Curriculum
The staff in early years are passionate about early child development and strive relentlessly to raise aspirations and attainment by providing high quality teaching and learning in a safe a secure environment in which the pupils’ welfare is paramount and where everyone is valued equally. The team have a wealth of early years’ experience and training which is used to provide a highly stimulating environment supporting individual needs. Our vision is to ensure all children make good progress from their starting point and become happy and secure in their environment.
The setting reflects the Early Years curriculum which includes: 3 prime areas and 4 specific areas. Prime areas are Communication and Language, Physical Development and Personal, Social and Emotional Development; and specific areas are Literacy, Mathematics, Understanding the World and Expressive Arts and Design.
Through continuous provision within the setting we aim to encourage the development of each individual child’s skills through all areas of the curriculum. We encourage the development of self-help skills and independence wherever possible, for example separating from parents, feeding, dressing and making choices; stimulate and motivate children to explore, enquire and problem solve; build self-esteem through achieving new and harder tasks and develop social skills, peer relations and development in all areas. We incorporate sensory activities throughout the setting to support and develop sensory related difficulties impacting on learning and development including therapy sessions such as music therapy, sensory room, reflexology, story massage etcetera to develop self-regulation and emotional stability ensuring a holistic approach to pupils’ learning, health and wellbeing is achieved.
Play is a fundamental part of learning. Through play, children explore and learn to understand the world around them as they come to communicate, discover, imagine and create. When children play they are showing what they have learned, and what they are trying to understand. Research has shown many benefits of play and increased learning and has shown a strong relation between cognitive development and emotional wellbeing. The staff in the early years setting will model and encourage play skills and to help develop social play- listening, talking, sharing, turn taking; object play-manipulating objects, building, connecting, combining; imaginative play- pretending, creative role play; creative play- creative expression, painting, drawing, writing; sensory play- exploring smell, sight, sound, touch and feel, exploring materials and sound and active play- being active with your body, spatial awareness etcetera. Most of all we will have fun!
Assessment
The children are at the centre of everything we do and observations form the core part of our assessments and daily practice. Assessment plays an important part in helping parents, carers and practitioners to recognise children’s progress, understand their needs, and to plan activities and support. Ongoing assessment is an integral part of the learning and development process. We use Tapestry as our assessment tool and use the Cherry Garden bespoke framework, which is designed to support children with special needs. We share data and target reports with parents termly.
