What is our curriculum?
- We use a mixture of information from the EYFS and development matters to create our room aims each year dependant on the cohort, this is a guide for all children when starting with us, moving up rooms, through to leaving us ready for school.
- We also create an individual termly plan for all children, using information from individual termly tracking of all areas of development plus our knowledge of the children helping to close any gaps in development. We plan and review these each term amending them accordingly. An example might be using the wellcomm big book of ideas if not on track with wellcomm assessments.
- We focus on the EYFS prime areas, in particular C&L and PSE development as we have recognised that these areas tend to need the most input for the children that attend our settings according to termly development tracking.
Our Planning– We use our annual topic planner as a background theme helping us to plan adult-led activities, alongside in the moment planning that follows the children’s interests, the termly plans also help us to plan activities for individual children’s development.
Our Aims: We have room aims/goals, we focus on the Prime areas of the EYFS, in particular CLL and PSE, which we believe hold the key skills to give each child the opportunity to build on all area of development enabling them to succeed to their potential.
Our Ethos: Our core values and beliefs- we use a mixture of approaches, we prioritise Communication and language development alongside Social and emotional development fostering positive relationships and emotional wellbeing, communication and language skills are crucial for overall development.
Our Values: What do we believe in- Our ethos is built on respect, kindness and inclusivity, regardless of background or ability, this ties in with British values and our golden rules, we promote equality of opportunity and we believe every child is unique with their own strengths and values.
Pedagogy: Teaching style – We support children’s development and learning through a child centred approach, building on the child’s natural curiosity of play-based learning, scaffolding on their experiences with support where we believe to be beneficial for their individual development and learning.
Our Vision/mission statement: To provide a space that is safe, stimulating and nurturing, where children can learn, grow, play, explore, engage and investigate in a place that feels like home, creating confidence and self-belief in all of our children.
How we support your child’s learning and development:
The care and education offered by our setting helps children to continue to do this by providing all of the children with interesting activities that are appropriate for their age and stage of development.
- Prime Areas of Learning and Development – Personal, social and emotional development – – Physical development Communication and language Literacy
- Specific Areas of Learning and Development – Mathematics, Understanding the world, Expressive arts and design.
For each area, the level of progress that children are expected to have attained by the end of the Early Years Foundation Stage is defined by the Early Learning Goals. These goals state what it is expected that children will know, and be able to do, by the end of the reception year of their education.
We work towards these goals through individual termly plans, which take into account gaps in development when tracking development each term.
What we want children to learn:
The curriculum is a plan of everything the early years setting wants the children to learn. Planning to help every child to develop their language is vital. The curriculum needs to be ambitious. Careful sequencing will help children to build their learning over time. Young children’s learning is often driven by their interests. Plans need to be flexible. Depth in early learning is much more important than covering lots of things in a superficial way.
The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) this is a legal framework which provides a set of requirements that we adhere to, to ensure that all children who attend our provision are safe and healthy, and that they are supported to learn and develop to their full potential. The EYFS requirements covers the following:
- The learning and development requirements shape the activities and experience we provide for your child
- The early learning goals provide a general level of progress, covering knowledge, skills and understanding that we will support your child to work towards having by the end of the academic year in which they turn five.
- The assessment requirements detail how we will monitor and plan for your child’s progress.
- The safeguarding and welfare requirements are steps we follow to ensure your child is kept safe and has their welfare promoted.
Development matters:
This is a non-statutory curriculum guidance for the early year’s foundation stage.
Helping children to learn, children are powerful learners. Every child can make progress in their learning, with the right help. Effective pedagogy is a mix of different approaches. Children learn through play, by adults modelling, by observing each other, and through guided learning and direct teaching. Practitioners carefully organise enabling environments for high-quality play. Sometimes, they make time and space available for children to invent their own play. Sometimes, they join in to sensitively support and extend children’s learning.
The characteristics of effective teaching and learning, in planning and guiding what children learn, practitioners must reflect on the different rates at which children are developing and adjust their practice appropriately.
Three characteristics of effective teaching and learning are:
- playing and exploring – children investigate and experience things, and ‘have a go’
- active learning – children concentrate and keep on trying if they encounter difficulties, and enjoy achievements
- creating and thinking critically – children have and develop their own ideas, make links between ideas, and develop strategies for doing things.
C&L- Communication and language: The development of children’s spoken language underpins all seven areas of learning and development. Children’s back-and-forth interactions from an early age form the foundations for language and cognitive development. Reading frequently to children, and engaging them actively in stories, non-fiction, rhymes and poems, and then providing them with extensive opportunities to use and embed new words in a range of contexts, will give children the opportunity to thrive. Through conversation, storytelling and role play, where children share their ideas with support and modelling from their teacher, and sensitive questioning that invites them to elaborate, children become comfortable using a rich range of vocabulary and language structures.
PSE- Personal, social and emotional development: This crucial for children to lead healthy and happy lives, and is fundamental to their cognitive development. Underpinning their personal development are the important attachments that shape their social world. Strong, warm and supportive relationships with adults enable children to learn how to understand their own feelings and those of others children should be supported to manage emotions, develop a positive sense of self, set themselves simple goals, have confidence in their own abilities, to persist and wait for what they want and direct attention as necessary. Through adult modelling and guidance, they will learn how to look after their bodies, including healthy eating, and manage personal needs independently. Through supported interaction with other children, they learn how to make good friendships, co-operate and resolve conflicts peaceably. These attributes will provide a secure platform from which children can achieve at school and in later life.
Jack and Jill Pre-School 