Early Years Foundation Stage (Nursery & Reception) 🌿

Curriculum Intent, Implementation & Impact Statement

1. Intent: Making a Stronger Start 🌱

At Marlborough St Mary’s Primary School, our integrated Nursery and Reception provision delivers a secure, ambitious, and deeply nurturing beginning to every child’s educational journey. Grounded in the Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS), our curriculum is built on a clear conviction: every child deserves to make a stronger start, and high-quality early experiences provide the essential foundation to thrive throughout school and life 💫.

School Vision & Core Values 🌟

Our Early Years vision directly reflects our whole-school ethos: to be an inclusive, joyful, and thriving school at the heart of our local community 🏡. Guided by our school values—Respect, Love, Courage, Friendship, Fairness, and Perseverance—we empower children to become confident, independent learners who care for themselves, each other, and the environment. We embrace every child’s brilliance, courage, and kindness under our central rule: Safe, Happy, Learn 💖.

Our 4 Curriculum Drivers 🚀

To ensure our children overcome potential barriers and flourish from their unique starting points, our Early Years curriculum is deliberately shaped around four core drivers:

• TALK (Communication & Language) 💬: Writing floats on a sea of talk—and so does early confidence, emotional regulation, and social connection. We place communication and language at the absolute center of our provision, developing rich vocabulary and listening skills through sustained shared thinking, warm interactions, stories, rhymes, and low-stakes verbal expression.

• READ (Literacy, Vocabulary & Phonics) 📚: Reading is the heartbeat of our early curriculum. From Nursery onwards, we foster a deep love of books, stories, and language alongside systematic synthetic phonics (Little Wandle) in Reception, laying the foundations for confident, fluent readers 🔡.

• CONNECTION (Community, Inclusion & Belonging) 🤝: Every child is known, valued, and safe. We build strong, meaningful connections between home, Nursery, Reception, and Key Stage 1, while developing children’s connection to the town of Marlborough, its natural environment, and our diverse world 🌍.

• JOY (Wellbeing, Curiosity & Play) ✨: Happiness and wellbeing come first. We believe early learning should be rich, vibrant, and filled with awe and wonder 🎉. Rooted in our 5 to Thrive trauma-informed approach, we protect the sheer joy of childhood exploration, curiosity, and play 🎨.

 

2. Implementation: How Our Curriculum Comes to Life 🛠️

Our integrated Nursery and Reception model provides seamless continuity, progression, and early identification. We strike an intentional balance between high-quality adult-led instruction, targeted small-group learning, and rich child-initiated play 🧩.

Pedagogical Approach 💡

Learning in EYFS is brought to life through three primary pathways: words, graphics, and real-world experiences, elevated by emotions like curiosity and delight 😃.

• Small Steps & Cognitive Load 🧠: Learning is broken down into small, manageable steps with clear models and scaffolding, allowing young brains to chunk key knowledge into long-term memory without overloading working memory.

• Responsive Scaffolding 🪜: We teach to the top and scaffold as needed. Rapid "keep-up and catch-up" interventions address emerging needs immediately, ensuring no child is left behind.

• Early Identification 🔍: Our Nursery model allows us to identify strengths, emerging SEND, or language gaps at the earliest point, establishing early partnership with parents, our SENCo, and external agencies.

Key Implementation Pillars 🏛️

 

Pillar	Practice & Provision
Hygge & Enabling Environments ☕	Inspired by the Danish concept of Hygge, our indoor spaces are calm, warm, and inviting—utilizing natural materials, soft lighting, and cozy nooks. Outdoor spaces serve as equal learning spaces, offering daily opportunities for physical risk, seasonal discovery, and environmental connection 🍃.
Play & Continuous Provision 🎨	Play is the fundamental mechanism through which children test hypotheses, practise language, build relationships, and solve problems. Open-ended resources and provocations encourage critical thinking and independence 🔍.
Phonics & Early Mathematics 🔢	Systematic, daily phonics instruction builds phonological awareness and early decoding 📖. Early mathematics is practical and active, building deep, conceptual understanding of number pattern, spatial reasoning, and subitising.
Relational Safeguarding & Wellbeing ❤️	We adhere rigorously to statutory welfare and safeguarding requirements. Using 5 to Thrive principles, staff cultivate co-regulation, emotional literacy, and self-worth, ensuring every child feels secure and heard 🛡️.
Partnership with Families 🤝	Parents are children's first and most enduring educators. Transition events, home-school communications, workshops, and continuous dialogue ensure a shared journey from entry into Nursery through to Reception completion 🌼.

3. Impact: Flourishing Learners 🌈

The impact of our Early Years curriculum is evident in happy, resilient, articulate, and curious children who show a genuine enthusiasm for learning and a secure sense of belonging ❤️.

Purposeful Assessment 📊

Assessment in EYFS is simple, manageable, and purposeful. It is based on ongoing observation, authentic interactions, and professional knowledge of each child. We track progress from individual starting points three times a year, using insights to adapt provision instantly rather than collecting data for its own sake.

End of Reception Outcomes 🎓

By the end of the Early Years Foundation Stage, our children:

1. Communicate with Confidence (TALK) 🗣️: Express their thoughts, feelings, and ideas articulately, holding rich conversations and demonstrating strong vocabulary across contexts.

2. Demonstrate Early Literacy Mastery (READ) 📖: Show a deep love of stories, strong phonological awareness, and the foundational decoding/comprehension skills needed for Key Stage 1.

3. Belong & Connect (CONNECTION) 🤝: Show empathy, respect, and pride in themselves and their community, building positive relationships and celebrating diverse backgrounds 🌍.

4. Approach Learning with Enthusiasm (JOY) 🎉: Demonstrate resilience, self-regulation, curiosity, and independence, taking pride in their personal achievements 🌟.

5. Achieve Secure Foundations 🏆: Reach expected levels of physical strength, mathematical fluency, creative expression, and critical thinking required to make a smooth transition into Year 1.

The Early Years Promise 🌈: Know every child well, know every family well, and respond early. When children are given the right foundations, relationships, and opportunities, they are empowered to Be Brilliant, Be Bold, Be Kind, and together Believe, Learn and Achieve. ⭐