Curriculum Overview
“The first five years have so much to do with how the next 80 turn out.”
Bill Gates
Research has shown us that the first 5 years of a child’s life are the most important – the relationships and experiences a child has, stimulate a child’s development, creating millions of connections in their brains.
A child’s brain develops connections faster in the first five years than at any other time in their lives. This is the time when the foundations for learning, health and behaviour throughout life are laid down. As such, it is important that as parents, you select the right early years learning experience for your child.
At Raffles Early Childhood Centres, we offer the English Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum, as we feel that this allows us to provide a learning experience that is tailored to the unique needs of every child in our care.
What is the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum?
The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) consists of 2 key documents:
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The Early Years Foundation Stage Framework, a set of required standards for settings to follow
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Development Matters Non-statutory Curriculum Guidance (Revised July 2021), which provides guidance for supporting effective teaching, learning and assessment.
The EYFS is built upon 4 guiding principles, that provide the foundations children need to thrive and develop:
The principles interact to ensure that high quality teaching and learning is taking place in our classrooms.
What will my child learn?
The EYFS is broken down in to 7 areas of learning. These are then subdivided further in to 17 distinct areas:
Through the seven areas of learning children are provided with a holistic learning experience, in preparation for starting school.
How will my child learn?
Did you know that all of the daily learning opportunities at our Early Childhood Centres are guided by the EYFS ‘Characteristics of Effective Teaching and Learning’?
This means that everything that we do, including the environments that your children are active and play in throughout the day, has been thought about and developed, by our experienced and skilled teaching team, with these Characteristics in mind. They are the three characteristics that drive our teaching and make visible to us that a child is learning:
Playing and exploring: children investigate and experience things and ‘have a go’;
Active learning: children concentrate and keep on trying if they encounter difficulties, and enjoy achievements;
Creating and thinking critically: children have and develop their own ideas, make links between ideas, and develop strategies for doing things.
At Raffles Early Childhood Centre’s our children learn through play. We ensure that we provide a range of hands-on learning experiences that encourage the children to explore, investigate, problem solve and think critically. We firmly believe that this provides children with solid foundations for future learning and skills for life.
Why choose the EYFS over other curriculums?
The EYFS curriculum was developed and continues to be regularly reviewed to ensure that children get the very best early care and education experiences. It provides a framework that our teachers can use to create a broad and balanced curriculum that is both age and stage appropriate and that meets the diverse needs of the children in our care.
Through the development of the ‘prime’ areas of learning, we can ensure that the children are given the tools required for learning in the specific areas of learning. The ultimate goal of the EYFS is ensuring that children are well prepared for their future schooling.
At Raffles Early Childhood Centres, we provide a continuum of education with children being provided with opportunities for progression in to our Innoventures Schools.
For further information on this, please contact us: +971 4 4271241/1233