LEARNING

Learning Environments

Since opening our Nursery extension in February 2022, we now have 3 separate learning environments:

Seedlings

Our seedlings room is a small room that caters for up to 9 babies, between the ages of birth to 15 months; although, we do say this depends entirely on the child’s individual development, as we like to ensure all children are transitioned to the next room when it is best for their holistic development.

Within our Seedling room, we focus on building positive and secure attachments, by implementing a key person system; which we then run throughout our Nursery. By embedding the key person system from a young age, the babies are able to develop a happy and comfortable relationship with a familiar adult, who they can then use to support them in exploring and learning the world around them whilst at Ash Park Childcare. As well as developing these key relationships, our Seedling room focus on the children’s individual routines, to ensure that they are meeting all the children’s personal care needs; again, supporting the children to feel happy and content whilst at the Nursery.

Like in all our rooms, we support holistic development, by promoting and planning exciting, stimulating and age-appropriate activities to support the children with their development. Within the baby room, they focus on lots of sensory activities, whilst also working alongside our Planning Cycle.

Daffodils

Our Daffodil room is an exciting room, that can be full with up to 12 young toddlers; between the ages of 15 months to 2 ½ years old. Before starting in this room, we like our Daffodils to be confident on their feet and developing in confidence in other areas of development.

Within our Daffodil room, you will find that although the children’s individual routines are still focused upon, a majority of the children have reduced their naps to just one a day. This is the age group where we find the children are becoming chattier and their understanding is developing immensely. Therefore, throughout the Daffodil room you will experience lots of singing, stories and non-stop talking, promoting and modelling great language and communication skills to the children.

Alongside the communication and language development, our practitioners are working hard to support the children’s personal and social development, through turn taking and modelling positive social behaviours; whilst also supporting the children’s independence with their physical development through climbing, feeding themselves and using language to share their ideas.

As we do in Seedlings, Daffodils follow our Nursery Planning System, to embed creative and welcoming activities and provisions that stimulate and challenge their young, curious minds. We also try to plan lots of extra curriculum trips and visits to support the children, for example Miss Dianne Dance comes to visit us every week and we even get to visit the library most weeks!

Woodpeckers

Our Woodpecker room is our biggest room, that can look after up to 24 Woodpeckers every day; between the ages of 2 ½, to when they go to School at the age of 4. Within the room, we focus on supporting the children become more independent, building friendships and developing their social skills as well as preparing them for their all-important next adventure… School!

Within our Woodpecker room, we continue to implement our key person policy, ensuring every child has a familiar adult they can go to and can support them through their final stage of Nursery. This person, will help support your little one with all their developmental needs, from writing their names, to toilet training. Our Woodpecker room is a very busy room, with so much going on! Every week the children have a visit from Miss Diane Dance, as well as visiting Sophie at Forest School once a week too – getting outside and learning about the Great Outdoors – which they love!

The practitioners in our Woodpecker room, also work hard to implement and embed our topics and themes that are part of our planning cycle; from Fantasy topics to learning about our Planet and how to look after it, the Woodpeckers are always learning something new, whether this be through small-focused activities, which help support and develop the children’s listening skills and also help build the foundation they need for Reception or they are learning through exciting and challenging tuff trays, or visitors to our Nursery.

Extra Curriculum

At Ash Park we acknowledge that sometimes children have to be in Nursery longer than their families wish they were, that’s why we try our hardest to make every day as fun and as exciting as it possibly can be.

We pride ourselves in the extra curriculum we offer to our little ones, we have Miss Dianne Dance come twice a week to all our children in the Nursery, offering singing and dancing for an hour. The children and staff love Miss Dianne and it certainly offers lots of learning opportunities.

We also take our Woodpecker class to Forest School in Kilburn Woods once a week, to see Sophie, the Forest School Teacher. In the Woods, the children enjoy exploring and learning all about the great outdoors. Every week, they get to enjoy a great adventure as well as a tasty snack that they get to help make and cook.

Our Curriculum

The aim of our curriculum is to support all the children at Ash Park Childcare in being equipped with the skills and knowledge they need to explore and understand the world around them.

We do this by embedding the Development Matters guidance to support both the children’s holistic development, whilst focusing the curriculum on books to support and develop their love of reading, and their communication and language skills, and their personal, social and emotional development.

Through the use of key activities and stories, the practitioners’ professional judgement and a well thought out provision, with engaging adults; whom support both adult-led and child-led learning opportunities through all activities, we feel the children are best equipped for future development.

Our Pedagogy

At Ash Park, we believe that ‘play is the language of childhood’ and the best way for children to be learning. We recognise play as giving all children the opportunity to gain and embed new skills, develop their understanding, language and create independent lifelong learners.

Through play, we support our children to build their confidence and independence. Through our interactions and planning we empower children to choose, to reason, to reflect, imagine and empathise.

We have a variety of elements to our pedagogy and together they underpin our philosophy and support us as a team to provide engaging and captivating learning experiences. The pedagogy is designed to strengthen our children’s educational success, throughout a variety of experiences and approaches.

Through the 3 theorists, we have ensured that our curriculum and practice, meet the requirements set in the Early Years Foundation Stage Statutory Framework, which is supported by the non-statutory guidance ‘Development Matters.’

The theorists, that are embedded throughout our Nursery are:

Elizabeth Jarmen

Jarmen’s approach encourages creating calm, homely spaces for children, that do not overstimulate children by removing ‘visual noise.’ We provide natural and neutral environments, with clear and consistent routines, encouraging children to make their own choices, in a safe and secure environment.

Friedrich Froebel

Froebel’s play theory focuses on 5 key principles;

Learning through Play
Respect the individual’s Developmental Pace
Practitioner Knowledge
Classroom Environment
Importance of Movement

At Ash Park, children have the opportunity to access purposeful learning, tailored to the interests of individual children. We recognise that children learn differently and at different rates, and support children to set pace for themselves.

Our practitioners ensure children are encouraged to make mistakes, so that they can learn through trial and error and deepen their understanding. Our learning environment throughout the Nursery is carefully designed with resources that are optimal for each child’s age of development and places emphasis on the value of finger play, songs and dance.

Vygotsky

Vygotsky’s approach to learning, focuses primarily on imaginative play; believing play promotes cognitive, social, and emotional development in children and develops independent learners.

At Ash Park our children learn through play, doing and asking questions, interacting with others and engaging with purposeful resources, all supported by highly skilled practitioners. We believe, that play leads to creative thinking and through what they are doing children can reflect on what they are wanting to achieve, to solve problems and engage with the world around them.

Our pedagogy will continue to be reviewed to best meet the needs of our children.

Our Vision

At Ash Park Childcare, we strive ourselves to provide:

A safe, caring and stimulating environment, where children learn and develop. We ensure our children are independent, curious, creative and resilient learners, developing confidence and give them the skills to communicate effectively.

We demonstrate this through appropriate, responsive, open-ended and challenging learning opportunities. Making the best of all the resources we have available to us, including the community around us.