‘It is a mistake to take any approach and assume that, like a flower, you can take it from one soil and put it in another one. That never works. We have to figure out what aspects are most important to us and what kind of soil we need to make these aspects grow.’ (Howard Gardner, The Unschooled Mind)

Our Mission Statement and ‘Image of the child’ underpins our approach to childcare, which is completely child focused, concentrating on all of the children’s efforts and achievements and observing their next steps in learning and development. Although we value the ‘Reggio Approach’ and incorporate it in to our own, we have our own visions and values, which also form the basis of our approach. We recognise that Howard Gardner’s statement above is true, and we cannot just ‘copy’ one theory and disguise it as our own, we all have our own experiences and knowledge of best practice, which we bring together and continually develop.

In our Nursery, the children’s play and learning environment is designed to encourage children to carefully construct their own learning via independence and choice of play experiences and activities. The layout of the children’s base rooms is stimulating and specifically structured to enhance the learning that takes place for each child.

Below we have listed the main experiences for children, which we believe to be key to the success of our approach.  

The Great Outdoors

Appropriately dressed, children will experience the great outdoors in all weathers in our secure, enclosed garden, so what better way to learn about and experience the four seasons?! We value our garden as the extended classroom, rather than a time for ‘recess’ and children enjoy a range of stimulating activies outdoors.  The outdoor environment is carefully constructed to enhance children’s play and learning, similar to the indoor environment and reflecting the six areas of learning and development from the Early Years Foundation Stage.

‘Outdoor environments are places where babies and young children are learning about the wider world, they should provide challenge and promote adventure and exploration, even for the youngest children.’

(Ann Langston and Lesley Abbott, 2005) 

Creativity and Representation

Similar to the ‘ Reggio Approach ’, we believe that expressive arts are fundamental to children’s development. Children have many different ways of exploring, experimenting, representing and expressing themselves, and we will provide a large variety of opportunities for children to do this.

We praise every child’s efforts, focusing on the process of each activity or play experience, rather than the ‘end product’. The types of free choice, creative activities all babies and children will be engaging in are; painting, mark making, collages / junk modelling / crafts, construction, music and movement, heuristic play, playdough, clay, weaving, reflection and self portraits, light & shadow experiments, role play, small world, dressing up, puppet shows and tactile experiences (messy play) such as jelly play, corn flour dough, cereals, soil, rice, pasta, gloop etc. Through children’s creativity, they can explore the world in which they live at their own level of understanding, revisiting particular areas of interest, extending and embedding their learning. 

Long Term Projects (Nursery Class)

Our long-term projects will be developed from children’s interests, and extended to last over a period of time, whether that be a few days or several months. They may include local trips and visits, which will aid in the thorough understanding of the project topic and will hopefully encourage children to become more engaged and develop their own ideas to enhance the project. Our staff will come up with their own ideas to develop a project, but will discuss these ideas with the children, and invite them to share their own ideas and suggestions.

The projects will involve some pre-planning from the Nursery Class staff, however, these plans will be reviewed and updated throughout the project as it is revisited and continually developed by the children. Thorough observations and evaluations will be made to determine the learning and understanding that has taken place. Other documentation of children’s learning will be demonstrated through photos and displays.