The Early Years

Hi, I’m Miss Danby, the EYFS Lead and EYFS Class Teacher at Boston Pioneers. I have 14 years’ experience, from being a Deputy in a nursery to EYFS Lead in a school. I am passionate about nurturing children’s development, learning through play, and developing their oracy and vocabulary. I aim to make learning fun, engaging, and exciting, while supporting every child to reach their full potential. I value inclusion, strong parent partnerships, and continuous improvement, creating a setting where children achieve, belong, and thrive. My goal is to give children a strong start in their education and a lifelong love of learning.

The Early Years curriculum at Boston Pioneers is designed to build the foundational knowledge and skills children need to be ready for the next stage of their learning. It is carefully sequenced across all areas of learning, ensuring children secure strong foundations in communication, language, early literacy, and mathematical understanding, alongside personal, social, and physical development. Clear end points are identified for each area, and staff plan rich, purposeful experiences that enable children to revisit and build on prior learning, preparing them effectively for the demands of Key Stage 1.

Our curriculum focuses predominately on supporting the development of children’s foundation knowledge. We believe this needs to be directly taught as learners will not necessary discover this for themselves. The foundational skills are:

Executive Function- children need to able to focus and develop independence in their learning. We develop this through clear routines, explicit teaching of self-regulation, modelling independence, and providing opportunities for sustained attention and independent task completion.

Communication & Language- children need to understand and use spoken language to access all areas of learning; we develop this through high-quality adult interactions, modelling rich vocabulary, asking open-ended questions, structured talk opportunities, and explicit teaching of listening, attention, and speaking skills.

Early Reading- children need to be able to read fluently which depends on both word recognition and language comprehension; we support this through discrete vocabulary teaching, explicit discussion of texts, storytelling, and systematic phonics (RWI) ensuring children understand and enjoy what they read as well as decode it.

Early Maths- children need to develop a deep understanding of numbers to 10, we teach this through practical, hands-on experiences, explicit teaching of number and mathematical language, repetition, and opportunities to apply learning through play and everyday routines.

Early Writing (Transcription)- children must develop fluent spelling and letter formation to express ideas effectively; we provide frequent, structured opportunities to practise spelling and letter formation, explicitly teach handwriting and phonics application, and support children until these skills become automatic.

We are proud that are entry to exit progress measures are amongst the highest in the local authority. Evidencing that our curriculum and teaching practices are highly effective for our learners.