Early Years Foundation Stage
At New Dawn Private School, the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) lays the groundwork for a joyful and enriching learning journey for children up to the age of five.
Our approach is rooted in exploration, imagination, and discovery—offering young learners a play-based environment that supports their holistic development.
We create vibrant, interactive spaces both indoors and outdoors, where children feel confident to explore, build friendships, and learn through meaningful experiences. Our skilled educators design engaging activities that promote social growth, emotional wellbeing, and active learning in every corner of the day.
Our cross-curricular learning model weaves together the seven key areas of the EYFS framework, ensuring each child receives a well-rounded foundation:
- Communication and Language
- Physical Development
- Personal, Social and Emotional Development
- Literacy
- Mathematics
- Understanding the World
- Expressive Arts and Design
With curiosity at the heart of everything we do, New Dawn’s Foundation Stage empowers children to develop essential life skills, independence, and a lasting love for learning.
01. Implementation:
Our curriculum follows the Early Years Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage. This document specifies the requirements for learning and development in the EYFS and provides the prime and specific areas of learning we must cover in our curriculum.
The statutory curriculum is supported by EYFS Development Matters. Through our knowledge of each child and formative assessments the EYFS, our team plans exciting and engaging activities that moves the children’s learning forward.
New Dawn Private School creates its own unique blend of whole class, guided,
adult-directed play and child-initiated play activities independent on the nature
and needs of the class of individuals.
Throughout the year the EYFS team introduces new themes to provide inspiration for learning, whilst providing the flexibility for children to follow their own interests and ideas.
These themes have been selected to build upon a child’s existing knowledge of the world and broaden their understanding of the wider world.
02. How do we support in different areas of learning:
Communication and Language: with opportunities for all children to talk and communicate in a widening range of situations, to respond to adults and to each other, to practise and extend the range of vocabulary and communication skills they use, to listen carefully to express ideas and feelings and to organise thoughts.
Personal, social and emotional development: by supporting the transition to and between settings, allowing children to explore and take risks, promoting an inclusive ethos and providing opportunities for each child to become a valued member of the community so that a strong self-image and self-esteem are promoted.
An enthusiasm for knowledge and learning and a confidence in their ability to be successful learners.
Their social skills will be supported, by providing opportunities that enable them to cooperate and work alongside and with each other and to listen to each other.
They will be encouraged to concentrate on their own play and on group tasks with opportunities to become deeply involved.
Physical development: with opportunities for all children to develop and practise their fine and gross motor skills and to increase their understanding of how their bodies work and what they need to do to be healthy and safe.
Literacy: with opportunities for all children to explore, enjoy, learn about and use words and text in a broad range of contexts and to experience a rich variety of books.
We follow the ‘Letters and Sounds by Twinkl’ Systematic Synthetic Phonics scheme of learning to teach phonics using a wide range of physical and online resources to support this.
Every child has access to a phonics session every day with intervention opportunities for those who find this area of learning more difficult. We use the phonics session to also develop children’s expertise in handwriting.
In handwriting, we support children to achieve correct letter formation so that they can enjoy the process of writing and access the writing opportunities on offer such as mark making, labelling and writing words.
Children are encouraged to read at home and are given books that match their phonic knowledge in order for them to apply their learning with the aim of becoming successful, confident and fluent readers.
Mathematics: with opportunities for all children to develop their understanding of number, measurement, pattern, shape and space by providing a broad range of contexts in which they can explore, enjoy, learn, practice and talk about them.
We support mathematics in EYFS with an emphasis on studying key skills of number, calculation and shape so that students develop deep understanding and the acquisition of Mathematical language.
Students learn through games and tasks using concrete manipulatives which are then rehearsed and applied to their own learning during exploration and in adult directed activities.
In number, we focus on a depth of knowledge around the concepts of cardinality and counting, comparison, composition, pattern, shape and space, and measures.
Expressive Art and Design: with opportunities for all children to explore and share their thoughts, ideas and feelings through a variety of art, design and technology, music, movement, dance and imaginative and role play activities with a focus on being imaginative and expressive.
Understanding of the world: with opportunities for all children to solve problems, make decisions, experiment, predict, plan and question in a variety of contexts, and to explore and find out about their environment/natural world and people and places that have significance in their lives both in the past and at present.
03. Impact:
The impact of the EYFS curriculum is reflected in having well rounded, happy, and confident children transitioning from FS1 to FS2 and into Year 1.
Our children are often amazing role models for others in school. We measure progress and children’s learning across the year through formative and summative assessments which are based on the teacher’s knowledge of the child, their Learning Journals, work samples, photographs, and videos.
04. Building relationships: Parents as Partners
The school values strong working relationships with our parents and this starts
from the term before their child starts school with new parents invited to reading sessions, events and other in class learning activities with their children.
Throughout the year, opportunities are offered for parents and carers to be welcomed into their children’s classrooms in a series of drop-in sessions.
When parents and practitioners work together, the results have a positive impact on the child’s development and learning, and we therefore seek to develop effective partnership with parents.
05. The learning environment:
We place great importance on developing children’s communication and social
skills, and central to this is the role of the adult. Our curriculum is responsive to all children’s needs and is planned to encourage self-directed activity.
There are opportunities for children to engage in activities planned with adults and those that they plan or initiate themselves. The teaching staff work closely together to provide a rich stimulating environment both inside and out, where children feel happy and secure. Children have access to an excellent indoor and outdoor learning environment and have opportunities throughout the day to use the outdoors in all curriculum areas.
A typical day in EYFS will include adult directed time and child-initiated learning.
This is carried out using the plan, do, and review method where adults support a child’s learning by providing resources and interaction to extend the child’s learning.
Our EYFS curriculum is a dynamic, responsive, and engaging framework that nurtures the potential of every child. By fostering a love for learning, developing key skills, and ensuring a safe, inclusive environment, we prepare children for a successful transition to the next stage of their education.
