The Foundation Stage at Mayfield
Our aim here at Mayfield is to ensure that children in the Foundation Stage feel safe, secure and happy in an environment that builds upon their individual interests, ideas and needs.
Children’s emotional wellbeing is of the utmost importance to us and we highly value creating a positive and nurturing start to their school lives. Children build strong relationships and bonds with the adults ensuring they feel cared for and valued, allowing them to explore and learn.
They develop good communication skills through positive interaction with both adults and other children, these interactions may not always be verbal as we have a higher that average number of children with hearing impairments who attend Mayfield; we learn to sign alongside reading in phonics which provides children with an amazing life skill.
Through our approach of following the children’s interests, they develop lively, enquiring minds with a love of learning which develops into a lifetime of curiosity.
Children are given time and ample opportunities to ask questions and be interested in the answers, to solve problems and think critically.
With support from skilled adults the children develop their knowledge and skills to their full potential in every area of the curriculum so they can grow into independent, self-motivated, caring and resilient members of society. At every opportunity children connect their learning with real life experiences, linking new knowledge and skills to their own lives to establish a solid foundation for future learning. 
There are seven areas of learning within the Early Years Foundation Stage and these are split between prime and specific areas of learning.
The prime areas of learning are:
- communication and language
- physical development
- personal, social and emotional development
The specific areas of learning are:
- literacy
- mathematics
- understanding the world
- expressive arts and design
Assessments
We ‘assess’ children through observations. We play with them, talk to them, as them questions, challenge them to develop their understanding.
At the end of the academic year when they turn 5 practitioners must make judgements on whether children have nearly met, met, or exceeded the ‘Early Learning Goals’. These are not tests for the child – the assessments are based on practitioners’ observations and knowledge of the children.
Information from these assessments is used for parents, practitioners and teachers to support children’s learning and development.
Further Information for Parents
Read more about EYFS for parents on the Foundation Years website. It shows you how you can support your child during the foundation years and what you can expect from the professionals working with your child.
top
The Outdoors
At Mayfield we highly value outdoor exploration. This means we spend long, extended periods of time out of doors, whatever the weather. We therefore require children to have suitable clothing for this. Hats, mittens and a really warm waterproof coat are an absolute MUST in cold weather, as well as warm socks for inside their wellington boots. The following link has information on how best to layer clothes and top tips for keeping warm: There’s no such thing as bad weather only bad clothing.
Equally, sunhats, sunscreen and water bottles are necessary in the summer months!
Tapestry Online Learning Journal
We use an online system to record and share children’s learning and development at school and at home. Watch the presentation below to find out more about Tapestry.
Plans and Reading Lists
You can find our latest curriculum plans, reading lists and other useful information on our year group page HERE
Useful Documents
These documents may be of interest to Reception parents: