2014 New Curriculum for EYFS & KS1

With the changes to the National Curriculum coming properly into force for this September, schools have had the chance to try something new and we are relishing that opportunity.

When we go back to school in September, my EYFS class will start working on a curriculum where we only work on each topic for 4 weeks. This allows us to cover all the areas needed for the FSP as well as some topics that our children always love. When the children move into KS1, they will have 8 weeks on each topic with a 4 week 'All About Me' topic at the start of each year. KS1 will cover 9 topics over 2 years and EYFS will cover them all in 1 year. This means that the children will visit each topic twice in their first 3 years of school allowing them to build on their previous learning.

We have placed the topics throughout the year where they fit most appropriately e,g. the 'Toys' topic is 2 weeks before Christmas and 2 weeks after, linking it perfectly to Christmas, letters to Santa and talking about toys the children got as presents. Our 'Seasides' topic will be in the summer so we can hopefully have a sunny visit to the beach!

We also know that we will be getting an Ofsted visit this year as they carried out an interim (distant) inspection, which they were happy with, last school year and should be with us after Christmas some time to do a proper one.

I'm mindful that whenever we've finished a topic, everything comes down and all that good work disappears from view. Because I want to be able to show off everything we do, I've decided to make some pin boards linked to the topics that will hang in my cloakroom and be a lasting reminder of what we have been up to.

I've used my Cricut Explore, some scraps of card and some old paint tester pots to jazz up some £2 pin-boards from QD. Even if I do say so myself, I think they look pretty fab!

This is how they look blank:

And here they are once the topic has been finished and they're full of photos:

The boards will hang in the cloakroom all year and I can display photos of the things we have done during that topic.

Year 1 literacy- recounts

I've been trying to plan this week ready for the return to school but it's amazing how you get out of the routine. I swear it's taken me 2 days to plan 1 week of literacy work on recounts!

Having not taught Year 1 for so long, I don't have any of the resources I want/need so I seem to be making loads of stuff. On the positive, I can fill my teachers pay teachers store with all my goodies!

I've made a recounts pack that includes a poster, features sheet and 5 examples of simple recounts in child friendly language. I plan to use the poster and features sheet as part of my literacy working wall and as stickers in the children's writing journals. I will use the recount examples for the children to find features of the text in the first days of the week.

If you want to save some time, and use my pack, check it out here.

This is an example of what it looks like







Simple but effective tools.

Year 1 writing, reading & maths target stickers

When the new school year comes around, I will be teaching both Reception and Year 1 for a while. I haven't taught Year 1 for a few years but obviously I know these children like the back of my own hand after having them for all of last year. There are some incredibly bright children in the group as well as some that are going to need continued support.

With the implementation of the new National Curriculum, the levels we use for assessment are no longer really relevant so I have been looking at alternative ways of target setting and tracking progress. We have previously used levelled sheets and stickers based on the old APP grids which will still be handy but the levels need to generally be ignored and just looked at in terms of progression otherwise I've got children starting Year 1 as a 2c in maths!

I decided to make myself some target sticker sheets based on the Year 1 objectives taken straight from the NC. I've made a greyscale version that can be printed onto A4 paper and attached in the front of the children's books and then a colour version that can be printed onto Avery labels (16 to a page) so that when the children achieve the target, the coloured sticker can replace the boring grey!

There is a space next to each sticker that can be used for ticking off/dating when things have been achieved or for adding an extra 'target met' or 'well done' sticker to it.

I am making these available on my Teachers Pay Teachers store so that if you want to use them too, you can. Strangely enough, I've just seen that Super Stickers is making a version of these that do look considerably nicer than mine, but they are also more expensive and can't just be printed out whenever you need them!

Year 1 Writing target stickers

Year 1 Reading target stickers

Year 1 Maths target stickers

If you like them, let me know and maybe I'll make them for the other year groups too!

EYFS target book- new version

Last school year, I decided that I wasn't going to use individual target books for my EYFS children. They take a lot of work and I thought Teachers Pet had something better. Needless to say that by October all my children had target books and the Teachers Pet version sat unused! This year I'll be using them from the start.

Each child has a booklet that contains all the Early Learning Goals for the 3 levels (emerging, expected and exceeding) split into smaller chunks for ease. There are 3 spaces for dates to he added when evidence has been seen. I use them all the time and they're great for next steps/target setting and keeping track of progress.

My new version also contains the Characteristics of Effective Learning and is available to buy in my Teachers Pay Teachers store.

Here's an idea of what it looks like

Front Cover

ELG- Numbers

CoEL- Playing and Exploring

It makes my life so much easier and I can't recommend it highly enough. Simple but effective!

Brave or Stupid?!?

Current topic with my EYFS class is 'when I grow up' so our indoor role-play area changes each week to a different job. This week it's musicians so I've taken in my drum kit for them to go on! Brave or Stupid?!?

Golden Rules dangles

Over the holidays, I saw these 'Pedagogs' dangles in the PTS sticker catalogue. They cost £14 but I had a voucher and thought they looked quite cool. There are 14 double sided, laminated cards in the set pre-punched with a hole at the top for hanging. You even get a huge roll of ribbon for hanging them with. These have become the basis of our classroom rules this year and the children seem to be relating to them well as they are much brighter and more colourful than your usual classroom rules poster. We talked through each one, a few at a time, before hanging them. I had enough ribbon left to make alphabet and number bunting and 2 groupings hangings with still some left over. The cards are really easy to refer to when I need to too. 

Class Calendar

This is a really simple display I've set up in my classroom this year for us to keep track of the big events throughout the year. Grid made from black display border, title letters printed from Primary Treasure Chest and months cut using my Cricut machine. The only photo on there so far is from our first day at school but as the year goes on the display will grow. Helps the children with learning months of the year too.