Early Years - a Strong Start

Our Intent for the Early Years Foundation Stage - building a 'Strong Foundation'

At Cuddington, children’s wellbeing is at the heart of everything we do.

We create a safe, happy, and inspiring environment where every child’s interests and backgrounds are celebrated.

Through carefully planned activities and a supportive environment, we foster independence, resilience, and respect in all children, encouraging them to persevere, take pride in their efforts, and achieve their goals.

Implementation in the Early Years

Our curriculum is based around the seven areas of learning and development:

Communication and language

Physical development

Personal, emotional and social development

Literacy

Mathematics

Understanding the world

Expressive Arts and Design

We also use the Characteristics of Effective Learning as a foundation for our children to build confidence, curiosity and resilience.

The Environment

Our classroom is more than a space – it’s where children feel safe, build relationships, and express themselves. Carefully planned to match their needs and interests, it’s filled with high-quality, open-ended resources that spark curiosity, independence, and respect.

Outdoors, children explore, create, problem-solve, and take risks in a space designed for physical growth, teamwork, and imagination.

Through continuous provision, we set up open-ended provocations to inspire play and discovery, alongside purposeful activities that guide learning. Staff observe, question, and join in play to deepen knowledge and nurture progress.

Planning and Teaching

Our curriculum blends structure with flexibility. Each half-term has an overview of topics, supported by weekly plans covering daily phonics, literacy, and maths. We balance adult-led teaching with child-led exploration, giving children time to immerse themselves in play and learning.

We also use in-the-moment planning, following children’s interests as they arise - whether inspired by a storybook or an ambulance passing by. From the Spring Term, children take on Rainbow Challenges to build independence.

Literacy is taught through a language-rich environment with daily storytelling, Talk for Writing, and phonics delivered via the ELS scheme. Children practise reading with decodable books matched to their sounds and are encouraged to read daily at home.

Maths is taught using the White Rose scheme, with daily inputs in Reception to build fluency and confidence. Rich environments and adult interactions encourage mathematical thinking and problem-solving.

Play

Play is central to our curriculum - joyful, meaningful, and hands-on. Through play, children gain knowledge, practise skills, and take ownership of their learning.

Impact in the Early Years

Our child-led, creative curriculum gives children the skills they need for their learning journey - problem solving, resilience, confidence, and communication—while ensuring they feel safe, secure, and happy in school.

Progress is tracked through ongoing assessments, with final judgments made at the end of Reception against the statutory Early Learning Goals. Results are shared with parents in an end-of-year report and moderated across our trust for consistency.

Working Together

We value strong partnerships with parents. Your child’s home experiences help build a full picture of their development. Parents are invited to join us regularly to play and explore with their child, and we use ClassDojo to share learning, photos and achievements from school.