Early Years Foundation Stages

Termly topics provide an inspirational backbone for playgroup staff and activities, but adherence to the emergent curriculum means that such themes are flexible, and adapt according to what is currently relevant to each child.

Knowledge and Understanding of the World 
The children love the annual living eggs project, which involves receiving 10 unhatched eggs, waiting until they have all hatched, and fostering the chicks for around two weeks. The life cycle of tadpoles collected from Gillespie Park also allows the children to engage with their local environment, and learn about change. Gillespie Park has become a favourite place to explore, and to base treasure hunts around. Finsbury Park was the destination of the Barnado’s Big Toddle, in which all St Thomas’s children participated. Children are taught about different cultures and beliefs, and St Thomas’s admissions procedure follows the guidelines recommended by Islington Council to ensure that equality and diversity is incorporated into development, and that every individual’s needs are met. Parents are also encouraged to share their expertise and skills with the children. Parent-run sessions include music, cookery, gardening, cultural education and crafts.

Mathematical development 
At St Thomas’s, we remember that maths is part of everything. For instance, the ‘living eggs’ programme gives many opportunities to use mathematical language. We recognise that maths can be learnt in all areas, indoors and out, through a wide variety of activities. For example, building blocks help to develop mathematical skills, language and spatial awareness. Children also learn counting, calculating, and how to solve practical problems.

Communication, language and literacy 
St Thomas’s practises the ‘language acquisition support system’ (LASS), where linguistic development is supported by more advanced speakers, so that staff members ‘scaffold’ the learning of each child. The children listen and join in with familiar stories, go on weekly trips to the local library, develop an interest in books, and an understanding of main characters and sequences of events. The children are encouraged to choose their own stories. They begin to learn the alphabet, the shape and sound of different letters, and that text is read from left to right. Each day, through self registration, they become more familiar with the letters in their own name - and those of their friends.

Creative development 
The children are encouraged to be adventurous and get involved with all aspects of artistic activities. Cultural excursions (such as to the Little Angels theatre, or music sessions at the LSO) help to provide a focus for specific creative activities. Every week, the children enjoy a music session from a visiting teacher. Significant events in a child’s life, such as the birth of a sibling, are also used as springboards for creative projects. At St Thomas’s, we believe that expression is a key aspect of creativity. For example, we feel that exploring pine branches is more relevant to development than reproducing an adult’s idea of a Christmas tree - since much of young children’s creative interest arises from their enjoyment of the natural world. In line with the emergent curriculum, children help to make the play dough and mix the paint they subsequently experiment and create with.

Personal and social development
Through the key worker system, children begin to build trusting relationships with other adults, making separation and transition from the home easier to cope with. We believe that self-development cannot take place without an understanding of those around us. The children share and take turns in the home corner, as their focus on their bodies means that they often recreate an experience through action. At St Thomas’s, we value and provide for further exploration of this dynamic aspect of schemas (Athey 1990). As young children represent and re-enact their experiences, they creatively transform the original situation, and express how they think and feel about it. We feel that seeing creativity and imagination as limited to producing paintings results in the inherent creativity of under-fives being overlooked. Circle time also encourages children to take an interest in, engage and communicate with others and as a group.

Physical development
The children take part in a range of outdoor activities while at the playgroup, from playing team games to cycling; from climbing on the frame, to playing in the mud and sandpits (in all-in-one suits). Every week, a ‘Sportschool’ sports teacher gives the children a lesson (from badminton or golf, to rugby or basketball). Different indoor activities, such as cutting, mark-making and threading also encourage fine manipulative skills.

Outdoor curriculum
Children at St Thomas’s are supported in acquiring the following skills, with reference to the EYFS framework:
22–36 months
- Learning to make decisions, solve problems and grow in confidence in their own abilities outdoors, by being given plenty of time to investigate their outdoor environment purposefully.
- Making predictions about what may happen, based on their previous play experiences, and testing out these ideas and theories.
- Their exploratory nature is nurtured, as well as their interest in discovery, through observation of sounds or movement in the landscape. They are encouraged to move matter such as leaves by sweeping, lifting with a spade into wheelbarrows, or kicking them along. All of which help them find out about properties and qualities of materials.
30–50 months
- Children are supported outdoors, in discovering new experiences and revisiting favourite ones.
- Investigation is encouraged, including using less obvious areas to play in, such as a path running behind a low line of plants. This develops mobility and enjoyment of the company of others.
- Opportunities for sustained outdoor play with familiar materials are provided, as well as with less familiar resources such as parachutes, which can be used collaboratively with other children and adults. Such endeavours enhance communication skills and support social and cooperative play.
- Mounting and dismounting from fixed and mobile equipment is encouraged. This comprises an interest in itself, as children try out ways of travelling across a low bench on a safe surface, or crawling along a suitably safe makeshift ‘assault course’.

Observation

Every week sees the observation of four focus children. Learning needs are assessed, and activities selected that will help that child to develop in future. In this way, no child gets left behind, and is prepared for the transition to school. The result of these regular evaluations ensures that primary education providers know as much as possible about a child’s development.
All children are assessed using the EYFS observation records, which are then summarised according to Islington Council’s ‘Starting Points and Progress Scheme’, demonstrating the development of a child from playgroup entry to primary school transition.

For more information you can go to:
Department for children, schools & familes - Early Years Froundation Stage