Curriculum

We recognise the importance of play in early education and aim to provide an environment that offers a variety of play experiences and opportunities for learning across all areas of development.

We aim to help and encourage the children to progress towards the Early Learning Goals of the Foundation Stage, which covers children's learning from the age of three years until the end of the reception year at primary school.

Our activities are planned to cover the following six areas of learning:

  • Personal, social and emotional development
  • Communication, language and literacy
  • Mathematical development
  • Knowledge and understanding of the world
  • Physical development
  • Creative development

Taking these six areas in turn, the aims of our curriculum are to enable the children to develop:

  • Their self-confidence and motivation; the ability to sustain attention and concentration, to understand right from wrong and the consequences of their actions; to attend to their own personal hygiene; to show respect for other people and property; to be part of a group and to understand the need to share and take turns.

  • Their communication and negotiation skills; attentive listening; a wide vocabulary; clear speech and conversational skills; imagination; an understanding of the link between letters and sounds, the purpose of writing and that print carries meaning; emergent writing and mark making.

  • Their ability to count accurately; to recognise numerals; to describe shape, size, position and quantity; to match and sequence sets of objects and to use mathematical terms.

  • Their observational skills; to notice similarities and differences, ask questions about why things happen and investigate how things work; to build and construct using a range of resources; to use simple tools appropriately; to show an interest in their environment and differentiate between past and present.

  • Their physical abilities; to move and control their bodies with confidence and co-ordination using a range of equipment, tools and materials and develop an understanding of the importance of keeping healthy.

  • Their creative abilities; to explore colour, shape, texture, art and design using a wide range of materials; to explore sound, touch and movement, matching movements to music; to use their imaginations in role-play.