Curriculum

As a nursery we decided that the ‘Development Matters’ was the document we were going to use for our curriculum. Development matters offers a top-level view of how children develop and learn. It helps design an effective early years curriculum, building on the strengths and meeting the needs of children we work with. It guides, but does not replace, professional judgement.

There are seven areas of learning and development that shape the educational programmes in our nursery. All areas of learning and development are important and interconnected. Three areas are particularly crucial for igniting children’s curiosity and enthusiasm for learning, and for building their capacity to learn, form relationships and thrive. These three areas, the Prime areas are:-

Communication and language
Physical development
Personal, Social and emotional development

We also support children in four Specific areas, through which the three prime areas are strengthened and applied. The Specific areas are:-

Literacy
Mathematics
Understanding the world and
Expressive arts and design

From the implementation of these areas children’s Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural development is supported in ways that they have a sense of enjoyment and fascination in learning about themselves, others and the world around them.

They learn right from wrong/and have an understanding of the consequences of their behaviour and actions.

Can use a range of social skills in different contexts, to allow them to participate fully in and contribute positively to daily life.

At Kiveton and Wales Nursery we have set our own curriculum goals. These goals are set by us as practitioners observing the children and deciding how we want them to leave us with these skills.

Our 8 curricular goals are:

Write:- write some recognisable letters to their name.
Follow:- follow a powder paint routine.
Pedal:- use pedals on a trike.
Retell:- retell a familiar story.
Subitise:- subitise and give 5 the power of 5.
Independence:- independently put on and take off your own coat.
Form:- form a friendship with another child.
Sense:- have a strong sense of your own cultural events such as birthdays and Christmas.

In planning and guiding children’s activities we reflect on the different ways that children learn using the characteristics of effective learning.

The three Characteristics 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.

Activities and experiences we provide for children involve:-

Communication and Language: development involves giving children opportunities to experience a rich language environment to develop their confidence and skills in expressing themselves to speak and listen in a range of situations

Physical Development: involves providing opportunities for young children to be active and interactive to develop their co-ordination, control and movement. Children must also be helped to understand the importance of physical activity, and to make healthy choices in relation to food.

Personal, Social and Emotional development: involves helping children to develop a positive sense of themselves, and others top form positive relationships and develop respect for others to develop social skills and learn how to manage their feelings to understand appropriate behaviour in groups and to have confidence in their own abilities.

Literacy: development involves encouraging children to link sounds and letters and to begin to read and write. Children are given access to a wide range of reading materials to ignite their interest.

Mathematics: involves providing children with opportunities to develop and improve their skills in counting, understanding and using numbers, calculating simple addition and subtraction problems; and to describe shapes, spaces and measure.

Understanding the world: involves guiding children to make sense of their physical world and their community through opportunities to explore, observe and find out about people, places, technology and the environment.

Expressive arts and design: involves enabling children to explore and play with a wide range of media and materials, as well as providing opportunities and encouragement for sharing thoughts, ideas and feelings through a variety of activities in art, music, movement, dance, role-play and design and technology.

We believe in equal opportunities and provide a well-balanced and differentiated curriculum to offer the differing abilities of children in our care to develop in all areas of learning.