“All children deserve the care and support they need to have the best start in life. Children learn and develop at a faster rate from birth to five years old than at any other time in their lives, so their experiences in early years have a major impact on their future life chance” (EYFS Statutory Framework 2025).

At Petersgate our vision is "for all children to grow into responsible, caring individuals who actively and positively contribute to the community." Our vision outlined above is strengthened by our values of safety, caring, achievement, resilience and friendship. These values symbolise warmth, community and cohesion to ensure we are “working together to achieve our best”.

Our early years setting uses knowledge of the children and the educational programmes which must involve activities and experiences for children, as set out under each of the areas of learning outlined in the 2025 statutory framework of the EYFS. The EYFS framework includes 7 areas of learning and development that are equally important and inter-connected.

However, 3 areas known as the prime areas are seen as particularly important for igniting curiosity and enthusiasm for learning, and for building children’s capacity to learn, form relationships and thrive.

The prime areas are:

• Communication and language
• Personal, social and emotional development
• Physical Development

The prime areas are strengthened and applied through 4 specific areas:

• Literacy
• Mathematics
• Understanding the world
• Expressive arts and design

In addition to the use of the Statutory Framework for the EYFS and guidance in ‘Development Matters’ to support our curriculum planning across the 7 areas of learning, we create curriculum ‘Aspirations’ that we feel are important to teach our current cohort of children based on our observations of them within play, conversations with parents, pre-school transitions and local community. These may change depending on the needs of the cohort, and can be found on our Early Years section of the website.

At Petersgate we follow guidance relating to the Characteristics of Effective Learning:

“In planning and guiding what children learn, practitioners must reflect on the different rates at which children are developing and adjust their practice appropriately. Three characteristics of effective teaching and learning are:

• 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.”

(EYFS Statutory Framework 2025)