Our EYFS Vision and Curriculum  

Vision and Curriculum

In the Early Years Foundation Stage at Hadrian Academy, we feel incredibly lucky to be the ones who give our children a strong start to their wonderful school journey! We are proud to be the foundation of the school and recognise the vital importance of providing children with the skills and knowledge they need to build upon as they grow and learn.

As a dedicated team, our aim is to create a stimulating, engaging environment that promotes the learning and development of every child in our care. Our carefully designed curriculum ensures that children develop the vocabulary, knowledge, and life-long skills they need to succeed, not only throughout their school years but also in life beyond the classroom.

Each day in EYFS is a balance of adult-led sessions and thoughtfully planned continuous provision. These activities encourage curiosity, independence, and a love of learning through play and exploration. We strive to ensure that every child feels confident, happy, and inquisitive, developing a sense of achievement and a belief in their own abilities.

Our rich indoor and outdoor environments provide endless opportunities for children to explore, investigate, and apply their learning in meaningful ways. Through these experiences, we support every child to become independent, caring, and resilient, ready to embrace new challenges with enthusiasm.

At Hadrian Academy, we believe learning is most powerful when it happens together. Our children are encouraged to learn and play collaboratively, developing vital social and listening skills while building respectful and positive relationships with others.

We are proud to offer an Early Years experience where every child is nurtured, valued, and inspired to become a confident learner, ready to take their next steps on their educational journey.

Weekly Timetable

Here is a link to our weekly timetable which will give you an idea of the structure of our school day in Reception. 

Our EYFS Curriculum

At Hadrian, the children follow the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum, which includes:

The prime areas of learning;

          Communication and language
          Physical development
          Personal, social, and emotional development

The specific areas of learning;

          Literacy
          Mathematics
          Understanding of the World
          Expressive arts and design 

Curriculumm Overview

We have carefully designed our curriculum and provision to support children throughout their learning journey and prepare them for Key Stage 1 and beyond. When developing our curriculum, we identified talk and pupil voice as key priorities across all areas of learning. As a result, oracy and language underpin everything we do. While we have established a long-term overview, it remains flexible and continually evolves in response to the interests and needs of our children.  Click here to view our long term overview, which is a working document.

Progression of Skills 

At Hadrian, we clearly outline the key progression of skills across each area of learning for every term. It provides an overview of how children’s knowledge and skills develop throughout the year, ensuring progression is purposeful. By mapping out termly expectations, the document supports effective planning and assessment. Click here to view our progression of skills overview. 

Little Wandle Phonics

At Hadrian, we follow the Little Wandle phonics scheme across the school. Little Wandle supports children with securing the foundations in reading and spelling as they progress through the programme. Year R teachers will provide you with the phonemes (sounds) and tricky words that we have learnt each week via Class Dojo. We also have an overview outlining the phonemes and tricky words taught in each half term. Click here to view our overview for each half term. It is designed to support staff and parents in understanding how phonics learning is sequenced and developed over time.

Comprehension

At Hadrian Academy, we value reading as a key life skill. In Reception and Year 1 the children take part in three reading practice sessions a week. These group sessions focus on the skills: decoding, prosody and comprehension. By the time children leave us, they read confidently for meaning and regularly enjoy reading for pleasure. Our readers are equipped with the tools to tackle unfamiliar vocabulary. We encourage our children to see themselves as readers for both pleasure and purpose

Maths

Here at Hadrian Academy, we encourage children to have a ‘Mastery’ approach to mathematics,  by being resilient, co-operative, creative, and most importantly, by having a positive attitude, not being afraid to make mistakes and being determined to seek solutions. We encourage all children to develop their own mathematical understanding through arithmetical proficiency, reasoning and problem-solving skills. We strive for our pupils to be confident mathematicians who understand the relevance of the subject in their everyday lives.

Mastering Number Maths

In Reception we follow a programme called Mastering Number. This national programme aims to secure firm foundations in the development of good number sense for all children from Reception and beyond. The aim over time is that children will leave KS1 with fluency in calculation and confidence and flexibility with numbers. Click here to view our Mastering Number Overview.

We also cover shape, space and measure throughout the year using the mastery approach and through everyday learning opportunities.