Play and the curriculum
Curriculum planned from the new Early years foundation framework 2020-2021
Intent
At Koala Day Nursery we intend that our ambitious and inclusive curriculum educates all the children in knowledge, skills and understanding, to be effective, inquisitive, curious, independent learners and influence their wider thinking across all areas of the curriculum. Fundamental British Values are at the heart of our curriculum and everything we do, we focus on promoting the more general concepts within the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) and understand that the children’s development within these areas is key to promoting the values in the long term. We endeavour to give the children the Cultural Capital they need for future success i.e. giving each child the best start in life and the support that enables them to fulfil their full potential and achieve future success. We are passionate about creating opportunities for children to communicate more easily through developing language and communication skills and specifically teaching vocabulary. We encourage our children to believe in themselves and their abilities and capabilities, to belong to the setting learning community and the wider community and to become successful in their academic career and beyond.
It is our intention that children experience the seven areas of learning through a balance of group/individual teaching and play based learning. This is through the children’s interests, topics, themes, continuous provision activities, and phonics. Learning is carefully planned by the staff to support communication and language development; personal, social and emotional development; and physical development as well as literacy, mathematics, understanding of the world and expressive arts and design.
Awe and Wonder
We open our children’s eyes to awe and wonder by providing first hand experiences, provocations and challenge to stimulate their senses and interests. We strongly focus on the environment and interactions that children are part of within our nursery environment. We endeavour to provide children with real objects or natural resources to stimulate children’s curiosity and learning. Children are encouraged to take responsibility for their learning through self- regulation and reflection. They build upon their skills through cooperation, forgiveness, team building, kindness, through perseverance and resilience.
Implementation
At Koala Day Nursery we encourage children to demonstrate their attitudes and behaviours to learning through the Characteristics of Effective Learning.
Our curriculum is designed to recognise their prior learning by providing first-hand learning experiences and allowing the children to develop interpersonal skills, build resilience and become creative, critical thinkers to enable them to challenge themselves. We ensure the content of the curriculum is differentiated to meet the needs of all learners and is taught in a logical progression so that children build on prior learning. We plan through a topic-based approach on an annual basis, but these plans are adapted and amended to address the ever growing and changing needs and interests of all our children.
We understand to maintain high standards of quality first teaching we have to invest in our staff by providing high quality Continued Professional Development (CPD) to match the current needs of the staff and also to match the needs of our children. All Early years educators create an environment to match the needs and skill levels of our children and use their own assessments and gap analysis to inform their planning and the quality provision.
We recognise that language and communication are vital in all areas of a child’s development. We welcome children from culturally diverse backgrounds and many of our children are at an early stage of learning English as an additional language (EAL). Communication and language development are therefore a consistent focus. We support children’s development by providing a rich language environment, where conversations, singing and sharing stories become a regular part of the children’s day.