Our Curriculum at Springfield

At Springfield, our Early Years celebrates each unique child, ensuring they feel safe, understood and valued from the moment they arrive. Through warm, responsive interactions and a strong focus on communication and language, our staff build children’s confidence and support them to express their ideas, needs and thinking clearly. Play is at the centre of our curriculum and acts as a powerful vehicle for learning—children explore, imagine, problem‑solve and build knowledge through well‑planned, purposeful play both indoors and outdoors, supported by skilled adults who extend language and learning in the moment. Our provision is shaped around our diverse community and thoughtfully designed to develop early communication, personal and social growth, and physical development, giving every child the foundations they need for future success.

Key EYFS Documentation

Our Early Years curriculum is shaped by the statutory guidance schools must follow. The most important documents include:

• EYFS Statutory Framework – sets the required standards for learning, development, assessment, safeguarding and welfare for children from birth to five. 
• Development Matters – non‑statutory guidance that helps us plan a broad, sequenced curriculum and understand children’s development.
• Reception Baseline Assessment (RBA) and EYFS Profile (EYFSP) – statutory assessment points at the start and end of Reception, set out within the EYFS requirements.

     (document links below)

EYFS Areas of Learning

Children learn through a balance of play, exploration and focused teaching across the seven statutory EYFS areas:

• Communication and Language
• Personal, Social and Emotional Development
• Physical Development
• Literacy
• Mathematics
• Understanding the World
• Expressive Arts and Design

Early Learning Goals (ELGs)

At the end of Reception year, the children will be assessed against the 17 early learning goals across 7 areas of learning in the EYFS statutory framework.  For each ELG, teachers must assess whether a child is meeting the level of development expected at the end of the EYFS, or if they are not yet reaching this level and should be assessed as ‘emerging’.  The document below explains what children are expected to be doing to be working at an expected level.  If children are not quite ready to meet these goals, they will be emerging and will continue to work on them as they make the transition into Year One. 

Reception Baseline Assessment

Your child will participate in the reception baseline assessment (RBA) within the first 6 weeks of starting reception. The purpose of the assessment is to provide the starting point for a progress measure that will help parents understand how well schools support their pupils to progress between reception and year 6.