EYFS - Reception

Intent

At East Acton Primary, our Reception curriculum is designed to ensure that all children experience a rich, inclusive and ambitious start to their education. It builds strong foundations for lifelong learning by developing children’s knowledge, skills, independence and curiosity through meaningful experiences, high-quality interactions and carefully planned provision. We believe that early experiences shape children’s future success, and our curriculum is underpinned by our school values: be happy and healthy, be a positive citizen, aim high, achieve, and be a lifelong learner.

The curriculum is guided by the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework and informed by Development Matters, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and the principles of the Eco-Schools programme.

Our Curriculum:

• Is inclusive and ambitious, ensuring all children make strong progress from their starting points.
• Builds strong foundations in prime areas (Communication & Language, Personal, Social & Emotional Development, and Physical Development) while developing specific skills in literacy, maths, understanding the world, and expressive arts and design.
• Is rights-respecting, embedding knowledge of the UNCRC and promoting children’s understanding of their own rights and the rights of others.
• Fosters a sense of responsibility for our environment, aligned with our Eco-School principles and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
• Models and encourages the values outlined in the East Acton Way, including respect, kindness, responsibility, and care for our school community.

Child-centered and Inclusive

We recognise that every child arrives with different experiences, interests and starting points. Our curriculum is flexible and responsive so that all children, including those with SEND and EAL, can access learning and make strong progress. Practitioners adapt teaching, provision and support to ensure that every child feels valued, safe and able to succeed. We place a strong emphasis on developing children’s vocabulary, language and communication through high-quality interactions, storytelling, discussion and play.

Through this curriculum, we aim to ensure that all children leave Reception as confident, curious, independent learners, ready to thrive in Year 1 and beyond.

Implementation:

The Value of Play

We recognise that play is essential for children’s development, building their confidence as they learn to explore, relate to others, set their own goals, and solve problems. Children learn by leading their own play, and by taking part in play and learning that is guided by adults. Practitioners must stimulate children’s interests, responding to each child’s emerging needs and guiding their development through warm, positive interactions coupled with secure routines for play and learning.

Teachers and TAs consistently reflect on the different rates at which the children are developing and adjust their practice appropriately, recognising the three characteristics of effective teaching:

• Playing and exploring - children investigate and experience things, and ‘have a go’.
• Active learning - children concentrate and keep on trying if they encounter difficulties and enjoy achievements.
• Creating and thinking critically - children have and develop their own ideas, make links between ideas, and develop strategies for doing things.

Additional guidance and examples of how to support this see Appendix 2.

Practitioners use ongoing formative assessment through observation, interaction, and discussion to inform planning and adapt provision to meet children’s needs. As children move through the reception year, there is a greater focus on teaching the essential skills and knowledge in the specific areas of learning. This will help children to prepare for Key Stage 1.

Our Reception curriculum is structured around developmental lenses rather than themes. These lenses provide meaningful contexts for learning while ensuring that progression in knowledge and skills remains the primary driver of curriculum design.

Our curriculum is carefully sequenced, progressive, and spiral, balancing adult-led teaching with high-quality continuous provision that allows children to consolidate, apply, and extend their learning. Our curriculum is designed to ensure that all children build strong foundations for learning, wellbeing and future success. We prioritise early language and communication, systematic phonics for early reading, number sense, self-regulation, independence and resilience.

Key features include:

• Explicit teaching of phonics through the Essential Letters and Sounds programme, daily reading sessions, and carefully scaffolded writing activities.
• Progressive development across all seven areas of learning, with skills revisited and deepened each term to ensure mastery and readiness for Year 1.
• Integration of values, rights, and sustainability into learning experiences, ensuring children understand responsibility, fairness, kindness, and the impact of their actions.
• Carefully structured contexts for learning provide meaningful opportunities to apply and deepen knowledge, while the curriculum remains skills- and knowledge-led rather than theme-driven.
• A carefully designed environment, with resources and spaces that promote exploration, communication, problem-solving, creativity, and independence.
• Adult-led interventions and focused group teaching to support gaps, extend higher-attaining children, and provide opportunities for reflection, discussion, and consolidation.

Our curriculum moves from the child’s immediate experience (self, family, school) towards broader concepts (community, environment, past and present, global citizenship). Knowledge is deliberately sequenced so that children revisit key ideas such as belonging, change, responsibility and environment in increasingly sophisticated ways across the year.

High-Quality Interactions

Adults play a crucial role in supporting children’s learning. Practitioners carefully observe, listen and respond to children to extend thinking and develop understanding.

Through questioning, modelling and discussion, adults help children to:

• Develop language and vocabulary

• Reflect on their ideas

• Make connections in learning

• Build confidence in expressing themselves

Language-Rich Environment

Communication and language development is central to our curriculum. We provide a language-rich environment where children are encouraged to talk, listen, question and share ideas.

High-quality stories, rhymes, conversations and storytelling experiences help children to develop:

• Vocabulary

• Understanding

• Narrative skills

• Confidence in communication

Building Knowledge over time

Our curriculum is carefully sequenced so that children build knowledge and understanding progressively throughout the year. Learning is revisited and deepened through meaningful contexts that allow children to make connections between experiences.

Children develop a growing understanding of:

• Themselves and their families

• Their school and local community

• The wider world and different cultures

• The natural environment and seasonal change

Impact:

By the end of Reception, children at East Acton Primary will meet the Early Learning Goals, showing secure foundations in all seven areas of learning. The ELG support teachers to make a holistic, best-fit judgement about a child’s development at the end of the EYFS and their readiness for year 1.

When forming a judgement about whether an individual child is at the expected level of development, teachers should draw on their knowledge of the child and their own expert professional judgement. This is sufficient evidence to assess a child’s individual level of development in relation to each of the ELGs. Recorded, written or photographic evidence is not required

By the end of Reception, we expect our pupils to:

• Be confident communicators, able to express themselves, listen respectfully, and engage in discussion.
• Demonstrate self-regulation, independence, and resilience, able to manage emotions and social interactions positively.
• Be enthusiastic early readers and writers, applying phonics skills accurately and writing with purpose.
• Have a strong number sense, able to reason mathematically and apply maths in practical contexts.
• Understand and demonstrate rights, responsibilities, and sustainability, reflecting our Rights Respecting ethos, Eco-School values, and East Acton Way.
• Demonstrate increasing independence, sustained attention, and ability to apply knowledge across contexts.
• Be prepared emotionally, socially, and academically for the transition to Year 1, demonstrating curiosity, creativity, and a love of learning.

Curriculum Journey in Reception

Our Reception curriculum is carefully sequenced to move from children’s immediate experiences towards wider concepts and abstract understanding. Knowledge is revisited and deepened through carefully sequenced experiences across the year, enabling children to make connections between past learning and new concepts. In the Autumn term, learning centres on identity, belonging, and immediate environment (self, family, school). In Spring, children extend their understanding to community, growth, and responsibility. By Summer, they explore change over time, the natural world, and wider global connections.

Preparing for the next stage

The Reception curriculum provides strong foundations for transition into Year 1. Children develop the skills, knowledge and attitudes needed to become confident, independent learners who are ready for the next stage of their education.

By the end of Reception, children are supported to:

• Manage their own learning and behaviour

• Work collaboratively with others

• Apply key skills across different contexts

• Demonstrate curiosity, resilience and independence

Children leave Reception not only having met the Early Learning Goals, but demonstrating increasing independence, sustained attention, flexibility of thinking, and the ability to apply knowledge across contexts. They are prepared emotionally, socially, and academically for the expectations of Year 1.