The Early Years Curriculum is based upon four principles:

  • A Unique Child - Developing resilient, capable, confident, and self-assured individuals.
  • Positive Relationships - Supporting the children and becoming strong and independent.
  • Enabling Environments - Where opportunities and experiences respond to the individual needs of the child by developing a strong partnership between practitioners, parents, and the child.
  • Learning and Developing - An acknowledgment that children learn in different ways and at different rates.

The EYFS statutory framework is divided into 7 areas of learning and development. Each of these areas are important as they are all interconnected. We use these to shape our curriculum and to determine what children should learn and how children's learning and development will be supported through each of these 7 areas.

Characteristics Of Effective Learning

Planning for the learning landscape (inside and outside), interest points, and next steps will reflect on the different ways that children learn and echo these in their practice. At Southwold School, we support children in using the three characteristics of effective learning. These are:

  • Playing and Exploring- Children investigate and experience things and have a go.
  • Active Learning- Children concentrate and keep on trying if they encounter difficulties and enjoy achievements.
  • Creating and thinking critically- Children have and develop their own ideas, make links between ideas, and develop strategies for doing things.

Learning At Southwold Is Great Fun. We Offer:

  • A rich, engaging curriculum where learning extends to the outdoor classroom, and we embrace the 'whole child.'
  • A cross curricular approach that inspires curiosity, questioning, exploration, investigation, and imagination.
  • Storytelling sessions where children learn stories by heart through retelling, puppet work, hot seating, and story mapping.
  • Phonics sessions that are upbeat, active, and engaging
  • Lots of opportunities for messy play, designing, creating, and reviewing.
  • Enabling mastery in Maths using equipment- encouraging children to learn how to do or recognise and go on to apply it to their play, securing and deepening along the way.