The 3 Prime areas describe universal core aspects of early child development. All 3 areas are always in action for a young child, and through these aspects a child accesses the world around them and forms relationships. The Prime areas remain centrally important for children’s development and learning throughout the EYFS at Thornhill, and form the basis of our curriculum and provision planning. The 3 Prime areas are:

1. Communication and Language

• Listening, Attention and Understanding – questioning, commenting, holding back and forth conversations with peers and adults
• Speaking – using recently introduced vocabulary, offering explanations, expressing ideas using full sentences, using a range of tenses and conjunctions in their spoken language.

​​​​​​What this looks like at Thornhill:

High-quality interactions between children and adults, language-rich environments, open-ended questioning, ‘rolling snack times’ to encourage peer-to-peer conversation, sentence stems, ‘star words’, presentations of home learning projects, Talk For Writing, story-mapping, open ended provocations, small world and messy play activities that facilitate communication and language development, well-resourced role play areas that support conversation, Makaton signing used across Early Years

2. Personal, Social and Emotional Development

• Self-Regulation – understand their own feelings and those of others, regulating behaviour and controlling immediate impulses, ability to follow instructions involving several ideas or actions
• Managing Self – show independence and resilience in the face of challenge, know right from wrong, understand healthy food choices, manage own basic hygiene and personal needs (toilet and dressing)
• Building Relationships – turn-taking, playing co-operatively, positive attachments to adults, friendships with peers, sensitive to others’ needs

  What this looks like at Thornhill:

Back to Green and The Colour Monster for emotional regulation, class golden rules, Thornhill values, celebration assemblies, meeting animals and babies from our school community, celebrating differences in our class, termly cooking opportunities, explicit oral hygiene teaching, shared snack times, weekly parental engagement through communication apps to show developing friendships

3. Physical Development

• Gross Motor Skills – spatial awareness, balance and co-ordination when playing, moving energetically in a variety of ways (running, jumping, dancing, hopping, skipping, climbing)
• Fine Motor Skills – hold a pencil effectively (working towards the tripod grip by the end of Reception), scissor skills, cutlery competence, showing accuracy and care when drawing

What this looks like at Thornhill:

‘Dough Disco’, daily access to malleable materials (playdough, clay, kinetic sand), high-quality class PE sessions in Reception, outdoor area designed to develop gross motor skills, tricycles and scooters, daily access to ‘the big playground’, focus activities that support pincer/tripod grip, large-scale play resources, parachutes, yoga