather than just 'a room' during recent times. We have invested heavily in the increase of available space and this means the children joining Mayfield's early years provision have extensive space to fit with the desired low ratio. The spaces we utilise are: a large three part main room comprising a creative area, number and space areas and reading/writing areas these are supplement by thematic spaces within these. We also have a large indoors/outdoors space which is open every day in all weathers due to our roof. Our full outdoors area is vast and reaches around the early years complex. The outdoor space includes a range of areas and resources, this also includes a dedicated outdoor space which is dedicated to our children who require a more specific outdoor space to suit need, we call this 'Early Outdoors'. Many of the areas have a free-flow feel but clearly there are specific times when the children will be working together and/or with adults in particular spaces. We also have an 'Early - Early Years' space which allows children who are not yet ready for the full space to begin their journey in a more adapted way. These are all based within their own internal and external entrance ways adjacent to the ABC Theatre and at the furthest end of the playground (head towards the football stadium and veer right at the blue fence).
We begin to adopt some principles that you will see enhanced and developed as the children move through school. We call this the beginnings of Classroom Craft and is drawn from our Teaching & Learning Approach document. At all times, it is about taking those principles and making them work for our youngest children as they begin their journey. We use horseshoes for small group input in early years and this philosophy is then built upon greatly as the children enter Year 1. We also build extensive learning, resource and support stations which run across our environment. These are continued across school and become more subject specific and move towards the edges of the classrooms from Year 1 onwards.
Whilst the children are welcomed each morning at the door to our early years complex by the adults in the team, we are only able to receive essential messages for the day at that time. The chance to speak to staff and ask any questions comes at the end of the school day upon collection. Staff need to be available to work with the children from the moment they arrive so it is vital that are free to do this each morning. Please save any questions or discussions for that end of day collection time.
We also have a team email address that can be used to contact the team: eyfs@mayfield.lancs.sch.uk
Please note that other email addresses should not be used to contact staff about early years matters. We are not able to respond to early years matters via any other contact address. The above email address is the remote access point for this. We will endeavour to respond as quickly as possible and in the best way possible to answer the query.
There are seven areas of learning in the Early Years Foundation Stage and none can be delivered in isolation from each other in our view. They are equally important and depend upon each other. All areas are delivered through a broad balance of adult led and child initiated activities. The development of children's spoken language underpins all seven areas of learning and development. We encourage you to download and read our progression document relating to this area.
We encourage you to explore the documents at the base of this page (available to download) and the subsequent pages related to content in the Autumn, Spring and Summer in our early years on this website. Documents include: Early Years Overview; Early Years Policy; Welcome Presentation; Communication & Language Progression Document.
We also recommend that you refer to, and use, our Phonics Resources page (linked at the top of the page) which has resources to help the latest learning in this area.
We encourage you to take a look across our full website. The vast majority of information relates to every area of school - including early years. This includes taking a look at the 'Our School' and curriculum subject pages.
Our core team currently includes:
* Please note other staff can, and do, supplement this core team throughout the week - generally making a team of six working across the early years complex at the time of writing.
Miss McCormack's roll is to support the continued development of Communication & Language with groups across school after they leave early years. She works closely with the team as a result and will sometimes feature within the team.
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The I Dream of Being... Curriculum, established across school, begins in early years, details can be found on the termly pages, downloadable documents and subject specific pages.
