Early Years Curriculum

Pedagogue Perfection & The Early Years Foundation Stage

We educate using a pedagogue method of ‘learning through play’ to deliver the essential elements of our dynamic and challenging curriculum. We believe that the children will learn and develop to their full potential with a fully play-based curriculum.  They still have a structured learning programme but discover and learn through a series of planned and spontaneous play cycles supported by highly qualified staff.  We have drawn on other pedagogue methods such as Montessori and Forest School to enhance our learning experiences. We have regular sessions of mindfulness where the children learn to build upon there other peoples experiences. We have regular external workshops such as bilingual beats, yoga, mini sports, Spanish and animal workshops. We believe that by selecting the best of all teaching methods we can deliver the best curriculum for each and every child in our care.

Statutory Curriculum

We follow the national statutory curriculum and everything your child learns at the Seahorse Nursery comes under these 7 Areas of Learning.

Initially we concentrate on the Prime Areas:

• Personal, Social and Emotional development – this involves helping children to form positive relationships, respect for others; to gain self-confidence and self-awareness and to learn to manage their feelings and behaviour.
• Physical Development – we ensure they have lots of opportunities to be active and interactive and move their bodies in a variety of ways; practise their manipulative skills and to handle tools and materials. To understand the importance of physical activity and to make healthy choices in relation to food.
• Communication and Language Development – with our rich language environment we enable children to listen and focus their attention, to express themselves and to foster their understanding of how life works.

The 4 Specific areas grow out of the fundamental prime areas and include essential skills and knowledge as well as important contexts of learning:

• Literacy – linking sounds and letters leading to reading & giving meaning to marks leading to writing.
• Mathematics – understanding and using numbers; exploring space, shape and measures
• Understanding the World – helping children to make sense of their communities, the World and exploring technology
• Expressive Arts and Design – enabling children to explore and play with a wide range of media and materials; using their imagination and providing opportunities for sharing their thoughts, idea and feelings through art, music, movement, dance, role play, design and technology.

Progress check at age two years

When your child is 2 years old it is advisable for them to have a Health check with the Health Visitor. This is complemented by a Progress report written by Seahorse Nursery. We will undertake this report soon after your child’s second birthday. If they are new to the nursery this will be written once they settled with us and we are able to observe their stage of development in the 3 prime areas.

This progress report will give you a clear picture of your child’s development and how we will work, in partnership, with you to ensure they will continue their learning and development whilst at this nursery. We invite you to come into the nursery and discuss the report, and their next steps, with your Key Person.

If we feel there are any areas were your child may be developing at a faster, or slower, pace than is expected we will discuss how we intend to assist your child with their learning journey.

Learning Journey 

We want to get to know your child and so your Key Person and all the team regularly observes your child. From these observations we can build up a picture of your child’s progress, their needs and plan activities to support their personal learning journey at Seahorse Nursery.  Many of our observations are written into their Learning Journal which you are welcome to see at any time.  We encourage you to contribute with home notes that we can incorporate into this journal so that we have a synergy with home and nursery.  We regularly share your child’s next steps so we can work together on these also.

Inky Swot

Inky Swot is an Army term used to name the top achievers (Julia was previously a Captain in the Army) so the aim of our Inky Swot club is to give your child the best Educational start in life. Inky Swot is a small group session for children of a similar age and also at a similar stage which takes place at a set time each week.

We follow our bespoke curriculum developed over the last 20 years. Each activity uses resources specifically for the Inky Swotters to foster numeracy and literacy skills. 1:1 attention is given to ensure each child understands how to use equipment and resources e.g. sand paper letters, plastic alphabet, pink boxes, mathematical rods, 3 D shapes, counting and dice games,  etc

Children are initially introduced to a different sounds/letters each week via the exploring bag and different objects.  They use mirrors and a special seahorse song to reinforce these sounds.

The importance of what number means is encouraged with mathematical rods, linking elephants, funny bones  and everyday objects e.g. conkers and vegetables  as well as counting, matching, sets, adding and subtracting.  Rocky, a puppet raccoon, regularly visits the Inky Swot club to help with mathematical stories and problem solving activities relating to size, length, weight, capacity etc.

Every child is encouraged to write their own name on each piece of work.

A short break is given between the two sessions to ensure the children remain fresh and ready to learn.  We also look at a newspaper article each week and undertake creative projects linked to the current nursery theme.

Nothing in isolation! Inky Swot learning is reinforced and consolidated during the Nursery week and weekly plans support your child’s learning.

We hope this gives you an insight into our Inky Swot curriculum and how we will be engaging and challenging the children. We will give you a booklet with lots more information just before your child joins Inky Swot.