Welcome to our Early Years. At London Colney, we believe in children having the strongest start to their education as possible and place a strong emphasis on our Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS).
On this page you will find out about our learning ethos and what the Early Years Foundation Stage entails including looking at each area of learning, the characteristics of effective learning and our process of observation and assessment.
Meet Our Team
Our EYFS is made up of our Nursery and Reception class and is taught and lead by teachers and staff who know each and every child in their care.
Our Early Years Lead and Nursery Teacher is Hannah Sesstein Hogg and our Reception Class Teacher is Mia Janes.
Our Lead Practitioner is Domenica Torrano and our Learning Support Assistant is Chloe Joyce.
Our Learning Ethos
Our ethos in the Early Years at London Colney is that children learn best when learning through their own play and interests. We create a strong balance between child initiated learning and adult led activities. The ethos of learning through play in early years education emphasizes the importance of play as a central part of a child’s development. It recognizes that children learn best when they are actively engaged in playful, meaningful experiences that stimulate their curiosity, imagination, and creativity.
“Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But, for children, play is serious learning. Play really is the work of childhood” – Fred Rogers
Here are some key ideas that underpin this approach:
- Active Exploration and Hands-On Learning
Children learn through engaging with the world around them. Play allows children to explore concepts, test out ideas, and make sense of their surroundings. This active engagement supports cognitive, social, emotional, and physical development.
- Development of Social Skills
Through play, children learn to share, take turns, negotiate, and cooperate with others. These social interactions are vital for their emotional development and for understanding how to function in a community.
- Encouraging Creativity and Imagination
Play fosters creativity by encouraging children to imagine new scenarios, problem-solve, and come up with original ideas. It helps them build critical thinking skills and boosts their confidence in exploring new ways of doing things.
- Intrinsic Motivation and Joy in Learning
When children are given the freedom to play, they are often intrinsically motivated and naturally curious. This joy in learning lays the foundation for a lifelong love of learning, making it a more effective method than traditional, structured forms of education.
- Developing Emotional Intelligence
Through role-playing, storytelling, and collaborative play, children begin to understand and express their emotions. They also develop empathy as they take on different roles and perspectives during play.
- Supporting Individual Needs and Interests
Learning through play allows educators to cater to children’s individual interests and developmental stages. It provides a flexible approach that can meet diverse needs and learning styles.
- Physical Development
Many types of play involve physical activity, helping children develop motor skills, coordination, and overall health. Outdoor play or structured physical activities allow children to gain strength, balance, and spatial awareness.
- A Holistic Approach to Development
Learning through play is an integrated approach that recognizes the interconnectedness of different areas of development: cognitive, emotional, social, and physical. It emphasizes the whole child and their overall well-being.
- Scaffolding and Support from Adults
While play is child-directed, adults play a key role in supporting learning. Educators provide appropriate challenges, resources, and guidance while allowing children to take the lead and explore at their own pace.
- Link to Early Years Frameworks
The EYFS framework approaches, place play at the heart of the learning process. These frameworks highlight the importance of play in fostering all areas of a child’s development.
Our leaders design a curriculum that is ambitious and focused on providing children, especially those who are most disadvantaged, with the knowledge, self-belief, and cultural capital they need to succeed. This is reflected in our curriculum and teaching guidance, which explains the rationale behind our curriculum decisions. We regularly monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of our approach through a comprehensive school improvement plan, supported by data analysis, which highlights the impact on pupil attainment and progress.
A key priority is ensuring that our children develop a wide vocabulary, communicate confidently, and, in Reception, gain a strong understanding of phonics. This foundation is essential for becoming confident and fluent readers. The curriculum and teaching guidance clearly outline how phonics is taught in EYFS, and we track progress through phonics assessments. Key vocabulary is incorporated into planning, and our teachers create ‘language-rich’ environments to support language development. We place great emphasis on talk and stories, with role play playing a central role in developing children’s vocabulary and language skills.
The Early Years Curriculum
Our curriculum is carefully planned and sequenced, building on what children already know and can do. It leads to the cumulative development of knowledge and skills, preparing children for future learning. The curriculum overview is mapped to ensure all areas of learning are covered, enabling children to progress throughout the year. Our purposeful planning is logical, systematic, and becomes increasingly challenging as the year progresses, reinforcing prior learning.
The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) refers to the framework that sets the standards for the learning, development, and care of children from birth to age 5* in the UK. It outlines what children should learn and how this should be supported, ensuring that they receive a solid foundation for future education.
The EYFS framework is used by all early years providers, including nurseries, pre-schools, and reception classes in schools. It covers various aspects of a child’s development and sets expectations for learning in areas such as:
Prime Areas of Learning
- Communication and Language
Play helps children to develop their processes of learning and talking to them gives us the opportunity to model language and support the children to build their vocabulary. The adults in the classroom are very experienced in providing children with rich language experiences and opportunities to extend their vocabulary, engage in conversation, organise their thoughts and use language creatively. Opportunities for social interactions, frequent short interactive carpet sessions and questioning allow children lots of chances to develop their listening skills.
- Physical Development
Physical development is about strengthening the whole body to be able to run, jump, hop, climb, ride a bike and hold a pencil and write. The EYFS framework emphasizes the importance of both gross motor skills (larger movements involving the whole body) and fine motor skills (smaller, more precise movements with hands and fingers).
- Personal, Social and Emotional Development (PSED)
Personal, Social, and Emotional Development (PSED) is one of the Prime Areas of Learning. It focuses on helping children develop the skills they need to build relationships, understand their own emotions, and interact positively with others. This area is crucial for supporting children’s emotional well-being, confidence, self-regulation, and their ability to work and play in groups.
Specific Areas of Learning
- Literacy
This area of the EYFS focuses on helping children develop the skills they need for reading and writing, laying the foundation for lifelong literacy development. Literacy in the EYFS aims to develop a love of reading and writing in children while building the skills they need to understand and use language effectively. By focusing on phonics, comprehension, writing, and storytelling, children begin to build a strong foundation for future literacy success.
- Mathematics
Mathematics in the EYFS provides children with a strong foundation in key concepts such as counting, number recognition, shape, space, and measurement. Through play, exploration, and everyday experiences, children develop essential skills that will support their future mathematical learning.
- Understanding the World
This area of the curriculum focuses on helping young children explore and make sense of the world around them. It involves developing a curiosity about their environment, learning about people, places, and the natural world, and understanding how things work. This area fosters children’s ability to observe, question, and explore different aspects of their world.
- Expressive Arts and Design
This area is about encouraging children to explore and express their creativity through a variety of art forms, including visual arts, music, dance, and role play. It provides opportunities for children to explore their imagination, develop their ideas, and express themselves in different ways.
Characteristics of Effective Learning
The Characteristics of Effective Learning describe the ways in which children engage with their learning. These characteristics focus on how children learn and the approaches they take to engage with new experiences, challenges, and activities. Understanding these characteristics helps educators support children’s learning and development in meaningful ways.
Our Learning Environments
Our learning environment is a carefully designed space that promotes learning, exploration, and development for young children. It is a safe, stimulating, and inclusive environment that encourages children to engage in hands-on experiences, fostering their curiosity, creativity, and independence.
The environment should be rich in opportunities for play, exploration, and discovery, with a variety of materials and resources that are easily accessible. It should support all areas of learning in the EYFS framework, ensuring children have opportunities to develop socially, emotionally, cognitively, physically, and creatively.
Phonics at London Colney Primary
At London Colney Primary we use Little Wandle Phonics. Little Wandle is a structured, systematic phonics program designed to help young children develop strong reading and writing skills. The program focuses on teaching children to recognize and blend phonemes (sounds) to decode words, supporting their ability to read fluently and write confidently. It follows a clear progression, beginning with the basics of letter sounds and gradually building up to more complex phonics patterns as children become more confident readers.
Little Wandle Letters and Sounds
Assessment and Observation
Assessment and observation in the Early Years are essential tools for supporting and understanding young children’s development. These processes help educators plan appropriate learning experiences, identify children’s needs, and track their progress. In the EYFS (Early Years Foundation Stage), assessment and observation are focused on the individual child, their learning journey, and their well-being.
We assess phonics progress half-termly, with evidence of learning gathered through Tapestry assessments, pupils’ work, reading books, and observations. Our expectations are high for all children, with a particular focus on meeting the needs of those with SEN and/or disabilities. For these children, the curriculum is designed to be ambitious and tailored to their individual needs. Teachers set challenging, aspirational targets for every child, and pupil progress data demonstrates the growth of children across all abilities. The impact of interventions is tracked alongside SENCo support.
The Reception Baseline Assessment (RBA) is a short, one-to-one activity that children take part in during their first few weeks of Reception. It’s designed to help teachers understand each child’s starting point in areas like early literacy, language, and maths. The assessment is practical and play-based, and most children enjoy the tasks without even realizing they’re being assessed. The results are not shared with children or parents, and they don’t affect your child’s progress in school — they simply provide a helpful baseline so schools can measure the progress children make throughout their time in primary school.