Nursery Aims and Objectives

The provison for children’s development and learning is guided by two frameworks issued by the Sure Start Unit of the Department for Education and skills.

For children from birth to three years, we give regard to the ‘Birth to Three Matters’ framework which sets out four key entitlements for young children. This framework informs practice in settings where babies and toddlers are cared for. It also informs practice in settings working across the age range with two to five year olds.

Birth to Three Matters

Our nursery supports and promotes the entitlement of every young child to be and become :

A strong child

A strong child is about young children being strong, confident, capable and self-assured. To do this they need to be secure within loving relationships at home and within the nurturing care of the staff in their early years setting. Young children are getting to know themselves and what they can do; the respect, care, love and emotional support they receive helps them develop trust and positive self image. The way we acknowledge and affirm young children leads them to gain confidence and inner strength. Having close relationships with them promotes self assurance and a sense of belonging in our nursery as a secure base to learn and try new experiences.

A skilful communicator

Through being with people who love them at home, and through the staff who care for them in the nursery, young children will become skilful communicators. They will make friendships where they will learn about other people, communicating and sharing their feelings and experiences. They will learn they have a voice, that they are listened to and responded to in a way that supports their understanding and search for meaning, helping them to learn the skills they will need for communicating

with others. Through opportunities for talk with adults and peers, through sustained interactions, through stories, songs, mime and gesure, children will learn to become skilful communicators.

A competent learner

Children are learners from birth. They are actively involved in exploring their environment, using their senses to build up their knowledge about the world. Our provision offers young children the opportunity
to take part in planned and unplanned activities that will help them to make connections with what they already know and build new understandings to help them form more complex ideas about the world. They will have oppportunity to be imaginative and creative; to express their ideas and represent them.

A healthy child

The healthy child is one who is emotionally secure and knows that he or she can depend on carers to meet his or her needs. Through our approach we aim to provide young children with secure relationships as a firm foundation for them to gradually learn to become independent at their own pace. Young children will have their needs for good nutrition, play and rest met so that their growth and development are assured. We provide an environment that protects children from harm and abuse; we minimise risk to children, but at the same time provide a safe structure in which they can learn to take their own risks, such as climbing or riding a bike. We provide boundaries within which they learn about being with others in a social group.

The Foundaton Stage curriculum for children three to give years

Children start to learn about the world around them from the moment they are born. The care and education offered by our setting helps children to continue to do this by providing all of the children with interesting activities that are appropriate for their age and stage of development.

For children between the ages of three and five years, the nursery provides a curriculum for the foundation stage of education. This curriculum is set out in a document, published by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority and the Department for Education and Skills, called Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage. We follow this guidance.

The guidance divides children’s learning and development into six areas:

- personal, social and emotional development;

- communication, language and literacy development;

- mathematical development;

- knowledge and understanding of the world;

- physical development; and

- creative development.

For each area, the guidance sets out early learning goals. These goals state what it is expected that children will know and be able to do by the end of the reception year of their education.

The Foundation Stage curriculum complements Birth to Three Matters, building on each of the four entitlements, as described above, to further promote children’s learning and development.

For each early learning goal, the guidance sets out stepping stones, which describe the stages through which children are likely to pass as they move to achievement of the goal. Our nursery uses the stepping stones that lead to the early learning goals to help us to trace each child’s progress and to enable us to provide the right activities to help all of the children to achieve and progress.

What OFSTED said about us

Accredited by the Pre school Learning Alliance

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