1. Kildwick CE VC Primary School Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) & Phonics Information Evening
Welcome
and thank parents for attending the Information Evening –
Tell them all how impressed I am with how the children have all settled in and are happy in Class 1.
Explain how this evening is about giving them information about the EYFS and Phonics and how in a few weeks we will have parents evening in which we can discuss their individual child’s needs, progress and next steps. But – Remind them of how if they do have any concerns then please do come and speak to Miss Weatherley or Mrs Brown.
I have included photos of the children on the slides – to keep it interesting!
If you do have any questions either ask me throughout or at the end of the evening and I will try and answer them.

2. Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS)
The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) is the stage of
education for children from birth to the end of the Reception year.
The EYFS Handbook 2014 states the EYFS seeks to provide:
• quality and consistency in all early years settings, so that every child makes good progress and no child gets left behind
• a secure foundation through learning and development opportunities which are planned around the needs and interests of each individual child and are assessed and reviewed regularly
• partnership working between practitioners and with parents and/or carers
• equality of opportunity and anti-discriminatory practice, ensuring
that every child is included and supported.
Explain how we are going to start with looking at the EYFS
Explain how in the EYFS every child has a key worker – explain as Class Teacher I am all of the children’s Key Worker.
Explain how the EYFS is from birth to five years (when the children leave reception class) And how as a school we have to legally deliver the EYFS Framework like in Key Stage 1 & 2 they have to deliver the NC.
I certainly feel a key part is partnership working between practitioners and with parents and/or carers

3. Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS)
Four guiding principles should shape practice in early years settings
these are:
• every child is a unique child, who is constantly learning and can be
resilient, capable, confident and self-assured
• children learn to be strong and independent through positive relationships
• children learn and develop well in enabling environments, in which their experiences respond to their individual needs and there is a strong partnership between practitioners and parents and/or carers
• children develop and learn in different ways and at different rates
This shows the four key principles of the EYFS and think one of the most important part of this that you can take away is how children develop and learn in different ways and at different rates
the colourful key words are the what we want for our children to be strong, independent confident have positive relationships. – And that is what the aim of the EYFS is.

4. Prime & Specific Areas of Learning
All areas of learning and development are important and inter-connected.
Each area of learning and development must be implemented through planned,
purposeful play and through a mix of adult-led and child-initiated activity.
Play is essential for children’s development, building their confidence as they learn to
explore, to think about problems, and relate to others. Children learn by leading
their own play, and by taking part in play which is guided by adults.
We are going to look at the learning and development section now
Prime & Specific Areas - talk through each – I will go into detail next.
As you can see these are delivered through planned adult led activity and supporting Child initiated activity When talking about child initiated activity we mean an activity/play your child has chosen – give example of how might extend...
Obviously a key part is how play is essential for children’s development and its so important we value their play as this is how they learn best.

5. Prime Areas of Learning
Physical development involves providing opportunities for young children to be
active and interactive; and to develop their co-ordination, control, and
movement. Children must also be helped to understand the importance of
physical activity, and to make healthy choices in relation to food.
Personal, social and emotional development involves helping children to
develop a positive sense of themselves, and others; to form positive
relationships and develop respect for others; to develop social skills and learn
how to manage their feelings; to understand appropriate behaviour in groups;
and to have confidence in their own abilities.
Communication and language development involves giving children opportunities to experience a rich language environment; to develop their confidence and skills in expressing themselves; and to speak and listen in a
range of situations.
Now we are going to look at the Prime areas in more detail – Starting with
Communication & language which includes Listening & Attention, Understanding and Speaking – it is about how children listen, understand express themselves – this happens throughout the day and at specific planned adult led times for example a group time of activity which is linked to the English NC with the Year 1’s.
Moving on to
Physical development which includes Moving & Handling and Health & Self - Care we particularly focus on large movements in PE and when using the outdoor learning environment and the fine manipulative skills both inside and outside during child initiated play and adult led focuses.
Children's health and self care is promoted through our cooking and baking activities and encouraging the children to be independent in eating and for example getting dressed by themselves .
The final prime area is
PSED which is always happening it includes supporting children to make relationships, continually promoting their self confidence, esteem and belief and encouraging them manage their feelings and behaviours. Though this happens at all time the children do have a planned session which happens every Friday afternoon when we focus in PSED which links into the Year 1 curriculum.

6. Specific Areas of Learning
Literacy development involves encouraging children to link sounds and letters and to begin to read and write. Children must be given access to a wide range of reading materials (books, poems, and other written materials) to ignite their interest.
Mathematics involves providing children with opportunities to develop and
improve their skills in counting, understanding and using numbers, calculating
simple addition and subtraction problems; and to describe shapes, spaces, and
measures.
Understanding the world involves guiding children to make sense of their
physical world and their community through opportunities to explore, observe
and find out about people, places, technology and the environment.
Expressive arts and design involves enabling children to explore and play with a wide range of media and materials, as well as providing opportunities and encouragement for sharing their thoughts, ideas and feelings through a variety of activities in art, music, movement, dance, role-play, and design and
technology.
Moving on to the Specific Areas:
Literacy & Maths – we focus both throughout the day and at planned adult led focuses
examples are story mapping where children retell the story through drawing pictures and then the adult scribes or they label their drawings – show example.
Phonics also comes under Literacy in which we focus on every day just before lunch and
readers which we do try to hear children read at least twice a week but as I am sure you can understand this is challenging so reading at home with your children is key.
UW and EAD is covered throughout the session and in planned adult led session e.g. We link EAD into music, art and design technology from the Year 1 National Curriculum e.g. The self portraits and paint mixing but we now have a paint mixing area in our continuous provision..
Talking about continuous provision we promote all of the Prime &
Specific Areas of Learning through our Continuous Provision –Continuous Provision is planned for and all linked to the Prime & Specific Areas – we really think through our provision to ensure it support and encourages children learning and development. Example are the writing area, role play area, maths area – point to each.
We then have enhanced provision which simply is just continuous provision which has been enhanced linked to our topic or children’s interest e.g. Our topic next half term focus on London and The Great Fire of London so we will have a bakery as our role play area..
Also Focus Child – Point to Focus Child display – this is supporting children's learning through their interests – what they are interested in – we all know we learn more if we are interested – explain more - use Angus’s as an example.

7. Characteristics of Effective Learning
The ways in which the child engages with other people and their environment – playing and exploring, active learning, and creating and thinking critically – underpin learning and development across all areas and support the child to remain an effective and motivated learner.’
The Characteristics of Effective Learning are as important as the Prime & Specific Areas of Learning – name each one

8. Assessment
When children start in September within the first two weeks we carry out a baseline assessment. This supports us in knowing where your child is working at and what to plan next to support their learning and development.
Assessment throughout the year is gathered in your child’s Learning Journey.
We really appreciate your involvement in your child’s Learning Journey.
Remind parents about the Baseline assessment – how it was carried out and why (know where children are – so we can plan and to be able to see clear progress made)
Talk about the children's learning journeys and what they include
(look at inserts and back pages observations and photos – how they build up a picture – choose examples which have examples from home)
Emphasise and show examples of the things that parents can contribute!

9. The Early Learning Goals (ELG’s)
Each of the Prime & Specific Areas of Learning has its own set of Early Learning Goals which show what most children are expected to achieve by the end of Foundation Stage.
There should be a handout in your pack which tells you what the ELG’s are.
The Profile is completed by myself and takes into account your child’s Learning Journey including Observations, Focus child learning stories and any contributions from home.
There are three different levels in which
your child can achieve in the Profile which are:
Expected – has met the ELG’s
Exceeding – is working further than the ELG’s
Emerging – not yet meeting the ELG’s
Explain how each of the Prime & Specific Areas have an ELG – which is were most children – not all children will be working towards or achieve at the end of the Reception year.
At the end of the academic year, the EYFS Profile will inform you of your child’s progress towards their Early Learning Goals and will give you a short statement on their Characteristics of Effective Learning. (we also discuss at the parents evening)
The Profile provides parents and Year 1 teachers with a well-rounded picture of a child’s knowledge, understanding and abilities, their progress against expected levels, and their readiness for Year 1 – so that as soon as they get into Year 1 planning can meet their needs.
This is why any contributions from you as parents are so important as you see different things at home which can help to contribute.
Emphasise to parents not to worry about expected, emerging and exceeding and how we will talk in more detail about these at Parents evening and please do not worry about them as some children will exceed in some areas and emerge in others or will be expected in all areas it just depends on each child is different. (going back again to how they develop at different rates)

10. Further information
The Foundation years website is very informative and interesting if you would like to find out more about EYFS.
Here is the link:
If you would like further information on the EYFS this is a really good website to have a look at its for parents and professionals so have a look.

11. Phonics Hopefully at the end of the evening you will:
Understand more about what phonics is and how we teach it at school.
feel more confident in supporting us in teaching your child phonics.
So now we move onto Phonics and hopefully we can work on the above..

12. How do we teach Phonics and support children’s reading
We follow the Governments Guidance: Letters and Sounds
As you are already aware the children have started Phase 2.
The purpose of this phase is to teach at least 19 letters, and move children on from oral blending and segmentation to blending and segmenting with letters. By the end of the phase many children should be able to read some VC and CVC words and to spell them either using magnetic letters or by writing the letters on paper or on whiteboards. During the phase they will be introduced to reading two-syllable words and simple captions.
They will also learn to read some high-frequency ‘tricky’ words: the, to, go, no.
This is the document we use from the Government to plan for Phonics - Show Letters & Sounds Document
Most children will have accessed Phase 1 in Nursery but Phase 1 is also repeated throughout the provision and in activities in Class 1 as part of good practice in reinforcing children’s learning.
We have started phase 2 and to begin with are split into two groups – I plan and myself and Mrs Brown deliver the session – we swap groups so that I can see how the children are doing. In a few weeks we will split the groups as some children will more onto Phase three and some children will focus more on the phase 2 aspects dependent on their needs.
Phase 2
Teach 19 letters
Begin blend and segment with letters
Begin to read, spell and write some Vowel Consonant and Consonant Vowel Consonant Words
Read some tricky words
So that's Phase 2 but we are just going to look at some of the key things you might need to know to understand what we are meaning when talking about phonics then we will look at phase 3/4

13. Phonemes Grapheme A Phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in a word
Pronouncing the phonemes correctly is very important.
e.g. the letter s is pronounced sssss and not suh.
A good way to ensure you are saying the sound correctly is to use Oxford Owl which is a fantastic website with the sounds already recorded on so you can hear how to say the sound correctly.
Lets have a look:
Grapheme
These are the letters that represent the phoneme. The grapheme could be 1 letter, 2, 3 letters or more. E.g. A digraph has 2 letters and a trigraph has 3 letters.
Now if we have a look at the following words
How many sounds are in these words?
cat boat high
Talk through slide
Have a look at Oxford Owl
Then look at how to support children's learning we use sound buttons Grapheme Frames phoneme fingers
Explain each and given example.
When we talk about blending and segmenting – we blend to read and we segment to spell
So blending is for reading and segmenting is for writing.
We blend graphemes in words in order to read.
We segment words into graphemes in order to write
Grapheme Frames
Phoneme fingers
Sound buttons

14. b = consonant, e = vowel, ll = consonant.
VC and CVC words
C and V are abbreviations for ‘consonant’ and ‘vowel’.
VC words are words consisting of a vowel then a consonant (e.g. am, at, it)
CVC words are words consisting of a consonant then a vowel then a consonant (e.g. cat, rug, sun).
Words such as tick and bell also count as CVC words – although they have four letters, they have only three sounds.
For example, in the word
bell,
b = consonant, e = vowel, ll = consonant.
Read the above

15. Getting ready for writing
We will model how to form letters (graphemes) correctly, so that children are able to use the correct letter formation. These skills develop over a long period of time.
In the early phonic phases children can use letter cards or magnetic letters to demonstrate their knowledge of phonics.
Writing in lower-case letters
We shall be teaching lower-case letters, as well as capital letters. As most writing will be in lower-case letters it is useful if you can use these at home. A good start is for your child to write their name correctly, starting with a capital letter followed by lower-case letters.
Read through slide.
Emphasise how we use magnetic letters/flash cards/wooden letters to practice and show knowledge so that it is not just reliant on them being able to write the letters – but we do model the correct letter formation.
It is important to remember that holding a pen or pencil needs considerable co-ordination and practice in making small movements with hands and fingers. Depending on your child’s development we may spend lots of time focusing on developing those ‘big’ gross motor movements first and then move on to the smaller movements. It will just depend on where your child is and at what rate they are developing as it is different for each child.

16. Phase 3 Phase 4 The purpose of this phase is to:
teach more graphemes, most of which are made of two letters, for example, ‘oa’ as in boat
practise blending and segmenting a wider set of CVC words, for example, fizz, chip, sheep, light
learn all letter names and begin to form them correctly
read more tricky words and begin to spell some of them
read and write words in phrases and sentences.
Phase 4
The purpose of this phase is for:
Children continue to practise previously learned graphemes and phonemes and learn how to read and write:
Children to learn CVCC words: tent, damp, toast, chimp
Children to learn more tricky words and continue to read and write sentences together.
So Moving onto Phase 3 & 4 this is just an overview of what the purpose of those phases are – read through
Some children will begin phase 3 after this half term .

17. Reading – What happens at school
As you will be aware your child will have started to bring home a reading book.
At first the books have no words in and are an opportunity for you to:
Talk about the book and what is happening by looking at the pictures
Make up the story
Your child will then move on to books with just a few words and then progress on to the next set of books in which they will use their phonics skills to help them to read.
It is really important to make reading enjoyable.
Here are some suggestions:
Try not to read when your child is tired
If you notice your child is tired or starting to struggle take it in turns to read a sentence each or just read the book to your child
Stickers and smiley faces in reading record always help
Share a love of reading with your child by showing them you are reading books and read other fiction and non fiction books together
Read through slide -
If at anytime you are concerned about your child’s reading then please do come and see me.
Children progress at different rates so please do not worry about how your child is doing in comparison to another child
We do try to read with the children twice a week but it really does help when you read with your child at home.
Give Yr 1 example – some of them not ready last year but this year are ready and mature and just flying with their reading..

18. If you have any questions please speak to me.
Thank you very much for attending the Information Evening we hope it has helped you to understand the EYFS and Phonics a little bit more.
We do have a small questionnaire that we would be grateful if you could fill in to help us to further develop the things that we are doing.
Thank you!
If you have any questions please speak to me.