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Growing Up Green Curriculum

Our children's days are organised in accordance with the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS), a government framework for the care and education of children that was introduced in September 2008. This replaces the old Foundation Stage Curriculum and Birth to Three Matters guidelines. The framework provides us with information and guidance whilst being flexible enough to accommodate our own ideas and be receptive to children in real interaction, allowing us to centre planning for individual children and track learning whilst providing opportunities for children to flourish and develop.

The EYFS framework is child-centred and consists of 6 areas of learning: Communication, Language and Literacy (CLL), Knowledge and Understanding of the World (KUW), Problem Solving, Reasoning and Numeracy (PSRN), Personal, Social and Emotional (PSE), Creative Development (CD) and Physical Development (PD), and also has four principles to which theses areas are intrinsically linked: Unique Child, Positive Relationships, Learning and Development and Enabling Environments. These areas and principles apply to children at all stages of age and development.

This might seem like a bewildering amount of information! At Growing up Green we continually work hard to incorporate the EYFS framework into the practical ways of structuring our care. At the same time we strive to maintain our own unique emphasis and make room for the input of our staff and children into our approach to care. This encourages dynamism and creativity as well as stability in the environment we provide.

Our commitment to meeting individual needs is evident in countless aspects of the day-to-day running of the nursery, such as the flexible daily structures we follow for each age-appropriate room, the familiarity of all staff with the EYFS framework, the careful selection of resources, the kinds of activities engaged in, and the value placed on nutrition, food and meal-times. There are displays in the nursery emphasising the role of the EYFS as well as copies of the framework itself.

Whilst at Growing Up Green both parents/carers and children will benefit from our fully implemented key person system, meaning that planning is based around individual children's interests taken from the activities and toys that they have particularly enjoyed during the week. We welcome parents/carers to get actively involved within the nursery and regularly ask for your input into your child's learning, whether this is verbal or written.

Within each room activities, resources and the room layout itself are structured to give children an environment which enables them to enjoy and achieve, whilst giving that homely feel and extending development. The emphasis is on learning through play and planning activities that children actively participate in - whether this is a favourite toy, a drawing or playing in the sand and water. All of our nursery practitioners understand the importance of early childhood interactions and experiences, and know when to extend children's learning through the use of open questions and opportunities.

 


To ensure that we are meeting individual needs we assess and evaluate our plans daily, weekly, termly and yearly so that throughout the nursery all children are meeting their potential. To do this we observe children and record their development in many ways. Using planned and spontaneous observations, photographs/produced evidence (such as artwork) and examples of children talking and playing we are able to keep up to date records of how children progress through the EYFS. Each child has a personal file with this information, that stays with them throughout their time at nursery and that you can keep when they leave. We also ask parents/carers to complete interest sheets, alongside the ones that we complete at nursery. We find that this gives a lovely way of including those special moments from home into the nursery environment.