What is a High Quality Nursery Education?
- It is about much more than just learning numbers and letters.
- It is about developing the whole child – learning to be confident, sociable, independent and inquisitive. It is about having a positive attitude and forming positive relationships.
- What your child learns at Nursery will build upon the experiences they have already gained at home. Young children learn by watching and doing, by exploring and investigating, by listening and speaking, by creating and experimenting.
- If children learn to “have a go” they can learn from their mistakes and not be afraid to try again.
- The education we provide is based on a philosophy of play and active learning. Play is children’s work and playing hard is very tiring.
- We observe and assess each child carefully and record their overall development.
Children are assessed on entry using the Durham Scheme for Foundation Stage Assessment. When children enter aged 2 year we complete an integrated review with parents and health visitors.
This gives us a “baseline” from which activities are planned to ensure all children develop at the appropriate rate.
Staff then continually monitor and record your child’s progress in their group floor book which is used to write progress summaries and an annual report, discussed with you at a parent’s day/evening twice a year.
The Nursery Curriculum – What Did You Do At Nursery Today?
When children make something, draw or paint you can see what they have done but often their play has nothing to show for it. Therefore, do not presume that they have not been learning anything if they do not leave nursery with a finished product. Our displays in Nursery aim to celebrate children’s play and explain the learning taking place. Please feel free to look at our displays when you bring /collect your child.
Please do not put pressure on your child to always produce something for you, or compare what they have made, as this can damage their self-esteem.
During the nursery session children are offered a free choice of activities both indoors and outdoors, whatever the weather, from a balanced programme. We place a strong emphasis on learning in our outdoor environment. Some activities will be adult led, and some child led. Waterproof outdoor clothing is provided for outdoor use.
We have a family website designed to share regular information about our school life, photographs of the children enjoying a range of activities, interactive games, community events and much more.
Each term you will receive a Newsletter, which will include activities about the current learning, your child is taking part in at nursery. At the end of each term you will receive a Governor newsletter to share the successes of the children.
All aspects of children’s growth and development are woven together but they can be separated into 7 different areas of learning. These areas are consistent with the Early Learning Goals within the Early Years Foundation Stage for 0 to 5 year olds. The 7 areas are split into 3 prime areas (these are the areas the children should mostly develop first) and 4 specific areas (these will develop as the child grows).
Please view the Prime / Specific Areas of Our Nursery Curriculum
Reading
Reading in Rosemary Lane Nursery School is woven through everything we do. The importance of sharing books to develop a passion for reading and an understanding about how reading provides knowledge is evident in the prominent use of books throughout our school.
Adults model the skills of handling books and encourage children to become immersed in stories through handling props, re-enacting stories with puppets, exploring stories in small world story trays and listening to stories through CD players and MP3 players.
We have a wonderful lending library provided by family donations over many years. Parents and children may borrow books to take home and share.
We encourage parents and grandparents to volunteer their time to read with the children in our nursery book corner.
We hold an annual ‘Cuddle up with a book” day for parents and carers to come along and read to their child in nursery.
We encourage children to share stories with their peers and introduce books without words for children to become confident at looking for the meaning in pictures. Children are taught the skills of reading through small group time sessions.
Phonics
Phonics is a method of teaching reading by correlating sounds with symbols. In Rosemary Lane Nursery School we teach our children about phonological awareness. This is developing the knowledge that sounds are the building blocks of words. Phonological awareness and good oral language skills are key to learning how to read.
We use a range of different strategies including Letters and Sounds. Letters and Sounds is a phonics resource published by the Department for Education. It aims to build children’s speaking and listening skills as well as developing phonological awareness.
When children first join nursery they work predominantly on being able to listen and offer speech. Over time we move on to listening for and discriminating sounds/phonemes, separating words into syllables, rhythm and rhyme, alliteration, voice sounds and oral blending and segmenting. We make it lots of fun for our children and teach this through engaging short group sessions which build children’s skills over the academic year.
A short video to help you and your child with pronouncing individual letter sounds/phonemes.
A short video to support you with correct letter formation.
Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND)
At Rosemary Lane Nursery School, we believe that inclusive education means providing all pupils with appropriate education and support alongside their peers. The Curriculum is all the planned activities that the school organises in order to promote learning, personal growth and development. Further information can be found in the SEN Information Report If you would like to discuss your SEND requirements in detail please contact the school to arrange an appointment.
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