The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) Framework is the statutory curriculum we run through our Two Year Old, Nursery and Reception classes. Our practitioners also use the non-statutory curriculum guidance published by the DfE, called Development Matters.

The Primary School National Curriculum is statutory and starts in Year 1. At our school, we treat Year 1 as part of our EYFS phase, meaning that our pupils are taught in a child-centered, play-based way for longer. They still access all the learning in the National Curriculum, it is just that we do not start more formal approaches to learning until children are in Year 2. At that point, we run smaller classes than normal and focus on ensuring pupils are absolutely ready for Year 2 SATs and the next stage of their education in Key Stage 2 (known as KS2, representing Years 3-6).

We have found this approach transformative and extremely popular with parents. It enables us to offer our younger pupils a developmentally appropriate form of education and is contributing to significant improvements in performance.

For information on the content and structure of our curriculum, from EYFS through to Year 6, see our Curriculum Policy.

Please also see the Termly Topic Maps we send to parents, providing an overview of their children's learning.