Early Years Curriculum

Curriculum Intent

St Rose’s early years aims to be a setting where everyone belongs, following the Catholic ethos of the school and giving
our children the best possible start in life. Early Years intends for our children to be happy, safe, healthy and to be in a
setting where they find tolerance and acceptance of their needs and abilities; where their families find support, kindness,
understanding and acceptance, working in partnership with them and other professionals to support children to learn and
develop, focusing on Early Help and intervention.

The curriculum is underpinned by the Early Years Foundation Stage approach providing child-centred, individualised
learning experiences for all children in a happy, safe, nurturing environment, supporting them to become successful
learners. It intends to remove barriers to children’s learning and participation and support children of all ages and
abilities to reach their own potential with functional independence skills that set them up to transition successfully into
school becoming successful life-long learners.

Our curriculum intends for our children to be:
• happy and safe
• have a voice – being able to make choices and give consent in their own way
• valued as part of our wider school community developing a strong sense of self and able to make positive
relationships with others,
• actively engaged in learning experiences that are meaningful, enjoyable and enable achievement,
• have a voice and are supported to make their wants and needs known in ways that can be understood by
others
• as healthy and physically able as their needs and abilities allow

Implementation
The Early Years Foundation Stage Framework is used to inform and guide our delivery of the curriculum in the seven areas
of learning:
Prime areas –
• Communication and Language,
• Personal, Social and Emotional Development,
• Physical Development,

Specific Areas
• Literacy,
• Mathematics,
• Understanding of the World
• Expressive Art and Design (Creative Development).

These areas cannot be taught in isolation and overlap with each other.

Always starting with the child, considering their interests, age and stage of development and any outcomes that they are
working on, we plan ‘in the moment’ which means that if a child is interested in learning something we teach it there and
then whilst they are still engaged in that interest and we add our teaching intentions to that interest. It means that we
take a day by day individual approach for our children – recognising that children may have different needs on different
days. We firmly believe that all children have the right to play and learn alongside their peers and we will actively remove
barriers to learning, using alternative approaches, equipment and sensory experiences to allow all of our children to have
as many positive experiences as possible, learning through play at their own pace and perhaps most importantly having
fun.

Our curriculum is implemented through a mixture of adult led and child-initiated play activities enabling children to make
sense of and learn about the world around them, explore their thinking and embed their learning. Learning experiences
are delivered in a range of different contexts and all moments are learning opportunities including play, snack, lunch.
toileting, transitions, visits and visitors and special occasions. We have access to the full facilities at St Rose’s including the
hydrotherapy pool, sensory room and the extensive school grounds which we explore each week. Our reception children
have therapy with our in school therapists as part of their placements and in line with their Education, Health and Care
plans. We have a wide range of resources that are age appropriate and encourage all children to select resources
independently using their preferred communication method.

We have a skilled staff team who know the children well and our children in nursery with SEND benefit from an enhanced
adult: child ratio. We join up with whole school events where appropriate and enjoy being part of St Rose’s community
and have access to the school minibuses to enable us to go out on trips and to experience the wider world. We have
excellent links to other professionals and work in partnership with other agencies such as therapists, advisory teachers
and educational psychologists. Our onsite physiotherapy, speech and language and occupational therapists who deliver
training to staff to be able to support children’s learning and development.

Impact
What difference does our curriculum make?

The Early Years Curriculum ensures that our children begin their learning journey through a range of opportunities,
activities and experiences. The early years team work hard to ensure they know the children extremely well. They
observe their play, development, learning needs and interests and the impact of the curriculum can be seen in:
• Tapestry evidence
• parental engagement and termly events
• behaviour
• small step achievements within EHCP outcomes
• achievement of EHCP outcomes
• assessment using Cherry Garden the Early Learning Goals

Assessment
When assessing the children we use the Cherry Garden assessment framework which is specifically designed for children
with special needs and disabilities. It enables us to demonstrate small steps of progress and achievement.

Cherry Garden builds on parts of the Routes for Learning framework and is child centred for students with SLD/PMLD
working at a level expected for typically developing children aged 0-5. It also maps to the Educational Programmes of
Early Years Foundation stage. We use Tapestry to record our evidence and share updates with parents and carers.
In nursery and reception the following assessment processes are followed: –
• Every child has an on entry assessment completed within the first six weeks of starting. This is observation
based.
• children’s learning and development. We will review our provision and assess if we need to make changes and
check individual plans to see if they need amendments. We will share this information with parents verbally
and by calling a TAC meeting if we need to make significant changes.
• At the mid year point and in July we will share a brief summary report via Tapestry of each child’s learning with
parents.
• We will complete the 2 Year Progress Check. This is a statutory progress check to be completed between 24 and
35 months.
• For all children robust and planned transitions take place to ensure that they are able to successfully move onto
the next stage in their educational journey.