Learning
Early Years Foundation Stage
All our nurseries are registered with Ofsted and provide the Department for children, schools and families "Early Years Foundation Stage". This provides settings with the framework for the learning, development and care of children from birth to five.
Our registration under Ofsted means that all our nurseries are assessed every three years. Parents are able to access an online Ofsted report, where an inspector has inspected the nursery against the standards of the EYFS. (Early Years Foundation stage.)
The Ofsted assessment enables parents to see our achievements and those areas which we will be working towards improving. For prospective parents the reports enable you to measure outcomes between different nurseries that you may be considering, so that you can be confident in the choice you make for your child. Ofsted registration also means that parents with children above the age of three are able to claim the Nursery Education Grant Funding to help with your nursery fees.
The Early Years Foundation Stage identifies the Stepping Stones that children will take through six key areas of learning and development. Our Nursery Practitioners support these areas of learning through planning daily activities and experiences which will support a balance between cross curriculum learning and individual children's natural interests and learning styles.
To ensure that we get this balance right, your child will be given a key person who will make weekly observations, about your Child's achievements and next steps. These observations are crucial for us to forward plan for each child's learning path.
Observations are additionally brought together in an individual child profile, which is used to identify your child's strengths and areas for further development. We meet with you Termly to share information about your child's progress and significant achievements. This enables us to build successful home-nursery partnership. Children's profiles will accompany them to their Primary school which will enable their learning journey to be continued on in the foundation stage, eventually transitioning into learning for Key Stage.1
The six areas of learning and development covered in the EYFS include:
- Problem solving, Numeracy and Reasoning
- Language and Literacy
- Knowledge and Understanding of the world
- Creative development
- Personal, Social and Emotional development
- Physical development
Play, exploration and active learning are key to helping your child develop in these areas. Our practitioners are experienced in assisting your child to make connections in their learning, transform their understanding and encourage them to demonstrate creativity and critical thinking.
We aspire to build positive relationships with each child. Your child will be part of a family group where they will have personalized learning supported by a Key person. Your child's Key Person will endeavor to create key attachments with your child, to give them the individual support they need to be a competent learner, a skillful communicator and to develop independent life skills.
Parents and Families play a key role in your child's learning experiences and we therefore work with parents in partnership to support each child. By working and learning together about your child's needs we are able to support their individual learning and help them to make positive interaction with the world around them.
We organize evenings where you can visit the nursery to experience the type of experiences your child will be involved in. These sessions are very popular because they strengthen the partnership between the nursery and your home setting to ensure that equality, diversity, and effective teaching is incorporated into the nursery environment and also enable parents to continue the learning journey at home.The Early Years Foundation Stage and nursery planning is always available at the nursery and we welcome parents viewing this planning and contributing on specific topics. Outings are also very important for the older children and we organize a number of these linked to different topics throughout the year. Parents are always welcome to join in these special events alongside their child.
