Biscovey Nursery and Infants' Academy

Early Years Foundation Stage

At Biscovey Nursery and Infants’ Academy we are dedicated to giving children the best start to their academic careers.

We follow the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) framework which sets standards for the learning, development and care of children from birth to 5 years old. It provides children with the wide range of knowledge and skills that provide a secure foundation for their academic careers and plants the roots to support progress through school and their life to come.

There are seven areas of learning and development that make up the Early Years Foundation Stage.

Three areas are particularly crucial for building children’s capacity to learn, form relationships and thrive. These three areas are known as the prime areas;

      Communication and language;

      Physical development; and
      Personal, social and emotional development.

These areas are the main areas of focus for children in Honeybees and Bumble Bees (our onsite Nursery)

In addition, there are four specific areas through which the three prime areas are strengthened and applied. These are:

      Literacy;
      Mathematics;
      Understanding the world; and
      Expressive arts and design.

Underpinning everything that we do in the early years are the ‘Characteristics of Effective Learning’, which are;

      Playing and exploring – children use all their senses to investigate and explore
      Active learning- children concentrate and keep on trying
      Creating and thinking critically-children develop their own ideas and problem-solving skills.

To support children’s development, teachers consider the individual needs, interests and each child’s stage of development. They then use this information to provide a challenging and inspiring curriculum for all children. The EYFS is a play-based curriculum, where practitioners use a mix of adult-led and child-initiated activities each day.

 Observation and Assessment

To enable use to support every child’s next steps in their learning, ongoing assessment is fundamental. This involves practitioners observing children throughout the day to assess progress and achievement across all areas of learning and development. We use an online learning journey called Tapestry to record this learning.

At Biscovey we work hard to develop very strong partnerships with parents/carers. Tapestry enables us to share a child’s learning journal online with their parents. Parents are able to add photos, videos and comments from home at any point during the year. 

At the end of the EYFS teachers complete an EYFS profile summarising a child’s knowledge, understanding and abilities in all areas of the curriculum. This is shared with both parents and Year One teachers, to support a smooth transition into the next year group.