CHILDREN’S DEVELOPMENT AND LEARNING

Harpole Pre-school has a development plan which outlines how we would like the pre-school to develop long term. This is updated annually by the committee and staff. We also welcome ideas from parents and carers, a copy of the plan is kept within the group and is also available at the AGM to see.

The provision 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 two and a half 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 toddlers are cared for. It also informs practice in settings working across the age range with two to five year olds.

Every Child Matters

This is a new approach to the well-being of children and young people from birth to age 19. The Government’s aim is for every child, whatever their background of their circumstances, to have the support they need for:

  • Be Healthy
  • Stay Safe
  • Enjoy and Achieve
  • Make a Positive Contribution
  • Achieve Economic Well-being

Birth to Three Matters

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

A strong child

A strong child is about babies and 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 their key person in their early years setting. Babies and 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 babies and 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 setting as a secure base to learn and try new experiences.

A skilful communicator

Through being with people who love them at home, and through their key persons who care for them in the nursery, babies and 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 gesture, 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 babies and 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 opportunity 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 key person approach we aim to provide babies and young children with secure relationships as a firm foundation for them to gradually learn to become independent at their own pace. Babies and 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 Foundation Stage curriculum for children three to five 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 setting 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 setting 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.

Personal, Social and Emotional Development

This area of children's development covers:

  • having a positive approach to learning and finding out about the world around them;
  • having confidence in themselves and their ability to do things, and valuing their own achievements;
  • being able to get on, work and make friendships with other people, both children and adults;
  • becoming aware of - and being able to keep to - the rules which we all need to help us to look after ourselves, other people and our environment;
  • being able to dress and undress themselves, and look after their personal hygiene needs; and
  • being able to expect to have their ways of doing things respected and to respect other people's ways of doing things.

Communication, language and literacy:

This area of children's development covers:

  • being able to use conversation with one other person, in small groups and in large groups to talk with and listen to others;
  • adding to their vocabulary by learning the meaning of - and being able to use - new words;
  • being able to use words to describe their experiences;
  • getting to know the sounds and letters that make up the words we use;
  • listening to - and talking about - stories;
  • knowing how to handle books and that they can be a source of stories and information;
  • knowing the purposes for which we use writing; and
  • making their own attempts at writing.
  • Mathematical development
  • This area of children's development covers:
  • building up ideas about how many, how much, how far and how big;
  • building up ideas about patterns, the shape of objects and parts of objects, and the amount of space taken up by objects;
  • starting to understand that numbers help us to answer questions about how many, how much, how far and how big;
  • building up ideas about how to use counting to find out how many; and
  • being introduced to finding the result of adding more or taking away from the amount we already have.

Knowledge and understanding of the world

This area of children's development covers:

  • finding out about the natural world and how it works;
  • finding out about the made world and how it works;
  • learning how to choose - and use - the right tool for a task;
  • learning about computers, how to use them and what they can help us to do;
  • starting to put together ideas about past and present and the links between them;
  • beginning to learn about their locality and its special features; and
  • learning about their own and other cultures.

Physical development

This area of children's development covers:

  • gaining control over the large movements that they can make with their arms, legs and bodies, so that they can run, jump, hop, skip, roll, climb, balance and lift;
  • gaining control over the small movements they can make with their arms, wrists and hands, so that they can pick up and use objects, tools and materials; and
  • learning about the importance of - and how to look after - their bodies.

Creative development

This area of children's development covers:

  • using paint, materials, music, dance, words, stories and role-play to express their ideas and feelings; and
  • becoming interested in the way that paint, materials, music, dance, words, stories and role-play can be used to express ideas and feelings.

Play helps young children to learn and develop through doing and talking, which research has shown to be the means by which young children think. Our setting uses the stepping stones leading to the early learning goals to plan and provide a range of play activities which help children to make progress in each of the areas of learning and development. In some of these activities children decide how they will use the activity and, in others, an adult takes the lead in helping the children to take part in the activity. In all activities information from the stepping stones and the early learning goals has been used to decide what equipment to provide and how to provide it.