All children at Monkey Puzzle Day Nurseries are encouraged to learn through play. Our Curriculum covers all the key areas of the Early Years Foundation Stage and is designed to meet the needs of each individual child.
We follow the Government’s Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) framework which sets the standards for learning, development, and care for children from birth up to 5 years of age.
The principles which guide the work of our Early Years Professionals are grouped into four themes:
- A unique child
- Positive Relationships
- Enabling Environments
- Learning and Development
There are three prime areas of learning in which our Early Years Professionals support children to learn and develop. These are:
- Personal, social and emotional development
- Communication and language
- Physical development
Plus, four specific areas of learning. These are:
- Knowledge and understanding of the world
- Literacy
- Mathematics
- Expressive arts and design
Each child has their own key person to enable them to feel reassured, safe and cared for within our setting.
Here at Monkey Puzzle Ware we plan in the moment to support children’s learning. The best way for children to learn is through autonomy and child-led play. Practitioners support the children in their play based on the interests that the children have in that moment. Children’s interests change so frequently that to make the most of them, next steps in learning need to be planned there and then.
We use the focus child approach and during your child’s focus week you will be contacted to discuss any learning your child has done at home, their current interests at home and anything you think they may need a little help with. This will be the basis for interactions that the practitioners have with your child. At the end of the week, you will receive a report of a snippet of the interaction’s practitioners have had with your child and how you can extend learning at home.
The ‘planning cycle’ looks like this…
- Observe the play
- Assess what is seen, can anything be added to the play?
- Plan how to respond
- Teach the next step immediately
This is completed during one interaction!
There are many reasons why we have chosen this style in planning, the most important is the children’s well-being. Our vision states that we aim to ‘create strong minded, independent thinkers who leave our setting ready and eager to continue their educational journey’, the best way to create independent thinkers is to promote independence through child-led learning.
Play underpins the EYFS and children learn many valuable skills this way such as problem solving and working with others.
Did you know that it takes a child 14 times of doing something new to master it if they choose to do it themselves, whereas if a child is told to do something it takes 100 times!
Our environment is tailored to ensure that the children can show deep levels of involvement during their play, it is full of open-ended resources to pique curiosity and exploration. This environment never changes, we don’t want to move things around so frequently that the children can’t find what they need.
Our routine also ensures that children aren’t stopped from their child-led learning to break for unnecessary reasons. Our snack is rolling and the access to the garden is free-flow, we only gather for a short circle time before meals and all activities are child-led.
Our eldest children who are due to attend school for that academic year are also offered the opportunity to take part in woodwork. There are many benefits of woodworking in the early years, speak to our nursery manager to learn more.
If you have any specific questions about the curriculum, please get in touch with our manager, who will be happy to answer any questions.
