Welcome to the Early Years Foundation Stage. 

Nursery Teacher: Ms V Holloway

Reception Teacher/EY Lead: Mrs C Wood

Teaching Assistants: Mr A Charville, Miss L Bell and Ms Y Earl

Nursery Timings

AM session – 8.15am  to 11.15am

PM session – 12.00pm to 3.00pm

Reception Timings

Drop off – 8.40am / 9.00am

Pick up – 3.00pm

Our  EYFS Vision

In line with our whole school curriculum intent, in EYFS we focus on providing a high quality provision so independence can begin to develop. We believe in nurturing and developing the whole of the child so that they happy, feel safe and confident. Our curriculum is designed to support purposeful learning in the environment. We understand that children enter our Nursery and Reception at different levels and we aim to plan learning opportunities to support this.

There are four key principles that the EYFS is based on. The principles underpin what all practitioners are required to do:

  • A unique child
  • Positive relationships
  • Enabling environments with teaching and support from adults
  • Learning and development

The Characteristics of Effective Teaching and Learning run through our whole curriculum:

  • Playing and Exploring – engagement
  • Active Learning – motivation
  • Creating and Thinking Critically – thinking

The Seven Areas of Learning

At St Alphonsus, the learning environment has been planned to inspire and develop curiosity and build on purposeful learning. Through high – quality adult interactions and enhanced provisions we aim to provide activities that are inclusive for all children regardless of, background or barrier so they can achieve their full potential.

In EYFS there is a high motivated enthusiastic team that are able to engage with children in play to extend their learning and scaffold their language development.

The Prime areas are:

  • Communication and Language
  • Physical Development
  • Personal, Social and Emotional Development

The specific areas are:

  • Literacy
  • Mathematics
  • Understanding the World
  • Expressive Arts and Design

30 Hours Funding

If you think that you may be entitled to 30 hours funding, please follow the link below where you can find out more information. Please do not hesitate to speak to a member of our EYFS team if you have any questions.

https://www.gov.uk/30-houchildcarers-free-

Tapestry

What is Tapestry?

Tapestry is a secure online Learning Journal to record photos, observations and comments, in line with the Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum, to build up a record of your child’s experiences during their time in Nursery and Reception. This system allows us to work with parents and carers to share information and record the children’s play and learning in and outside of the classroom.

How does Tapestry work?

Tapestry provides each individual child with their own Learning Journal held online. Parents and carers are given their own log-in using their email and password (which is pre-set by us but can be changed by you to make it more secure). All our staff are given a secure log-in. They can then upload observations, photos or videos; recording children’s achievements and assessing their learning in reference to the EYFS curriculum.

Parents can change their settings so that an email is then automatically generated informing them when an observation has been added so they can have a look and add any comments of their own.

If you have not already signed up to Tapestry and would like to do so, please speak to a member of the foundation stage team for a form. Further information on Tapestry, set up guides and how we use it in school can be found below or by accessing the website https://eylj.org/. If you have any difficulty accessing or adding comments/photos to Tapestry, please let us know and we will support you as best as we can.

Thank you,

Foundation Stage Team

EYFS and Tapestry Useful information