At Oak Cottage, the Early Years Foundation Stage encompasses the Nursery and Reception classes. The Early Years Foundation Stage is about developing key learning skills such as listening, speaking, concentration, persistence and learning to co-operate with other children. We also work to develop early communication, literacy and numeracy skills that will prepare children for Key Stage 1 of the National Curriculum.

The curriculum of the Early Years Foundation Stage is organised into seven areas of learning:-

1. Personal, social and emotional development
2. Communication and language development
3. Mathematical development
4. Understanding of the world
5. Physical development
6. Expressive arts and design
7. Literacy

Each area of the curriculum has Early Learning Goals, which establish expectations for children to reach by the end of the Early Years Foundation Stage. Learning at this stage is play based, with highly focused learning objectives to match.