Curriculum
In Partnership with Parents
This has been written to help parents understand how we prepare
their child for reception class at school, by providing a more structured,
educational approach. As required by the National Standards.
If you have any comments or wish to discuss your child’s individual educational needs, please do not hesitate to ask.
We aim to provide the knowledge, skills and understanding as described
for the foundation stage. The nursery hold monthly curriculum planning meetings
to enable staff to offer the best opportunities for the children. A portfolio
of some activities is available in the reception.
Parental Involvement
Parents are issued with a regular activities at home sheet to offer links
at home as well as our reading scheme for the preschool children. We always
welcome parental help, either with resources and ideas or help on a trip.
We also hold 3 parents evenings per year where you are able to come and
discuss your child’s development with their key worker.
You are welcome to approach staff at the end of a session to discuss any
minor concerns, staff will always try to address your concerns immediately
or arrange an appointment at your mutual convenience. Any serious concerns
should be discussed with the nursery
manager.
The Community
The nursery arranges for visits from the local community services
to include the storyteller, fire brigade, dentist, road safety officer and
police.
Personal and Social
Our main aims are to ensure that your child is happy to come to
nursery and can cope with the daily routines with increasing independence.
We encourage the children to play in a creative manner, learning how to
make friends, take turns and share. We provide opportunities for children
to play and work individually and with small and large groups. We aim to
provide a balance between staff directed activities and activities that
allow a level of independence and freedom of choice.
Children are encouraged to respect each other, staff and property and begin to learn that they belong to a rich and varied society, where, although everybody has a right to be an individual with their own views and cultures, it is necessary to be aware of certain rules and standards of behaviour.
Physical Development
Activities appropriate to the age range are set to support and
extend the children’s physical development. This includes fine motor
control (i.e. threading, pencil control, scissors, puzzles and Lego), and
gross motor control (i.e. running, jumping, balancing, climbing and ball
skills). In the pre-school children will begin to take part in co-operative
games and obstacle courses that will encourage them to listen and respond
to certain rules of playing as a team member.
Creative Development
We believe that every child should have the opportunity to express themselves
as individuals through art, singing, music and movement,
and role-play. Therefore, art and craft equipment, tape recorders and musical
instruments are always available for the children to
experiment with. Art and craft, singing, music and creative expression sessions
in the Early Years are fairly informal. However, in the pre-school group
sessions are supported by more structured activities that involve the children
producing a variety of art work, dancing to
specific pieces of music related to topic themes and learning about location
of sound, recognition of sound, rhythm, pitch and music appreciation, participating
in role play with our visitors from the community.
Knowledge and Understanding of the World
In the Early Years children will make scientific investigations
of themselves, animals, plants, materials and energy sources (i.e. moving
things). They will be encouraged to have “hands on” experience
and develop the appropriate scientific language necessary to describe
what they see (i.e. floating and sinking, heavy and light).
In the pre-school group greater emphasis is placed upon noticing changes, making predictions and exploring the function of people, animals, plants and materials. Pre-school children will also be encouraged to record their findings through drawings, paintings, charts etc. All children throughout the nursery will have access to technological equipment such as tape recorders, Computers, cogs, etc as the children get older greater independence to use such equipment is encouraged.
All children will begin to investigate people’s roles in society.
In the Early Years group those people closest to the children (i.e. family
and friends) are considered to be the focus of learning. Whereas, in the
Pre-school group we extend learning to include visits from members
of the community, trips to the library, shop, and the park.
Language and Literacy
Language development is the foundation of all learning, therefore,
we provide the children with as many opportunities as possible to participate
in a wide variety of situations. The children are encouraged to listen and
respond to stories, songs and poems. They will have open access to books
in their rooms and the library resource centre. Daily story time sessions
ensure that the children become aware of familiar stories by excellent authors.
For each room there are a number of “CORE” books used by staff
to reinforce the foundations of reading. In the Early Years we look at pictures
in detail, predict what will happen next, and repeat rhymes and familiar
text. In the Pre-school group we encourage children to
re-tell whole stories and help them realise that the print conveys meaning.
Also in the pre-school we have a reading at home scheme,
using the Oxford Reading Tree resources we encourage the children to share
books with their parents. These are changed on a weekly basis.
The children will be introduced to phonic sounds through books and a wide
variety of games. In the pre-school group phonic sounds,
letter names and symbols are used as well as word shapes.
Children are introduced to a wide variety of writing materials in the Early
Years group, they are encouraged to investigate the marks that
they can make and talk about them. As children become more aware of the
marks that they can make, staff will suggest that they begin to draw pictures
of themselves and objects they know.
In the pre-school group greater focus will be placed upon pencil control and letter patterns will be introduced (initially associated with their own name). Most schools in East Sussex follow the Charles Cripps style of writing, where the letters have a “kick” at the end, research suggests that this encourages the flow of writing and can ultimately help with spelling. Hence, we encourage a simple form of this writing.
In the pre-school group, drawing is approached with a strong focus towards observation, so staff will spend much time talking to children about what they actually see before they attempt to draw it.
Mathematics
A wide variety of mathematical equipment is available in the rooms
to allow all children the opportunity to investigate the rules of mathematics
in play context. Songs involving counting (i.e. “1,2,3,4,5) and simple
addition/subtraction songs (i.e. “five little speckled frogs”
and “5 in the bed”) are sung throughout the nursery to establish
an interest in counting and number manipulation.
In the Early Years group, children will not only be taught to recite count
but also count objects, one-to-one matching, and stating how many afterwards.
Children will also begin to match and sort objects according to specific
criteria (following a simple pattern, colour sorting,
shape sorting). Children in all groups have access to apparatus that will
support their understanding of measurement.
In the Early Years group children will begin to use and understand words such as big/small, heavy/light, full/empty and before/after and develop this understanding through the use of games, play with scales and containers in the water tray.
Pre-school children are encouraged to extend their vocabulary related to measures and through carefully designed activities are asked to make comparisons of size, weight, capacity and time.
Children throughout the nursery will be set tasks involving recognising, copying and designing patterns; the complexity of these tasks will increase, as the children get older.
