Indoor Play

Our Pre-School has lots of natural light, plants, rugs and lamps to create a home from home cosy learning environment. The area indoors in very spacious providing opportunities to construct, make-believe, paint, investigate, explore sensory activities and cosy dens to share books or just have fun with friends. The children thoughts are visible through photos, transcripts, drawings and paintings.

Our curriculum inside and outside is guided by the Early Years Foundation Stage DfE 2012 ( revised September 2014).

Our provision reflects the four guiding themes and principles of the Early Years Stage.

A Unique Child

Every child is a unique child who is constantly learning and can be resilient, capable, confident and self assured.

Positive Relationships

Children learn to be strong and independent through positive relationships.

Enabling Environments

Children learn and develop well in enabling environments, in which their experiences respond to their individual needs and there is a strong partnership between educational needs and disabilities.

Learning and Development

Children develop and learn in different ways,  the framework covers the education and care of all children in early years provision including children with special educational needs and disabilities

How we support children’s learning and development;

Children start to learn about the world around them from the moment they are born.  The caring, trusting relationships staff build with children, ensure children continue to grow and develop a love of learning and become confident individuals who are willing to ‘have a go’ and have respect for themselves, their peers and adults.

Learning through play;

Play helps young children to learn and develop through doing and talking, which research has shown to be the means by which young children learn to think.  We provide a range of activities which help children to learn and make progress in the following areas:-

  • Personal, Social & Emotional Development
  • Physical Development
  • Communication and Language
  • Literacy
  • Mathematics
  • Understanding the World
  • Expressive Arts and Design

Each child has a ‘Learning Journal’   This document includes observations & photographs, planned ‘next steps, assessments and examples of children’s work.  Also details of children’s favourite activities and information provided by parents.  We love to share these with parents at parents evenings (although they are always available for parents to look through).

Some examples of our fun inside:-

  • PE Session (Monday and Friday afternoons)  These fun session revolves around helping the children understand the need for a healthy lifestyle.  We discuss healthy foods, having a good nights sleep and exercise.  The children are encouraged to get changed into their PE kits independently, a great skill to have on starting school.  We plan lots of different activities from ball games, to action songs and games, to obstacle courses, ending with a ‘cool down’ and a drink of water and orange segments .
  • Music Session  As well as singing familiar and new songs on a daily basis, we also have a music teacher who comes in once a week, she plays the piano whilst the children sing songs and play a range of musical instruments.  This supports their listening and language development as well as allowing them the opportunity of expressing themselves creatively.
  • Sign Language  We use simple makaton sign language to support children’s language and communication
  • Sensory Experiences  We provide a range of fun sensory experiences including;  playdough, cornflour, gloop, ‘snow’ glue and paint
  • Books  We have an extensive collection of books including ,big books, lift the flap books, familiar stories, rhyming stories and books to encourage children to find out the world around them.  We encourage children to explore books both independently as well as group story time, where puppets and props are also used
  • Rising Stars Session This session on a Tuesday afternoon is for children who are due to start school the following September.  This session includes a focus on letter sounds using ‘jolly phonics’  Children are given a book bag and choose a different book to take home each week.  There are many opportunities for 1:1 interactions with each child , helping them to achieve at the highest level through fun and exciting activities

Please also see our ‘outside curriculum’