Early Years Foundation Stage

At Buckingham, we provide a rich, supportive environment where children from 3 to 5 years old experience the very best of early years’ education. Our Nursery and Reception classes focus on creating a solid foundation for lifelong learning, guided by the principles of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS). This stage of education is centred around the individual needs, interests, and development of each child, ensuring they are socially, emotionally and academically equipped for the years ahead.

Our curriculum is designed to be both broad and balanced, offering a mix of structured learning and child-initiated activities. The goal is to foster curiosity, independence, and confidence. Children engage in a variety of experiences that support the development of key skills in literacy, numeracy, and social interaction, as well as emotional resilience. Expert early years’ teachers and practitioners work closely with the children to guide their growth and ensure that they feel safe, inspired, and motivated to learn.

By the time our children transition from Reception to Year One, they have developed strong foundations in reading, writing, and math, alongside the language and social skills that allow them to thrive both in and out of the classroom. We believe that through play, exploration, and positive adult interaction, children gain not just knowledge but a love for learning that will last throughout their educational journey.

Prime Areas act as the foundation for all learning and develop from positive relationships and experiences. They allow children to access all other areas of learning and acquisition of knowledge, skills and understanding.

• Personal, Social and Emotional
• Physical Development
• Communication and Language

Specific Areas provide experiences that broaden children’s knowledge and skills.

• Literacy
• Mathematics
• Understanding of the World
• Expressive Arts and Design

Assessment in the Early Years

• Each child’s development and progress is assessed and tracked from when they begin the Nursery class. These assessments are taken from teacher observations and interactions during normal day-to day play activities and interactions. The assessments inform planning, where teachers adapt activities to move on a child’s learning as well as planning for longer term goals.
• When children begin Reception, each child is assessed using the statutory baseline assessment. In the summer term of Reception, the EYFS Profile is completed for each child. The Profile provides parents and carers, practitioners and teachers with a well-rounded picture of a child’s knowledge, understanding and abilities, their attainment against expected levels, and their readiness for Year One. Each child’s level of development is assessed against the early learning goals. Teachers assess whether children are meeting expected levels of development, or if they are not yet reaching expected levels (‘emerging’). 

Settling and feeling safe

At Buckingham, ensuring every child feels safe and secure is our top priority. This foundation allows us to build positive relationships, meaningful learning experiences, and strong developmental progress. Safety is fostered through consistent routines, clear expectations, and mutual respect. Daily activities such as self-registration, structured play, independent learning, and whole-class sessions help children settle quickly, develop independence, and become ready to learn.

The importance of play 

Play is central to our Early Years practice, offering children the opportunity to learn independently and with others. A balanced mix of solo play, peer interaction, and adult guidance ensures meaningful learning. Play sparks moments of awe and wonder, fostering personal growth and development based on children’s interests. Our approach is thoughtfully designed to meet each child’s needs, blending high-quality play-based learning with targeted adult-led guidance for a holistic learning experience.

Adult-led learning

In addition to play-based learning, we prioritise the rigorous teaching of early literacy, phonics, reading, and numeracy through proven, age-appropriate programmes. From Nursery to Reception, children benefit from teacher-led guidance, balancing adult-led learning with child-initiated play. Daily sessions focus on phonics, writing, math, and topic-based learning, ensuring a well-rounded foundation. Teachers respond to children's individual needs by using a variety of strategies, including whole-class sessions, small group work, one-to-one teaching, and targeted interventions during play, to effectively deliver the curriculum.

Environment 

In order to learn, develop and be happy our children need space to grow. Our extensive indoor and outdoor facilities give each child the opportunity to explore, revisit and play in an environment that is specifically tailored to early learners. We prioritise high quality resources, materials and learning aids so that all children have access to quality independent and guided learning experiences. 

Parent/Carer Partnership

Parent/carer’s involvement in a child’s learning is essential for their success, regardless of background. When parents and school staff collaborate, it maximises children's outcomes and helps them reach their full potential.

At Buckingham, we believe that understanding how children experience our Early Years provision is key to building strong partnerships with parents and carers. We are committed to helping families engage with and support the curriculum by providing insights into their child’s learning journey. Through tools like Tapestry online journals, Google Classroom, workshops, fun sessions, and meetings, we ensure parents can fully appreciate and actively contribute to their child’s development.

Our approach

We know that high quality early years’ education has the power to make life changing differences to children. Therefore, our approach is clear; stimulate, support and challenge.

• We care that children settle, feel confident and independent to explore and learn. Teachers prioritise wellbeing and emotional security as they know these lead to good learning and development.
• We plan a curriculum and learning environment that is rich, broad and inspiring. Each child’s progress and next steps in learning are carefully monitored and supported by highly trained staff.
• We ensure progression of learning through the early years. We use teacher led learning and independent learning through play to ensure that children’s needs are met and that they are ready for Year One and the Key Stage One curriculum.

Underpinning our teaching and learning are the principles that:

• every child is a unique child, who is constantly learning and can be resilient, capable, confident and self-assured
• children learn to be strong and independent through positive relationships
• children learn and develop well in enabling environments with teaching and support from adults, who respond to their individual interests and needs and help them to build their learning over time. Children benefit from a strong partnership between practitioners and parents and/or carers.
• importance of learning and development. Children develop and learn at different rates. The framework covers the education and care of all children in early year’s provision, including children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).

What does learning look like at Buckingham?

At Buckingham, our youngest learners benefit from a nurturing and stimulating environment. Our staff are experts in early year’s provision so that we can ensure the highest quality of education is provided at this critical stage in development. A full curriculum is provided from when the children join us at 3 years old and works on a progress model through Nursery and Reception. Our school’s approach to delivering first-rate early years education ensures that key elements of the curriculum are enhanced so that our children achieve their best. 

Why do we enhance communication, language and literacy learning?

We know that communication, language and literacy are key factors in securing success in the future and therefore we place special emphasis on these areas of development during the early years by providing a language-rich environment and curriculum. We invest in the development of communication and language skills alongside personal and social development to ensure these critical factors to making progress are fully developed. 

How do we teach phonics and early reading? 

Phonics and Early Reading are prioritised as areas of learning in Reception. Children benefit from Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised programme as well as a rich diet of literacy based learning, shared and home reading experiences to develop a pleasure and competency in reading.

Why do we prioritise personal, social and emotional development?

We prioritise the happiness and wellbeing of our children. This approach is based on the knowledge that children learn and develop faster when they are happy and secure. Our classrooms and use of the outdoors ensure that children settle quickly and build positive relationships with our staff. Teachers and supporting adults, are trained and skilled in providing an emotionally supportive environment. We work towards excellent social and personal skills, high self-esteem and emotional literacy with all our children.