We believe that the early childhood years are a time for fun and physical growth but also a time for creating the foundations of your child's enjoyment for learning. We have implemented both the 'Early Years Foundation Stage' and the ‘Letters and Sounds Programme’ in the nursery.
Learning through play
We promote the idea that play is the natural and most effective way a child learns. Through play children learn to concentrate, to try out ideas, to imitate grown-ups, to explore the world around them, to develop their imagination, to participate, share and socialise. Young children at play are the most fervent explorers constantly making new discoveries.
Play activities provided during the nursery sessions are diverse and well balanced. Opportunities for your child in the nursery include creative play, imaginative play, manipulative play, physical play, play with natural materials and activities to encourage scientific interest, reasoning skills and individual choice making.
The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS)
The Early Years Foundation Stage was revised in September 2023. The educational programmes are split into different areas of learning. They allow practiitoner to make more specific accurate judgements, focus on strengthening language and vocabulary development to particularly support disadvantaged children, a need to include oral health alongside the requirement to “promote the good health of children” will be added to the EYFS framework.
The EYFS provides the foundations for learning at the nursery. The programme is underpinned by four main themes, these are a Unique Child, Positive Relationships, Enabling Environments and Learning and Development. These four themes show how we respect all children to be individual, that we support their individual needs through strong relationships, we are aware of the environment in which the children can explore and learn and understand that children develop differently and using the development matters framework can ensure each child can reach their full potential. How we support children through their development is detailed below.
The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) requires that parents and carers must be supplied with a short written summary of their child’s development in the three prime areas of the EYFS when they are aged between 24-36 months. This is know as a 2 year check. At Nursery your child’s keyworker will write a summary of their development which they will share with you, based on observations they have taken. The check ensures that parents have a clear picture of their child’s development and it enable practitioners to understand the child’s needs and plan activities to meet them.
To support us in our typical child development knowledge we use the Development Matters Guidance Development Matters - Non-statutory curriculum guidance for the early years foundation stage (publishing.service.gov.uk)
The aim of our curriculum is to equip children with the skills and knowledge they need to explore and understand the world around them. We believe that children grow and develop when they have access to a well thought out learning environment and engaged adults. The teaching and learning of new skills and knowledge is delivered through both adult and child led opportunities both indoors and outdoors. We focus on the importance of knowledge and skills that will support children in every way possible so that they can make the most of opportunities and fulfil their potential along with promoting their independence. Our curriculum focuses on three areas; The Child, Partnerships with others and Our world.
Learning Journals
We use Learning Journals to record children’s development, learning and as an opportunity for parents and carers to share things that are happening at home. We provide photographs and written comments describing what is happening in the photo and what learning is taking place. We will also give suggestions and questions if this might happen at home. We will assess each child every 6 months based on typical development for their age, we will provide suggestions for next steps and strategies to support this. The assessment tool we use is Observation of play and learning (OPAL), once your child has started, we will continue support them to settle in and after 4-6 weeks we will assess them to find out some starting points. We then use these staring point as a base to provide activities to support your child’s development. We will always share information about your child with you, after each assessment and daily verbally. We value the importance of parents and carers as the a child’s first educator and strive to build strong relationships.
Speech and Language
Childrens development of speeech and language begins in the womb, there they are exposed to the very beginning of sounds that they will later recognise as speech and their environment. There are many stages that children go through to aquire langauge and there are some links below to support you child through these stages.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/tiny-happy-people
https://www.nhs.uk/start-for-life/baby/learning-to-talk/learning-to-talk-0-to-6-months/
If you have concerns about your child's communcation and language, please speak to one of the team who will happily support with this.
Letters and Sounds: Phase One Teaching Programme
Letters and Sounds is a six-phase teaching programme designed to help practitioners and teachers teach children how the alphabet works for reading and spelling. Phase One Programme is intended particularly for use by early years provision.
Phase One activities concentrate on developing children’s speaking and listening skills, phonological awareness and oral blending and segmenting. It offers lots of opportunities to enrich children’s language.
Letters and Sounds: Phase One Teaching Programme (PDF, 1,568kB) can be downloaded, and here are some YouTube clips for the letters and sounds phonemes for the children to listen to at home: YouTube clip1 and YouTube clip2. This YouTube link has some useful ideas for parents to try at home and explains letters and sounds. You might also find Jolly Phonics web site and Teach your Monster to read is useful.
More information on children's learning and development can be found on the Foundation Years website.
For more detailed information on the standards and quality of educational provision in the nursery, you can access our last Ofsted Inspection Report which was carried out in 2024.
