Woolley Road

Matlock Pre-School - Woolley Road (30months-48months)

Our curriculum

A curriculum is designed to demonstrate what skills, knowledge and understanding we want children to gain in the time they are with us.  It is based on the statutory early years foundation stage (EYFS), which gives us a framework that we can build on, through the 7 areas of learning.

We have created our curriculum with our whole staff team, designing it to meet the individual needs of children who attend our setting, and ensuring that all areas of learning are included.  It has the intention to help our children learn, develop, thrive and give them the knowledge and skills they need to be ready for school.

Play - Able to choose resources for co-operative, play and exploration, with friends and peers

Community - Feel safe and confident when transitioning to a new community/setting

Independence - Begin to understand the importance of their physical and emotional well-being

Express - Able to share their thoughts, ideas, opinions and communicate their needs

Curiosity - Have an understanding of simple maths, literacy and create marks in a variety of ways

Explore - Gain some knowledge of the world around us through new experiences and creative opportunities

Our Pedagogical approach

(The approach we use to implement your curriculum)

At Matlock Pre-school, we teach children through play

Recent guidance recognises that children learn best when they’re leading the way in their own learning. Enabling children to follow their own line of enquiry or individual interest is the basis of a child-centred play pedagogy. Learning through play is active, meaningful, motivating and joyful. When play is facilitated by skilled practitioners, the curriculum is brought to life and rewarding and transformative learning experiences are the result. Young children make sense of the world through play. Play is how children learn to build connections with others and with nature. They learn to communicate, think critically, problem-solve, negotiate, collaborate, advocate and resolve conflict.

Our aim is to provide a vast range of opportunities for children to explore, investigate and discover, using a variety of toys, resources, equipment and activities.

We offer a mixture of child led, guided play and adult led activities.   

We ensure that adults are available to children to support their learning and development through planning next steps for individual and groups of children, planning the environment, routines and resources, based on children’s interests and next steps. 

We aim to provide high staff to child ratios to ensure children get to learn in a caring and nurturing environment, where careful interactions support children’s mental and physical health as well as extend their knowledge and skills.

At Woolley Road our routine consists of free flow play, where children can choose between indoor and outdoor play, rolling snack where they learn independence and healthy choices, small and large group times.

Continuous Provision, Resources and Activities on offer include:

Small world and block play (large and small construction), quiet and cosy areas for reading stories, exploring books, role play (home corner), open ended resources for role play, malleable and messy play opportunities, mark making equipment and materials, instruments and resources that encourage investigation and exploration, opportunities for climbing through, under and over, outdoor opportunities for riding trikes, scooters and wheeled toys, and an outdoor area that provides opportunities to explore the environment, the sounds, the sights, smells and experiences of seasonal weather.

How we teach our curriculum

Play

• We will set out our continuous provision in a way that allows children to independently choose resources for their play.

• We will play with and alongside children to role model play, introducing others to their play.

• We will set golden rules for children to follow, and support them to follow these rules, e.g. kind hands, indoor voices, taking turns, sharing with others.

• We will plan provision based on children’s interests and next steps to encourage them to choose activities/resources independently.

• We will role model positive relationships and support children to make friendships.

• We will talk children through conflicts to give them the skills to resolve conflicts independently.

• We will play group games, and guide activities that encourage collaborative play.

Community

• We will ensure settling in sessions are tailored to individual children, to allow them to feel safe and secure in our setting.

• We will ensure that at drop off times staff are available to comfort children who struggle with separation.

• We will ensure there is exciting and stimulating activities for children to take part in at drop off times.

• We will communicate changes in routines, transition times to children to ensure they are prepared for change.

• We will give children appropriate tasks to carry out, to develop their sense of responsibility and membership of their community

• We will prepare children for transition to other settings/school, getting in touch with children’s new setting/school, encouraging visits from school staff, where possible

Independence

• We will support children to become independent with their self-care needs, taking off and putting on their own coats, toileting, dressing and undressing, washing hands, getting lunch boxes, opening bags, packets and boxes of food, and feeding themselves.

• We will use backwards chaining, encouragement and praise to support children to learn independent skills.

• We will encourage children to pour their own drinks and select own snack, spread butter onto toast, pour own cereal out etc

• We will help children to recognise their emotions and support them to regulate their feelings as they happen, by acknowledging them and responding in an appropriate calm way

• We will use books, resources and activities to talk about different emotions, and how we can recognise and deal with them

Express

• We will provide a language rich environment with labels, signs, and a variety of books available around the setting

• We will talk with children as they play, commenting on what they are doing, what they see etc.

• We will repeat, recast and expand on what children are saying and model language that promotes thinking.

• We will engage in back-and-forth conversations with children, one to one and in groups

• We will read stories to children, one to one, and in groups, as well as introduce new words as we read, and as they play.

• We will provide play experiences and activities that encourage children to talk about, describe and express their own ideas.

• We will ask open ended questions, to encourage children to express their ideas and opinions.

Curiosity

• We will have an environment that is rich in number and language to encourage children’s interest in numbers and letters.

• We will emphasise initial sounds of words and explore rhyming words and word endings to support children’s phonological awareness.

• We will provide opportunities for children to make marks in a variety of ways, and use fine motor skills to develop the muscles children need to write.

• We will role model writing for a purpose and provide equipment for writing in role play and other play situations

• We will sing counting songs, and use counting throughout the day as part of our routine

• We will role model the use of mathematical language to describe objects, time and positions

• We will have a wide variety of books in the setting in all areas so children can explore during the day

• We provide cosy areas for children to have stories, look at books with an adult or individually

• We include regular story times in our routine and have a book library for children to take books home.

Explore

• We will utilise weather and seasons to teach children about our world around us, e.g. making kites, or using streamers in the wind, feeding the birds in the winter, planting in the spring

• We will utilise festivals, events and children’s own experiences to celebrate and value everyone’s own cultures, communities, and experiences.

• We will visit different places in our community and invite people in to talk about/demonstrate different occupations, cultures and experiences.

• We will encourage children to take part in a variety of messy, malleable activities allowing them to explore media and materials with their senses

• We will provide a wide variety of craft resources, materials and media for children to choose, explore, manipulate, use and create their own work.

• We will guide, demonstrate and support children to use materials and media to create their own ideas.

• We will provide open ended resources for imaginative play and role model, join in with imaginative play with children to support them to join in.

• We will provide opportunities for children to sing a variety of songs and rhymes, play instruments and listen to and dance along to different styles of music.