At all Country Kids Day Nursery's, we follow a blended Reggio Emilia, High Scope, Montessori, Curiosity Approach and Forest School inspired approach to teaching and learning. Our environments are a place where all our children feel safe, nurtured, listened to and understood. We believe that children become better learners when they can touch, manipulate and explore.
Our curriculum has been designed to provide a rich academic foundation whilst also promoting independence. It provides our children with the essential life skills they need to be happy and successful in their follow on learning, and transition into Primary School when they reach five years old.
Children in all of our nurseries learn through 'active learning', which is play based and very hands on. Our curriculum follows the statutory standards set out by the Department of Education in the Early Years Foundation Stage Document. The core of our curriculum is: reading, writing, mathematics, technology, science, art and understanding the world. This begins in our Pre School and is taught to our children through fun and exciting themes throughout a two year period. This core learning takes place when a child is between the age of 3 and 5. The curriculum is designed to support your child to achieve all of the national standard early learning goals which are set by government and the department of education.
Children are naturally curious about the world around them, from when a baby watches it's mother to when a toddler walks you around the room, pointing at everything and when a pre-school childs favourite word is why!
One of the most important things an early years practitioner does in Country Kids is foster this curiosity in our children. We aim to build their inquisitiveness and actively encourage our children to ask lots of questions. We believe that if this natural curiosity is nurtured and developed then it can result in a generation of children who not only know a lot about the world around them but also question how to make the world a better place.
We call this approach enquiry-based learning, which starts when a child is around 3 to 4 years and it develops throughout a child's time in our pre-school. During our routine we participate in circle time where the practitioner will introduce the group to a big idea or concept. Children are then encouraged to explore the idea or the concept with the adult asking lots of open-ended questions. The children begin to brainstorm their ideas and this is where the magic begins.
Investigation will follow and all of our children are encouraged to become researchers. Together the children supported by the practitioner will investigate and talk through their observations. Our experienced and qualified early years practitioners support children with the use of literature, photographs, specimens, or artifacts. We call this active learning.
At the end of the session the children are given the opportunity to present their findings to the whole group. We call this our large group time. This is a fantastic time of the day as it helps children to build their confidence, become excellent communicators, brilliant listeners and we all reflect on what we have learnt.
It is not enquiry or active learning if:
At Country Kids we will always allow your child to lead their own learning. Our role is to support them and guide them, to be facilitators and allow our children and pre-schoolers to learn whilst having a lot of fun, not to tell them what we want them to do.