Our Curriculum

at Gloucester Nursery School

Intent

At Gloucester Nursery School, we aim to provide a happy, secure and exciting environment in which children, parents, staff, governors and associated agencies work supportively together in order to improve outcomes for the children.

The contribution each individual is able to make to the school is valued and due regard is shown for their social and cultural backgrounds as well as individual differences.  Parents and other members of the community are always welcome to share in the life of the school.

Our curriculum is ambitious, exciting and inclusive and as a result all children will be able to contribute to a generation who will acquire the knowledge, skills and understanding to be able to succeed in society today and in the future.

Our Aims:

• To provide high quality education and care for all children regardless of race, creed, gender, background, ability or difficulty
• To provide a happy, fun, safe, secure environment which is inviting, stimulating and welcoming
• To provide a broad, balanced, relevant and differentiated curriculum by responding to children’s needs and interests through observations, discussions with parents and through planning
• To promote self-esteem, confidence, self-discipline, perseverance, resilience and independence
• To promote positive attitudes and dispositions towards children’s learning
• To encourage children to explore, appreciate and respect their environment
• To equip children with knowledge, skills and understanding so that they are confident and excited for their next stage in their education.

We endeavour to give the children the cultural capital they need for future success – that means giving each child the best start in life and the support, enabling them to fulfil their full potential and achieve success in the future.  The children learn about values, engage in the culture they live in and understand the cultures of others – Fundamental British Values.

At the Nursery we create plenty of opportunities for children to become effective communicators and to be able to communicate more easily through developing language and communication skills.  Children at the Nursery communicate in many different ways including using pictures, gesturing, signing and with words. We focus on promoting communication and language to widen children’s vocabulary throughout the Nursery.  

We promote the concept that children believe in their own abilities and capabilities, develop a sense of belonging and contribute to the school learning community and the wider community, to become successful in their learning and development, now and in the future. 

Our curriculum celebrates diversity and supports the children’s spiritual, moral, social and emotional development so that they feel safe, secure and are ready to learn.  

Our Nursery curriculum incorporates the statutory requirements of the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum as well as opportunities and experiences which best meet the children’s developmental and learning needs, allowing them to flourish.  It is our intention that children are provided with a broad and balanced curriculum across the seven areas of learning, through playing and learning with other children and all members of the Nursery staff. High quality interactions with members of our experienced early years team promote learning and development and subsequently ensuring children make progress.

Learning is carefully planned by staff following the children's needs and interests to support the areas of learning in the Early Years Foundation Stage ie. Personal, Social and Emotional Development, Communication and Language Development; Physical Development as well as Literacy (Reading and Writing), Mathematics, Understanding of the World and Expressive Arts and Design (Exploring Media and Materials and Being Imaginative).  

We ensure the content of the curriculum is differentiated to meet the needs of all children and is taught in a logical progression or sequence so that children build on prior learning.  

Implementation: 

At Gloucester Nursery School, children demonstrate their knowledge, skills and understanding through the characteristics of effective learning.   These are: 

Playing and exploring: Engagement - Practitioners encourage:

• A ‘can do’ attitude so children are willing to take a risk in new experiences.
• Encourage curiosity about objects, events and people
• Encourage children to initiate and interact with others
• Extend children’s learning
• Develop children’s language
• Provide new vocabulary and challenge children’s thinking
• Children are confident to try out new ideas and are not afraid to ‘have a go

Active learning – Children will be able to:

1. Concentrate for a sustained period of time
2. Persist with activities when challenges occur
3. Pay attention to detail
4. Bounce back after difficulties
5. Be proud of how they accomplished something – not just the end result.

Creating and thinking critically - Children are able to:

• Have their own ideas
• Find ways to solve problems
• Make links and notice patterns in their experiences
• Make predictions
• Choose ways to do things.

Although we do not plan themes or topics we do have a focus on The Seasons and our local community including people who live and work in the nearby area to help the children learn about the World around them  

We plan ‘in the moment’, teaching children skills in teachable moments whilst working alongside them in the continuous provision.  Learning through play is vital and the learning environment created by members of staff and children match the needs, interests and skill levels of our children and the use of data assessments and gap analysis informs our planning and the quality of provision.

Communication

Communication and language development is at the heart of the curriculum and is always a consistent focus for development. We provide a rich communication and language environment, where high quality adult interactions, conversations, signing, objects of reference, photographs and picture exchanges, learning to sing nursery rhymes, sharing stories, retelling stories become embedded in the daily experiences of all of the children.  ‘Focus books’ help develop language and increase vocabulary as well as gaining a love of stories and books.  Children become familiar with these known texts so that they can remember and re-tell them.  

Outdoor learning

We actively promote outdoor learning and place strong emphasis on the importance and value of outdoor experiences for children’s continued learning and development.  Outdoor learning is a curriculum entitlement in the Early Years as it is essential to children’s health, development and well-being.  It also provides our children contact with the natural world and offers them experiences that are unique to outdoors, such as direct contact with the weather and the seasons.  Outdoor play also supports children’s problem solving skills and nurtures their creativity, as well as providing rich opportunities for developing imagination, inventiveness and resourcefulness. The outdoor environment offers more space than indoors and this is particularly important to those children who learn best through active movement. Our children learn to assess risk and develop the skills to manage new situations.  The children in our Nursery have continuous access to the outdoor learning environment regardless of the weather.

Creativity:

Our children have plenty of opportunities to: role play, draw, paint, mark-make, explore texture, listen to different genres of music; sing songs and learn how to respond to a range of music with movement. The children are always being encouraged to use a variety of tools safely and creatively.

The EYFS ensures that creativity and critical thinking are developed through play-based learning across the curriculum. We believe the importance of children learning in an environment that encourages exploration and active learning experiences. Imaginative and creative play develops children’s emotional, social, physical, cognitive, speaking and listening skills. 

We believe that children need opportunities to take risks and make mistakes, in order to learn and feel safe to be creative. Providing a stimulating and safe environment is essential for children to be able to express themselves creatively and take risks.

Messy play is a very valuable part of children´s creative learning. Having opportunities to play in sand, water, playdough, clay, mud kitchens provides children with sensory experiences and provides opportunities to develop curiosity and exploration. We encourage children to focus on the process, more than an end result, which is invaluable to their creative learning.

Ways in which we enhance creativity at Gloucester Nursery School:

• Provide high quality child led learning time to encourage children to initiate their own play activities
• Provide a wide range of stimulating, colourful resources to use and equipment and tools to use
• Value children’s attempts, persistence, and effort
• Encourage children to appreciate creativity and beauty in the environment and in the world around them
• Encourage children to develop projects to explore
• Encourage children to be curious about and interested in, objects and ideas
• Encourage the children to plan before embarking on a project
• Encourage children to explore and develop imaginative ideas
• Encourage the children to suggest ideas for role play areas and help with the setting up of them
• Encourage children to explore feelings and experiences through imaginative role play.
• Encourage children to use objects to represent something else.
• Provide opportunities for the children to be active and use their senses.
• 

Organisation:

Within family worker time activities are planned to extend children’s skills and understanding.  Staff teach through Group times when in a larger group, small group work, family worker time and individually by working in the provision to observe the children’s learning.  Staff record a snapshot of children's learning as evidence to build an overall picture of each child’s development and then for setting next steps for learning.   These snapshots are shared with parents via Tapestry.  Staff discuss children's development more formally within pupil progress meetings where they agree and record the levels of development for that child and identify any gaps in development where the child could possibly need support and highlight those that need challenging.

 

Impact  

We believe that every child is unique and they all have a potential to achieve.  Every child in our nursery is valued. 

Our children are:

• Kind
• Caring
• Polite
• Responsible
• Independent
• Cooperative
• And try their best in whatever they choose to pursue.  

Our broad and balanced curriculum ensures that the needs of individual children including children with SEND, EAL, Disadvantaged and those in receipt of Early Years Pupil Premium. Within the learning environment, there are high quality interactions with adults and children, supported by targeted interventions (either individual, in pairs or with small groups) where appropriate.  In this way it can be seen to be impacting in a very positive way on children’s outcomes. 

From their different starting points, all children will make good progress academically, emotionally, creatively, socially and physically.  Knowledge, understanding and skills will be secured and embedded so the children attain highly and are fully prepared for Primary School.  We constantly receive positive feedback from feeder schools and parents about how our children are ready for school when they make the transition to Primary School.  

The impact of our curriculum is measured by assessment procedures.  We analyse data from the whole cohort of children and measure the progress the children have made throughout the year.  The impact of our curriculum will also be measured by how effectively it helps our pupils develop into well rounded individuals, who embody our values and carry with them the knowledge, skills and attitudes which will make them lifelong learners and valuable future citizens. 

 

If you would like to know more about the curriculum please contact Christi Nikel, nursery teacher or Lisa Jeffery, head teacher via the school office.