Nursery Curriculum
The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) covers the learning, development and care of children from birth to 5 years. It provides a framework for nurseries to build their curriculum around. It is broken down into three prime aspects and four specific areas of learning.
The three prime aspects of learning:
Personal, social and emotional development
Communication
Physical development
The four specific areas:
Literacy
Mathematics
Understanding the world
Expressive arts
A nursery can decide how best to deliver these areas by creating a curriculum unique to their setting, providing activities and experiences that deliver the areas of learning.
At this early stage your child will be mainly learning through play-based activities. They will also be learning about routine and developing early literacy and maths skills, learning about the world around them and learning social skills.
Babies
Communication
The interactions a baby experiences at this early stage provide the foundations for cognitive developments. Experiencing a language rich environment each day is crucial for language development. Language comprehension is starting to develop at this young age, so our Little Hedgehogs staff are constantly narrating their activities, talking to our babies about the world around them and interacting with them through speech, nursery rhymes and storytelling.
Physical Development
Physical development occurs throughout childhood and is particularly noticeable at this young age; learning to roll, sit up crawl and walk.
Movement and play help to develop strength, balance, co-ordination, and spatial awareness.
We also seek opportunities to bring on the hand-eye co-ordination of our babies – essential for early literacy skills!
Social and Emotional
For children to lead happy and healthy lives, personal development and social relationships are essential.
Even at this early, a baby’s personal development can be encouraged by forming warm and supportive bonds with our staff and their peers.
Literacy
You may believe that babies are too young to be concerned with literacy, but we can be embedding a love of reading even at this young age through engaging and imaginative storytelling!
Mathematics
We introduce our babies to the world of mathematics through seeking frequent opportunities to count, show the meaning of numbers and introduce shapes – great for developing their spatial reasoning skills!
Understanding the world
Understanding the World We try to help our Little Hedgehogs to understand the world around them through constant narration and explanation.
We cover the world they know, i.e., through discussing their family, home, and personal experiences, and also the wider world through non-fiction stories.
Expressive Arts and Design
We recognise the importance of the arts for children of all ages. We provide resources that are of a wide range of media and materials. We want to enable self-expression and communication through what our Little Hedgehogs see, hear, and participate in. We encourage the exploration of colour, texture, and form
Toddlers
Communication
With our Creative Squirrels and Chestnut Room toddlers we continue to provide a language rich environment through commenting on areas of interest, for each child, adding new vocabulary when talking with the children, and continuing to foster a love of reading and storytelling.
Physical Development
At this age children are really searching for new, and often risky, physical experiences. We do not shy away from this risk-taking behaviour and instead we encourage and seek out opportunities for our Creative Squirrels and Chestnut Room toddlers to increase their balance, stability, co-ordination, and spatial awareness.
Physical confidence is also increased through such resources as small world activities arts and crafts, puzzles, and the use of tools.
Social and Emotional
For children to lead happy and healthy lives, personal development and social relationships are essential. At this age it becomes a real focus for us to assist our Creative Squirrel and Chestnut Rom toddlers in understanding their own feelings.
We foster a culture of modelling and guidance on how to manage emotions, the benefits of persistence, and learning to wait for what they want.
We seek to prevent or deescalate power struggles through calmness - allowing the children to exercise their emotions, cool down and then engage.
Literacy
Literacy Language comprehension is continued to be developed with our Creative Squirrels and Chestnut Room toddlers through discussions of the world around them, reading books and enjoying nursery rhymes and songs.
Mathematics
In the Creative Squirrels and Chestnut rooms the focus is on creating a positive attitude and interest in mathematics. We seek opportunities to look for shapes, count to 10 and carry out measuring.
Understanding the world
We encourage our toddlers’ natural interest in their social world through discussions of the role of important members of society, such as police officers, nurses and fire-fighters
Expressive Arts and Design
We wish to foster a culture of creativity and imagination in our toddlers, We continue to develop self expression and communication through the arts. We encourage our toddlers to join with the performance of songs, rhymes and stories.
Preschool
Communication
Our wise owls further develop their communication and language structure through embedding the use of new words, being comfortable to use ambitious words, providing a broad range of contexts and modelling rich vocabulary. We invite our preschoolers to elaborate when having discussions with adults and their peers. We, of course, continue to foster a love for reading, stories, role-play, singing and sharing ideas. A rich vocabulary helps a child to discuss their life and to succeed.
Physical Development
We continue to incorporate a positive attitude towards new physical challenges with our preschoolers.
At this stage many children can be encouraged to consider the risks for themselves and plan on how to adapt their actions through games, activities, and plenty of opportunity to explore our outdoor areas. Continued provision of small world, puzzles, crafts, and tools assist in developing proficiency.
Social and Emotional
For children to lead happy and healthy lives, personal development and social relationships are essential.
At preschool level we continue to build on self awareness and emotional management. We also support our children to consider the emotions of others to resolve conflicts happily. We focus on teamwork, co-operation and making good friendships to help make the transition to school as easy as possible.
We are here to supervise and provide guidance when required. However, we aim for our children to build their self-confidence in negotiation skills and learn how to handle various interactions with their peers.
Literacy
It is usually at this age that many of our preschoolers begin to take an interest in the written word. They may notice familiar letters or learn to recognise the shape of their name when written down. We encourage this natural curiosity in our preschoolers. We introduce the sounds that letters make and find varied opportunities to help form the shape of letters.
Mathematics
Our children in the Wise Owl and Pine rooms are encouraged to search for patterns, spot connections, and build on their ability to apply their understanding of numbers. Our practitioners will use situations that provide our preschoolers with opportunities to put their number knowledge into practice.
Understanding the world
We continue to expand on our preschoolers experiences of their immediate world and the wider cultural, social, technological and ecological world.
We make good use of outdoor areas to provide inspiration for discussion on the natural environment and the daily/seasonal changes that occur. We introduce discussions on the differences and similarities of life in other cultures and countries.
Expressive Arts and Design
Our Wise Owls and Pine room children enjoy opportunities to invent, adapt, and recount narratives with peers and adults. The children love to share their creations. We continue to encourage the exploration of colour, design, form, and function using a variety of materials, tools and techniques.
