Early Years
For children to excel in the Early Years, they require space, time, challenging resources and quality interactions with adults. Our spacious environment offers natural, open-ended resources allowing our children to ‘free-flow’ between the indoors and outdoors for much of the day, allowing them to choose where they want to play, what with and how.
The Early Years team of highly qualified and experienced staff are skilled at providing the essential quality interactions, which are prompted by close observation of play. This close and skilled observation enables the teachers provide learning opportunities necessary to move the children’s learning on.
Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum (EYFS)
Teachers are guided by the British Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum (EYFS), which sets out the learning and development stages for children, as they grow from birth to age five years.
Learning and Development focuses on three ‘Prime Areas’ and four ‘Specific Areas’. The Prime Areas underpin the Specific Areas, and are particularly important in the first few years of life.
All children are unique and progress at their own pace. We use an online Learning Journal to share the children’s ‘wow’ moments with their parents and to track the children’s development.
The Characteristics of Effective Learning are a crucial part of learning in the Early Years. How children learn is equally as important as what they learn. We help the children to develop their character in:
- Playing and Exploring- investigating, experiencing things and ‘having a go’
- Active Learning- concentrating, keep on trying, being proud of their accomplishments
- Creating and Thinking Critically – having their own ideas, making links between their own ideas and problem solving
As the children move through the Early Years learning in the Prime Areas becomes more refined, and skills in the Specific Areas develop more as children work towards the ‘Early Learning Goals’ at the end of EY3.
