Curriculum

 

We learn through play

At Surbiton Hill Nursery our teams take pride in the thorough planning undertaken to meet the needs of all the children. Thorough planning ensures that we are able to offer high quality, relevant learning experiences. We use the Early Years guidance (EYFS) with 7 curriculum areas and characteristics of effective learning being a strong emphasis to guide our provision for the varying needs and interest of our diverse community. We focus primarily on the 3 prime areas for our 2 year old children and within our Specialist Resource provision. The additional 4 specific areas of learning are planned and supported as the offer within the environment for all children and we use the children’s interests to help teach those skills through their play.

“The staff have ensured that all areas of learning are interwoven,
meeting the varied needs and interests of all children” Ofsted report Jan 2020 

What are the 7 areas of learning?

  1. Communication and Language 
  2. Personal, social and emotional development 
  3. Physical development 
  4. Literacy
  5. Mathematics 
  6. Understanding the World
  7. Expressive Arts and Design 

What-to-expect-in-the-EYFS-complete-FINAL-16.09-compressed

For more information click here

READY TO LEARN EVERYDAY

The provision within the Nursery

The Den    Surbiton 2’s    The Green 

We follow the interests of the children and tailor our environment to match those interests as well as introducing new ideas and key skills to ensure that the education we provide is well rounded. Our planning is based on long, medium and short-term objectives:

  • long-term plans detail the learning opportunities available through our continuous provision;
  • medium-term plans describe the enhancement of our continuous provision to meet learning needs and follow our children’s interests;

Short-term plans detail the daily provision, adapting it to meet the children’s interests and needs. We use the “In the moment planning” format to ensure that the children’s interests, needs and next steps for learning are catered for. This means we document after the event to show next steps for learning and teachable moments. Rather than trying to plan in advance.

A Seasonal approach to learning 

At Surbiton Children’s Centre Nursery we use the seasons, the weather and our CORE stories to teach the children. We ensure that every child makes progress using the EYFS guidance to track their start points and match the curriculum to ensure they have the very best outcomes. We focus on a child led learning with the adults using teachable moments and skilled questioning to enhance the children’s own understanding. Our CORE stories reflect the seasons and the times of year. We use “Owl babies” as our first half term core story to help settle the children and have discussions around saying goodbye and feelings. 

owl babies.jpg 

In the moment Planning

Young children have a natural desire to learn, explore and be curious about the world. Their play often mimics their real life experiences and through their play is the opportunity to practice new skills and develop their interests. It means that the environment will be carefully planned out and designed to ensure the core provision meets the needs of all children with teachable moments happening alongside the enhanced offer “in the moment”.

How we Plan, Record and Report for individual children

We use OP&L at our Nursery. This Observe, Play and Learn and was originally devised by the Maintained Nursery schools is Barnet (BEYA)

Every child is regularly observed and assessed.  We follow a cycle that will focus on  children during their spot light weeks and this will ensure very rigorous and in depth observations over a whole term. From these observations and assessments the staff set individual targets to ensure each child reaches their full potential.

Various methods are used to record observations: written notes, assessments, photos and samples of work. We integrate observations from parents, other professionals and children’s own comments into our records. We use Tapestry to share our observations with parents/carers as well as receiving updates from parents/carers to share their achievements and wow moments from home.

Each term the children will be learning through though their interest following the seasons and special times in their community and personal special occasions.