Curriculum

Curriculum

Our vision is to welcome all children and families in a caring, nurturing and inclusive environment where children are free to be themselves and learn new things. Children are at the heart of everything we do. We are a small setting with experienced and qualified staff, with a large garden, good links to the school and forest school style sessions.

 

Our curriculum and values (intent) will enable children to:

• have a love of reading
• have independence and choice: through planning in the moment, free choice and inside/outside play
• have respect for others and have good manners
• know right from wrong
• have good communication and listening skills / able to speak confidently
• be happy with a sense of well-being, high self-esteem, resilience and have ways to manage their feelings and behaviour
• begin to problem solve
• feel safe and secure
• join in with other children and participate in group time
• be caring and kind to others and the environment
• have good physical fitness
• value differences in people (including Black Lives Matter movement)
• learn the skills they will need for growing up in a digital world

We are following planning in the moment, where the children are active learners and we as practitioners are led by the children. This means we notice what the children notice, set safe boundaries, share joy together, acknowledge their needs, respect their opinions and empower them.

 

How we implement the curriculum

• CLL – talking and listening, supporting children who struggle with certain sounds, singing, signing with the young children, using communication boxes from home as a talking point, listening boxes, wellcomm assessments. Staff respond to the children, show they are listening, at child’s level, comment on what children say and echo it back to them, support listening and following instructions and model language.
• PSED- RULAR – feeling board, feelings resource bag and read The Colour Monster book, encourage independence when getting ready for the garden, free choice, photo books, key person and key person buddy system, model good behaviour, set rules and boundaries and support children to follow them, children are encouraged to wash their own hands, we support friendships and pair children up if they are struggling, the children play and we follow the children’s interests.
• PD – plenty of garden time, walks to the woods and the local area, fiddly fingers to support fine motor skills, children pour their own drinks, bikes in the garden, climbing frames, sand pit, sensory tray, puzzles, use positional language, encourage spatial awareness and play games. Encourage healthy eating at lunch time, let the children know that their main and their fruit are the most important. We teach children about good oral health through role play, toys, books and group times.
• Maths – measuring scales, free choice maths activities, number songs, counting the children and cushions, shapes in the room, loose parts, pegs boards for patterns, clocks for looking at time and numbers, rulers, numbers around the room, free choice maths toys outside, talk about time during the day, using language for patterns, reasoning skills during outdoor explorers and encourage a can-do attitude.
• Literacy – reading to the children, explain words in the story that maybe new to the children, talk about the story after, use rhyme and rhythm, use alliteration e.g., awesome apple or squishy strawberries, listen to sounds in the inside and outside environment before moving onto phonics, mark making inside and outside, teach holding the pencil correctly, fiddly fingers to improve hand-eye co-ordination, reading area, books with resources, story sacks, print in the environment.
• Understanding the World – introduce ideas of freezing and melting, floating and sinking, life cycles, cooking and reader week with parents, trips to the church, having visitors in, use of tablets, use photo books, day of the week, date and month in group time, celebrate Diwali, Easter and Christmas, explaining the importance of visits to local parks, libraries and museums. Children use tablets for information and learn how to use them. We have links with home through the photo books and special boxes. We have community links with the church, school and local care home.
• Expressive arts and design – painting easel with different types of brushes, images of famous works of art, music playing throughout the whole day (apart from group time and lunch time), yoga at the end of each day, mud kitchen.

 

Skills and Experiences for our children

Physical Development

• gross and fine motor experiences
• sensory experiences
• develop strength
• coordination and positional awareness
• creating games
• playing indoors and outdoors to develop different physical skills
• developing core strength
• stability, balance, spatial awareness and agility
• developing hand-eye coordination
• playing with small world toys, puzzles, arts and craft
• using small tools to develop proficiency, control and confidence.

 

Progression and Challenge

• 2-year-old: pushing the tricycle with their feet
• 3-year-old: pedal the tricycle
• 4-year-old: balance bike

 

Communication and Language

• children have back-and -forth interactions and conversations
• enjoy a language rich environment
• learn new vocabulary
• develop a love of books and being read to, enjoy a variety of stories, poems, rhymes and non-fiction
• new words and language is embedded in a range of different contexts
• role playing
• sharing ideas
• understand language structures

 

Progression and Challenge

• 2-year-old: Understands 1 step instructions and can use around 200 words.
• 3-year-old: Understands 2 step instructions and can use around 300 words.
• 4-year-old: Understands a 3-step instruction and can use around 500 words.

 

Personal, Social and Emotional Development

• healthy and happy children
• strong attachment
• understand their own feelings and emotions
• develop a sense of self
• set themselves simple goals
• have confidence in their own abilities
• can wait for what they want and distract themselves
• know about healthy eating and good oral health
• manage own personal needs e.g., washing hands and going to the toilet
• make friendships, co-operate and resolve conflicts

 

Progression and Challenge

• 2-year-old: Support hand washing, cannot tolerate waiting, play alongside children, teach feelings sad and happy, check in lots with key person, take off their own shoes and can get easily frustrated.
• 3-year-old: Can wash their own hands, playing with others, gets less frustrated, can wait for longer, teach feelings happy, sad, angry and calm, checks in now and again with key person and can put their own shoes on.
• 4-year-old: Can go to the toilet themselves and wash and dry their hands, form friendships, teaching feelings happy, sad, angry, calm, jealous, embarrassed and confused. Do not often check in with key person but knows who their key person is, fully independent and can wait and will distract themselves.

 

Mathematics

• counting confidently
• a deep understanding of numbers to 10
• know the relationship between numbers and patterns with numbers 0-10
• building up mathematical vocabulary
• opportunities to develop reasoning skills such as shape, space and measure
• looking for patterns and spotting connections

 

Progression and Challenge

• 2-year-old: counting with the children during their play, children can count to 3.
• 3-year old: Count to 5 and recognise number 3
• 4 years old: Count to 10 and recognise numbers 1-5.

 

Literacy

• Lifelong love of reading
• have good language comprehension
• understand how to handle books and how we read books
• can hold a pencil to be ready to write

 

Progression and Challenge

• 2-year-old: big paintbrushes, crayons and chalks
• 3-year-old: pens and pencils
• 4 year-old: pencils and its starting to look recognisable, may start writing their names

 

Understanding the World

• make sense of the world and their community
• have care of the environment
• know how to work ICT equipment
• know about different ways of living

 

Progression and Challenge

• 2-year-old: Can watch ICT equipment and press buttons, talk about them being different in their family and teach about recycling by putting foil and yogurt pots in recycling bin when told.
• 3-year-old: Can play simple games on the ICT equipment, talking about themselves as being different to the other children in pre-school, know what goes in the recycling but may still check.
• 4 year-old: Can play games on the ICT equipment and work it out themselves, talk about their differences in the wider community and knows what needs to be recycled.

 

Expressive Arts and Design

• be able to be imaginative in their play and arts and crafts
• understanding of colour and texture using all their senses
• have a love for music and musical instruments
• join in with singing and action songs
• can express themselves in different media

 

Progression and Challenge

• 2-year-old: Join in with actions when singing, teach primary colour names and explore instruments.
• 3-year-old: Joins in with singing and actions, teach more colours, use instruments to sing along.
• 4-year-old: Joins in with singing and does the actions and remembers the words, explore what happens when you mix colours and can tap out a simple beat with instruments.

 

Rising 5s Sessions

This is a session on an afternoon where only our 3- and 4-year old’s attend.

Progression: Colour (1st term), shape (2nd term), letters (3rd term) and PE (last term).

 

Culture Capital

• going to the woods
• messy play
• large outdoor space
• real life objects e.g., conkers, loose parts play and tea set
• visits to the little library
• picnics
• bus trip
• links with the school
• church visits
• parents’ reader and cooking
• end of term events

 

Termly Breakdown

Term 1: September and October

• Starting assessments
• settling in and building bonds with new children and returning children
• setting boundaries and rules
• beginning to teach independence
• teaching turn taking and sharing skills
• children getting used to sitting at group time
• introduce choosing pegs and feeling board
• celebrate harvest and go to the church.

 

Term 2: November and December

• Work more on independence
• 2-year checks and assessments
• continue work on the prime areas for two-year old’s
• celebrate Christmas, bonfire night and Diwali.

 

Term 3: January and February

• Begin to focus on the specific areas of learning with two-year old’s
• Rising 5s begin learning letter sounds
• valentine’s cards to Freeland House nursing home
• children begin to know the rules
• potty train any Rising 5s children
• celebrate Chinese New Year

 

Term 4: March and April

• Focus on all areas of learning with all the children
• children are more independent
• children know the rules
• children are better at sharing and turn taking and resolving conflict
• Celebrate Easter and Mother’s Day

 

Term 5: April and May

• Sports day
• Rising 5s PE sessions
• encourage Rising 5s to begin writing their names
• children start opening their own lunch packets (Rising 5s)
• wiping their own bottoms (Rising 5s)

 

Term 6: June and July

• Talk about going to school, visit classroom, read stories about starting school
• younger children are now much more independent
• Rising 5’s children: fully independent, talk confidently in a group and can write the first letter of their name.
• prepare the children that are staying for the children moving to school.
• celebrate Father’s Day, graduation and picnic for all children and children starting in September.

 

How we know we have made an impact

• We will monitor the children’s CLL with Wellcomm and child development and complete 2-year progress checks.
• The children will have knowledge of what we have taught them e.g. know days of the weeks, can count, remember rules and routine, oral healthy and healthy eating.
• Children have developed from the intent list
• Our children are ready for school with help of rising 5’s sessions and our support, warm and caring environment and a shared garden. Children can re-tell stories from the core books, choose their own books in the book corner and join in with songs.
• Have a good strong maths knowledge – use maths resources, can count to 5 or 10 or above depending on ability, understand patterns and point out numbers in the environment.
• Have good language and listening skills and children regularly use the outdoors, so show their physical skills.