Brookdale Day Nursery strives to provide
the highest level of care, learning and development. We have worked hard to design and develop an
effective early year’s curriculum to best meet the needs of all our children.
This starts by working in close partnership with the parents to build on their
strengths and creating a welcoming stimulating environment. We always nurture and support all children’s
progression with an inclusive and holistic approach to child development. Our
curriculum consists of everything we want the children to experience, learn and
be able to do. Our intention is for our curriculum to be ambitious and
inclusive, educating all children in knowledge, skills and understanding.
Brookdale Day Nursery provides a safe, caring environment which enables our
children to be inquisitive, curious, and independent learners. We feel that children learn by observing
the people around them and develop their attitudes from their social
environment. We understand that a child's early experiences form the foundation
upon which their future attitudes are formed, and that early year’s education
is crucial in the fight for a more equal society in modern Britain.
Our Fundamental British Values
play an important role here too. These important, universal, core values are
not only vital for preparing our children for life in modern Britain but are
also integral to equality, diversity, and inclusion.
We are proud of the trusting
relationships our parents have with us we value prior learning and work
together with parents to ensure every child progresses. Through this
partnership we endeavour to enhance the skills they need for future success,
enabling them to fulfil their potential. We promote these partnerships through
open communication, parents’ information evenings and we use evidence-me (parent
share app) to share experiences from home and in the setting. These then
contribute towards their learning journey. During the settling in process, we
share information with parents such as “All About Me” and “What to Expect When”
this is so we can work together and form secure attachments with our families.
These contributions are sought, valued, and highly respected.
Intent
We are passionate about creating opportunities for the children to
communicate more easily through developing language and communication skills
from birth. Communicating is how we get to know about each other and developing
strong communication and language skills from a young age is an essential
foundation. The development of these
skills is paramount to promote self-esteem, independence, and confidence and in
turn helps friendships flourish which are incredibly important for children.
The staff within the nursery environment communicate with all the children
effectively, we scaffold and model language through nursery rhymes, dialogue, constant narrative and modelling
affective communication.
We form strong relationships
with our children, ensuring we have a stable workforce and continuity of care.
At Brookdale Day Nursery we consider it important for all adults working with
children to understand what attachment is and know how to help parents and
carers become attuned to their child’s needs. We allow our children time to
build a safe, settled and secure bond with staff, especially with our under
2’s. Space to cuddle, be calm and comforted are at the core of our ethos.
It is our intention that the
children experience the areas of learning (EYFS Curriculum) which are centred
around the three prime areas:
- Communication and Language
- Physical development
- Personal, Social and Emotional development.
We then support children’s
experiences within the four specific areas, through which the three prime areas
are strengthened and applied. These are:
- Literacy
- Mathematics
- Understanding the world
- Expressive arts and design
We use the Department of
Education’s Development Matters curriculum guidance to form the basis of our
planning and assessments, but also give regard to the Early Years Alliance
document “Birth to five matters” to extend those milestones and development
guidelines. Implementation
The way we achieve a broad and
balanced curriculum is through in the moment planning. Planning in the moment
has transformed both our practice and us here at Brookdale Day Nursery. It has
taken us to another level of purposeful interactions, we feel privileged to
play with the children in our setting and this leads to high levels of
engagement and learning has improved massively. Children are demonstrating far
higher levels of interest and involvement, persevering, and showing a ‘can do’
attitude whilst creativity, critical thinking, and motivation for all is
evident in the constant thrum of activity. For the practitioners, planning,
preparation, and assessment is now a celebration of children’s learning, inputting
the children’s ‘wow!’ moments, contributed by all the staff, is a delight and
leads naturally to knowing what’s next. The change has given us the freedom to
teach in accordance with children’s needs and in a way that is nourishing for
them and us. At Brookdale Day Nursery we have an extensive outdoor learning
environment which provides space for the children to be active, develop
co-ordination, control and movement, our outdoor environment provides a unique
chance for sustained shared thinking and extended periods of play. Being in the outdoor environment
is both positive from a health perspective but also for connecting children
with the environment.
We are situated in a prime
position to enable us to participate in intergenerational care with the care
home that is located adjacent to us, this provides the children with new
learning opportunities such as being more confident in their interactions with
adults and being confident when communicating with others. Children who have
lived through different experiences can begin to grow stronger when they
experience high quality early education and care. We have successfully
integrated the assessment software “Evidence Me” into our working practise,
this allows our staff real time information on the children in our care,
allowing for focused interactions, identifying, and responding to any
developmental needs for each individual child. The software allows for our
parents to be a partner in their children’s learning journey. Each room from our youngest
children to our pre-school children, uses the curriculum guidance to ensure a
flow of development. We can therefore support smooth transitions as children
progress through the setting. All staff understand child development and value
working collaboratively with each other, this ensures consistent expectations
allowing each child to progress no matter where their starting point is. All practitioners
have a consistent approach to behaviour management, we work hard to create
clear boundaries and have high expectation. However, we still value each child
as an individual, and help children to live and learn alongside other catering
for individual needs. The management team have many
years’ experience working with the EYFS, and this knowledge is used to ensure
each staff member understands their children’s needs and can respond
appropriately. We currently have an effective programme of continued
professional development. It closely considers the context and performance of
the setting and feeds into our setting development plan. We support and
encourage reflective practise throughout the nursery and actively work
alongside staff encouraging and creating an effective team. We have regular
supervisions, peer observations, staff meetings and rigorous staff training.
Effective professional development improves the quality of interactions between
children and practitioners.
We use our planning,
assessments, observations, and discussions to inform next steps and intents for
each room.
At Brookdale Day Nursery we ensure that every child at the setting is
included. Every child is unique and will develop at their own pace, so it’s not
about treating all children in the same way but treating each child fairly and
paying attention to their individual interests and needs. We have a range of
additional intervention and support for children who may not be reaching their
potential or are showing a greater depth of understanding and need further challenges.
Where children are not experiencing success, they may have barriers to their
learning. These barriers might be short term, or they may
indicate a longer special educational need and/or disability. In these
instances, more assessment will be needed to try and get to know the child
better and focus on their needs. We work collaboratively with the Lancashire
Specialist Teaching team when extra support is needed, using the Early Years
SEND Toolkit to access early interventions and support.
We ensure the needs of
individual children are met through grouping our children flexibly throughout
the nursery, our rooms are not solely designated by age, more centred around
each child’s individual needs and stage of development.
Impact
We truly believe that the hard
work we do in early years education is vital in creating the foundations for
future success and understand the value of working together, in the best
interests of the child. The skills and competencies the children learn in the
early years setting will help them tackle the new challenges they may face in
the next phase of their education and our ultimate aim is to help to create
confident, resilient, and capable learners who are secure, happy and eager to
continue their learning journey.
