Our Philosophy

At Headlands Primary School, our philosophy is to value every child as a unique individual, who enjoys learning and thinking for him or herself. Our aim within the Early Years Foundation Stage is to provide a happy, safe, and stimulating environment, which allows all children to feel secure and valued and therefore ready and eager to learn. We provide a supportive and secure environment in which every child can flourish and learn at their own pace and in their own individual way. Our role is to stimulate and encourage their development and enjoyment of learning through a variety of different activities, both adult-directed and child-initiated in secure indoor and outdoor situations. 

Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum

Children in our Early Years phase follow the Early Years Stage framework which consists of seven areas of learning and development. We teach children by ensuring challenging, playful opportunities across both the prime and specific areas of learning. We recognize that all children develop and learn at different rates and so our EYFS framework is designed flexibly to meet the needs of all individuals. We support individual learning through our skilful interactions and observations which lead to detailed next step planning. The Characteristics of Effective Learning underpin our curriculum and pupils learning, through an enabling and well-planned environment we ensure we provide meaningful opportunities for playing and learning, active learning and creating and thinking critically. As children utilise and develop these characteristics they become effective and motivated learners who demonstrate high levels of well-being and involvement, ready for the transition into Year 1. 

Early Years Vision

Early Childhood

We celebrate the uniqueness of each child, recognizing they all learn and develop in different ways, at different rates and bring diverse experiences to our school.

We have high expectations for every child, believing that they should be empowered to take ownership of their learning and their environment.

We believe that risk and challenge are vital in order for our children to develop critical thinking, resilience, and perseverance. 

We are committed partnerships with families to provide every possible opportunity for our children to become confident communicators, to be socially competent, to have high levels of well-being, and to develop the necessary physical skills.

We nurture children's natural curiosity, joyfulness, and intrinsic creativity as powerful motivators across all areas of learning and development.

Early Childhood Environments

We recognize that the environment plays a significant role in supporting children's learning and development and so our indoor and outdoor spaces are designed to promote high levels of involvement and levels of learning.  

Well-planned, high-quality continuous provision provides for children with familiar and consistent areas and resources that are open-ended and flexible, promoting all aspects of learning and development.

We provide stimulating and challenging enhancements that give children new experiences and support new learning.

To enable children to participate in "risky freedoms" we ensure that both adults and children are involved in processes of assessing risk/benefit.

Our environments are created to reflect and respond to children's predictable and specific needs and interests.

Our daily routines allow flexibility and are a key teaching strategy to embed learning. They are designed to provide sufficient time for children to become engrossed in self-initiated activity.

Early Childhood Staff

Our greatest resources are the adults who have a good understanding of child development, support children's autonomy, and are reflective and evaluative.

Sensitive and skilful adult-child interactions focus on extending thinking, broadening communication and introducing challenge.

Warm, authentic relationships between all staff, the children and their families are a priority.

We use observation assessment effectively to be responsive to the children's needs and interests ensuring that all children make progress from their starting points.

Our adults utilise a range of strategies to ensure that the teaching is developmentally appropriate, varied and stimulating.

All staff recognise the importance of modelling skills, learning behaviours and high expectations.

Our Setting

Continuous provision is how we plan our learning environment. The purpose of continuous provision is "to continue the provision for learning in the absence of an adult". Each and every part of our learning environment has been carefully planned to meet and challenge the development needs of our children.

Learning opportunities are carefully planned and support the interests of the children so they can lead, take ownership, and become immersed in their learning. We help the children to develop their skills progressively in exciting, fun, and creative ways to achieve the highest standards possible. We also provide 'hooks' or scenarios to support their ideas and to really engage the children in their new learning experiences.

As well as our indoor environment our outdoor provision provides varied and exciting experiences. This includes Forest School and access to a well planned outdoor space which offers the children those experiences only available in the natural world.