Curriculum design and planning
We plan daily following the children’s interests and building on what they already know. Alongside this, we advocate ‘in the moment’ planning so learning and play can be adapted as we find out what children know and can do. When children begin nursery we carefully assess their starting points and what knowledge and skills they have. This enables us to monitor their progress and plan purposeful experiences that provide the right next steps in their learning journey with us.
We begin each day with ideas from the day before ensuring that there are a variety of experiences to broaden children’s interests, to learn new language and acquire new skills across all areas of learning.
Learning can often be themed by favourite stories or rhymes, or a particular interest in transport, animals, or food. We are so lucky that we get to design our learning space each day and personalise the environment to meet the children’s needs.
The children’s progress and development are tracked using an app called Famly. This allows your child’s key person to work in partnership with you to ensure your child is getting the most out of their nursery experience and enables us to communicate with you about their day, monitor progress and keep up to date with what’s going on at home.
We will often post home learning challenges and encourage all children to put up a family photo which we can display in the nursery environment.
We also ask parents to join in as many of the opportunities we provide for them to come in and play and learn alongside their children. These events include story cafes, FUDGE days and keyworker coffee mornings. All of these experiences boost the children’s confidence and enable to share what they are learning with family members.
The Leapfrog team are trained in Makaton to help further develop children’s language skills. Makaton is a visual way of communicating and used alongside words and sounds can support all children with their language development. We use a sign of the week to share this with the children and families and they are often linked to something we are learning about.
We also use Makaton in our daily routine, songs, rhymes and golden rules. We have found these visual clues help to reinforce ideas, remember words, remind children of behaviour boundaries and encourage them to make choices.
Sparking curiosity and broadening children’s knowledge about the world around them is paramount. Our curriculum design, is built up in stages and develops all year as we get to know your children really well. Some of the extra activities we provide are Spanish sessions, Yoga and local trips.
We are also dedicated to promoting children’s physical skills and provide a range of opportunities alongside the Tiger Cubs programme.
Our staff are experts in this gross motor programme which supports the development of children’s coordination and core strength.
My Happy Mind
With mindfulness at the forefront of our curriculum we have invested in a new scheme called ‘My happy Mind’. This is an NHS backed programme which creates a culture of positive mental health. The programme is to help prepare today’s children for tomorrow’s world by building resilient, balanced and happy minds at home, nursery and school. There are so many ways that parents can get involved and there is an app which you can use at home to support children with their learning at nursery
Let’s start happy breathing!
Sustainability
We have focused our curriculum on the natural world and caring for planet earth. We want to ensure we are laying the foundations for children to be responsible and care about their environment.
Exploring the ideas of sustainability in the early years begins in a fun and engaging way.
We will start with children enjoying the natural environment and exploring each season and then learning about the three R’s – Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. This will involve reusing items for loose part, open ended play and using recycling bins in the nursery. Children will be involved in picking up litter in the local environment and learning about where food comes from, growing our own produce, cooking and eating it.
Laying foundations for Learning
Curriculum
Building Bright Futures
Spending time across our three settings and working closely together, staff, managers and the Senior team have created a clear vision to ensure our curriculum is designed to foster children’s confidence and independence and prepare them for the next stage of their education. At the heart of our curriculum is children’s Personal, Social and Emotional development.