As highlighted by Freidrich Froebel who stated outside play and interaction with nature is key for young childrens’ learning and development. This follows our ethos for outside learning. Our aim is allow the children to investigate nature around them and to see where their food comes from by growing their own vegetables and fruit trees. Whilst teaching the children sustainability by using ‘environmental green methods.’
We intend to deliver education though a mixed curriculum of adult and child initiated activities and will plan learning around the child’s interests and stage of their development. Care will be provided through discussions with the parents and carers with the Key Person regarding the child’s routine in their home environment. Our activities are planned using the Early Years Foundation Stage, Development Matters guidance, which covers children aged 0 − 5 years and continues on into the School Reception Year.
Our children are offered activities through a ‘Continuous Provision’ supplemented by long term plans following the ‘Flow of the Year’. We encourage all areas of learning and growth in both self-esteem and social skills by focusing on the Early Years Foundation Stage prime areas of learning which are below.
We encourage children to build relationships with each other and adults by using the Key Person System. This will be an ongoing learning process and will be evaluated by observing the children’s free choice of play and whom they bond with.
Each child is unique in their learning therefore we provide experiences that are challenging yet achievable. We feel it is key to value children’s decisions and talk to the children and ensure they understand their decisions.
We encourage children to manage their feelings and behaviour by team members modelling positive and polite interactions with others. We develop children’s sharing skills by providing 'turn taking' opportunities. We also teach the children the ‘golden rules’ in both the Nursery and Pre-School room.
We nurture each child's moving and handling abilities by providing resources to develop fine motor skills for example pens, paintbrushes and safe scissors. For gross motor skills we offer larger equipment such as brooms, racquets, tyres and logs etc.
We aim to develop the children’s knowledge by teaching the importance of a healthy diet and good health with physical exercise and discuss ways to keep healthy and safe. We encourage children’s independence in managing their own basic hygiene and personal needs successfully, including dressing and going to the toilet independently without forgetting each child is unique in their development.
We feel good communication is key to a child's development. To achieve this we take the children into our own natural area so they can listen to environmental sounds to encourage discussion. We read stories and non-fiction books individually and in small groups to stimulate communication.
We help children to follow instructions involving several ideas or actions through the use of body language, Makaton, gestures and symbols. We aim to develop ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions about their experiences through activities for example cooking and gardening. The community where the Nursery is sited has a diverse ethnicity so we ensure both the children’s home language and diversity is reflected in the learning environment. To aid any barriers to communication we strive to develop a close working relationship with the parents and carers to fully understand the unique child's understanding of language.
We help children express themselves effectively and begin to show awareness of the listeners’ needs. We encourage this by allowing the children to express themselves in communication that they find interesting. Some of the children are learning English as an additional language therefore we value non-verbal communication. We work towards developing the children's speaking skills with effective communication by practitioners building on sentence structure and introducing new words in the context of play. We also use the ‘Nursery Narrative’ system whilst teaching in small groups to help develop understanding and speaking skills.
To help the childrens’ reading skills we focus on meaningful print, for example the child's name and words in the environment. We aim to offer dual language books to accommodate the children’s ethnic origins and encourage books to be brought in from home. Phonics are taught following Phase One Letters and Sounds, which incorporates oral blending and segmenting of words the term before the older children start school. We also read stories that the children already know to give them the opportunity to 'read' the next word.
We develop the childrens’ writing skills by providing play opportunities for mark-making such as a chalkboard, white board, painting and pens and paper inside and outside. We encourage children to recognise and write their own name when developmentally appropriate.
The childrens’ number knowledge is developed by singing counting songs and rhymes. We use activities involving order, addition and subtraction games for example hopscotch, skittles and target games. Practitioners talk about maths in everyday situations, like snack time and we ensure numbers are displayed inside and outside of the nursery to prompt discussion.
Children use everyday language to talk about size, weight, capacity, position, distance, time and money to compare quantities and objects and to solve problems. We ensure that the children will have the resources to explore shapes, space and measure. Some of the resources will include tape measures, measuring jugs, scales, sand timers, clocks, coins and jigsaws.
Our Nursery recognises that each child is unique and therefore we will celebrate their cultural events and value their own ethnic origins. To enable the children to understand culture we also participate in the local community events and experiences to enable the children to have a better understanding of the world around them. This teaches the children about similarities and differences between themselves and others. To help the children to learn positive attitudes and challenge negative stereotypes our practitioners discourage any discrimination. Our resources also avoid traditional stereotyping.
We are privileged that the children can learn about the natural world through our extensive natural area. We also plan external visits to further explore the community areas outside the nursery.
We develop the childrens’ understanding of technology by having a range of ICT available such as an interactive computer table, torches, shop tills and telephones. We use a variety of programmable toys and will teach our youngest children the necessary skills to use technology such as twisting and turning knobs.
The Nursery offers a variety of materials, tools and techniques, to explore colour, design, texture, form and function. To achieve this we provide playdough, gloop, recycled materials, paint, shaving foam and hair gel.
We provide opportunities for the children to be imaginative through singing songs, making music and dancing to music. Our Nursery understands that children develop through imaginary play. We, therefore, provide resources to stimulate their imagination and our practitioners will support the children’s imagination and ideas by encouraging their inventiveness.
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