Our Curriculum Intent

Newbold Church School and The Nest Nursery’s Mission Statement is:

“By nurturing academic achievement and social development in a supportive Christian environment, we will cherish individual talents and abilities, enabling everyone at our school to successfully fulfil their potential.”

Nurture - Encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing. Thessalonians 5:11

Cherish - Jesus said "Love one another.  Just as I have loved you, you should also love one another." John 13:34

Succeed - Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Galatians 6:9

In our Early Years Foundation Stage our personalised and tailored curriculum provides all children with the knowledge, skills and understanding they need to be confident, inquisitive, curious, independent learners and influence their wider thinking across all areas of the curriculum.

We believe that providing an education that does all of this gives children the best chance to become well-rounded, happy individuals, ready to succeed in an ever-changing world.

We will make a positive difference to every child’s life. We recognise the importance of giving our children the best possible start to their education by planning and implementing teaching and learning opportunities that supports them in reaching their full potential and fulfilling their dreams.

Our intent is to give children time to develop their thinking and learning through their interests and respond to provocations. This means that the children are highly motivated to learn. They are supported to develop key aspects such as reasoning, evaluation, creativity, enquiry, problem solving and information processing. This will help both now in their own explorations and application of knowledge but also throughout their education.  Our intent is that our teaching is flexible to enable us to meet the children’s changing needs and interests at any point in time.

Our 3 core values of Nurture, Cherish, Succeed, drive our creative curriculum and underpin all that we do throughout school.

Nurture: Children at Newbold Church School and the Nest Nursery are supported to nurture each other, support their peers to succeed and develop a caring attitude to others, their environment and learning. We as adults nurture our children to be the best they can be. Through the experiences our curriculum offers, our children’s ambitions and aspirations are unlocked. These experiences allow them as individuals to develop their own passions and interests and become invested in their learning leading to a sense of drive and motivation which allows them to reach their potential and achieve their dreams.

Cherish: Children at Newbold Church School and the Nest Nursery learn to cherish all those around them and be proud of their local community. They understand the importance of their actions and the part they play in the diverse wider world. Through a strong self-belief leading to a positive physical and mental well-being our children are equipped to take risks and overcome any challenges they may face. Children will leave Early Years as compassionate individuals with a developing understanding that everyone should be cherished, valued and respected therefore preparing them for life in modern Britain.

Succeed: Through our personalised and tailored curriculum, children in Early Years are taught to be responsible, resilient citizens who embrace challenge and feel success. Memorable learning experiences allow our children to retain knowledge, apply skills and develop links in their understanding. In turn, children leave Early Years with a developing independence.

How we plan to implement this:

At Newbold Church School and the Nest Nursery we aim to provide motivating first-hand experiences whilst encouraging children to build resilience, ambition and a lifelong love of learning.

The curriculum for the EYFS is constructed around the needs of the children. It is ambitious and matches the statutory framework for the EYFS. This means children leave the EYFS with a solid foundation of learning of which to build upon in the later years at school.

We follow the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) guidance and support children’s development under the seven areas of learning. These are:

• Personal, Social and Emotional Development – fostering children’s confidence, independence and social skills with peers and adults.
• Communication and Language – developing children’s oral language skills, broadening their vocabulary and understanding of the English language.
• Physical Development – providing opportunities in physical education lessons as well as through daily provision for children to develop their gross and fine motor skills, in preparation for developing their reading, numeracy and writing skills.
• Literacy – using a variety of strategies including phonics, story times, Pie Corbett story telling techniques, guided reading and play based approaches to support early reading and writing.
• Mathematics – using songs and games to develop early numeracy skills including counting, subitising, number bonds and facts, addition, subtraction, sharing, creating patterns, measuring and manipulating numbers and shapes.
• Expressive Arts and Design – giving children opportunities to develop their skills and imagination in art, dance, music and drama.
• Understanding the World – exploring the natural world, science and our communities in age-appropriate ways such as visits to church, gardening and cooking.

We actively encourage children to participate in the planning process by influencing the direction that our themes take. The planning for our play-based curriculum is informed by the use of observational assessment and the needs and interests of the children. We also utilise our Children’s Council in Reception to actively listen to children’s voices and directly use their ideas in the planning of activities, themes and resources. We believe that the children are the architects of their own learning and therefore should be included in their direction.

Building on what the children already know and understand enables them to develop and make progress. Play allows the children to explore, investigate and re-enact in an environment where they are free from fear and judgement. It’s through play children become socially adept while developing mastery in numeracy and literacy.  It helps fine and gross motor skills development and helps develop core stability which in turn helps children to learn how to write and supports creative growth.

The expectations for all children in the school are high, no matter what their needs or background are. All children are encouraged to aspire to reach the standards set for them and are encouraged by knowledgeable staff to achieve.

The Enabling Environment allows children to learn successfully in the EYFS, the following are all important resources to support this learning:

• Communication Friendly Spaces approach
• Indoor and outdoor environments and opportunities are equally valued
• Open-ended and natural resources are utilised to help children to plan their own learning
• Forest School onsite allows children to experience real life natural experiences
• Quality resources which children can access independently
• Carefully planned and evaluated visits and visitors to the school to enhance learning experiences and support each child’s cultural capital.

We recognise the importance of providing our children with a stimulating learning environment. This is enabled by good quality provision and clearly organised open-ended resources, both outside and in.  We use natural colours and furnishings to create a calming, safe and secure space that helps the children feel free while at the same time enabling them to concentrate better when they need to. Whether they are counting shells, making potions or climbing on the activity trail, your child will be developing problem solving skills, self-awareness and all the while becoming happy, confident individuals who will go on to make a positive and valuable contribution to society.

In order to provide the best education for our youngest children the teaching staff use ‘In the Moment Planning’ - recognising the importance of teachable moments. Staff observe and wait for the teachable moment with responses positively enhancing the play and developing the learning. Next steps are identified and modelled in the moment, to keep learning real and relevant to the child at that moment in time. This enables the learning to be specifically tailored to the child’s needs then and there, thus challenging and/or supporting the child to take the next step, either learning a new skill or knowledge, applying this further or embedding it to enable this to become part of the children’s working memory for them to use independently at a later date. 

Children in EYFS learn by playing and exploring, being active and thinking critically and creatively and this takes place both indoors and in our outdoor areas. Our outdoor area is open all year round and in all but the most challenging weather conditions. Children make their own decisions about where they learn best and teachers ensure that there are opportunities for all areas of learning both inside and outside. With good organisation and practitioners who really understand the way that young children learn, we have the capacity to provide the very best learning experience possible for our youngest children here at Newbold Church School and The Nest Nursery.

We provide effective and focused interventions for those children who are finding learning challenging and are not on track to meet expectations at the end of the year. This will be provided in an inclusive way. Support from parents is enlisted at an early stage to ensure that the children have every chance to achieve the Early Learning Goals, providing them with the strong foundation they need for the rest of their school journey.

The EYFS team collect evidence of children’s learning through observations, photos and videos which are shared with parents using the Evidence Me online system. This means that parents can engage with children regularly about their learning and can contribute to the knowledge we have of the child in school. Parents are very active and love to use Evidence Me to record the milestones children make at home during the year.

We work tirelessly to ensure that children are in a kind, caring and happy environment which helps them develop the same skills in their journey through school. It is a positive place to be where resilience, perseverance and successes are celebrated and every child feels valued and respected.

Impact of our curriculum

We measure progress and children’s learning across the year through formative and summative assessment which are based on the teacher’s knowledge of the child, their learning journeys, photographs and videos on Evidence Me.

Children achieve well in the Early Years and by the end of Reception are ready for their transition to Year 1. Children with lower starting points make good progress and begin to close the gaps. Most children achieve in the early learning goals effectively, particularly in PSED, PD and EAD.  This means they have the personal, physical and social skills to achieve well in Year 1. Children also have a good understanding of right and wrong.

The impact of the EYFS curriculum is reflected in our children being well-rounded, happy and confident when transitioning into Year 1. Children in our EYFS have positive attitudes to learning and are willing to try and learn new knowledge. Their skills of curiosity, concentration and enjoyment of learning develop well over the time they are within the early years.

Updated August 2023