The Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum 

Communication and Language 

• Understand how to listen carefully and why listening is important.
• Learn new vocabulary
• Use new vocabulary through the day.
• Ask questions to find out more and to check they understand what has been said to them.
• Articulate their ideas and thoughts in well-formed sentences.
• Connect one idea or action to another using a range of connectives.

• Use talk to help work out problems and organise thinking and activities, and to explain how things work and why they might happen.

• Describe events in some detail. 

• Retell the story, once they have developed a deep familiarity with the text, some as exact repetition and some in their own words.

PSED

• Show resilience and perseverance in the face of challenge.
• Identify and moderate their own feelings socially and emotionally.
• Think about the perspectives of others.
• Manage their own needs: Personal hygiene
• Know and talk about the different factors that support their overall health and wellbeing: • regular physical activity • healthy eating • toothbrushing • sensible amounts of ‘screen time’ • having a good sleep routine • being a safe pedestrian

Physical Development 

• Develop their small motor skills so that they can use a range of tools competently, safely and confidently. Suggested tools: pencils for drawing and writing, paintbrushes, scissors, knives, forks and spoons.
• Use their core muscle strength to achieve a good posture when sitting at a table or sitting on the floor.
• Combine different movements with ease and fluency.
• Confidently and safely use a range of large and small apparatus indoors and outside, alone and in a group.
• Develop overall body-strength, balance, co-ordination and agility.
• Further develop and refine a range of ball skills including: throwing, catching, kicking, passing, batting, and aiming. 
• Develop confidence, competence, precision and accuracy when engaging in activities that involve a ball.

Maths 

• Talk about and identify the patterns around them. For example: stripes on clothes, designs on rugs and wallpaper.  Use informal language like ‘pointy’, ‘spotty’, ‘blobs’, etc.
•  Extend and create ABAB patterns – stick, leaf, stick, leaf. 
• Notice and correct an error in a repeating pattern. 
• Begin to describe a sequence of events, real or fictional, using words such as ‘first’, ‘then...’
• Understand position through words alone – for example, “The bag is under the table,” – with no pointing. 
• Describe a familiar route.
• Discuss routes and locations, using words like ‘in front of’ and ‘behind’
• Count objects, actions and sounds.
• Subitise
• Link the number symbol (numeral) with its cardinal number value
• Understand the ‘one more than/one less than’ relationship between consecutive numbers.

Literacy 

• Write some or all of their name.
• Read individual letters by saying the sounds for them
• Blend sounds into words, so that they can read short words made up of known letter– sound correspondences.
• Read some letter groups that each represent one sound and say sounds for them.
• Read a few common exception words matched to the school’s phonic programme
• Retell a familiar story.
• Read simple phrases and sentences made up of words with known letter–sound correspondences and, where necessary, a few exception words.
• Re-read these books to build up their confidence in word reading, their fluency and their understanding and enjoyment. Form lower-case and capital letters correctly
• Spell words by identifying the sounds and then writing the sound with letter/s.
• Write short sentences with words with known sound-letter correspondences using a capital letter and full stop

Understanding the World 

• Talk about members of their immediate family and community.
• Name and describe people who are familiar to them.
• Comment on images of familiar situations in the past.
• Compare and contrast characters from stories, including figures from the past.
• Draw information from a simple map
• Recognise some environments that are different from the one in which they live.
• Describe what they see, hear and feel whilst outside.

Expressive Arts and Design 

• Explore, use and refine a variety of artistic effects to express their ideas and feelings. 
• Return to and build on their previous learning, refining ideas and developing their ability to represent them.
• Create collaboratively, sharing ideas, resources and skills.
• Listen attentively, move to and talk about music, expressing their feelings and responses.
• Explore joining materials.
• Watch and talk about dance and performance art, expressing their feelings and responses.