Learning and Development
Home from Home works the Birth to Five Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS). The EYFS follows the three prime areas and the four specific areas of learning and development. The level of progress children should be expected to have attained by the end of the EYFS is defined by the early learning goals which are:
The Prime areas
• Communication and Language
• Physical Development
• Personal, Social and Emotional Development
The Specific areas
• Understanding the World
• Expressive Arts and Design
Within the pre-school workshop, known as the Bees, Badgers and Owls, a warm welcome awaits where practitioners will plan high quality experiences aimed to stimulate and excite children, around their interests, in an environment that provides continuous provision for learning. Key practitioners hold level 3 Early Years qualifications and many are also graduates. The Principal holds a PGCE and is an Early Years Professional and supports and advises planning. Practitioners understand that children learn, and construct knowledge in experiential, interactive, concrete and hands-on ways, and this underpins all planned activities and is why planning ensures that children have lots of opportunity to initiate their own ideas and freely choose activities.
Fun and games outside
It’s important that children go outside every day and get a chance to run, jump and really move and develop those large muscles. As well as working off extra energy and learning from the natural environment, being outside gives children a chance to take risks and be loud and wild in ways that are often restricted when inside.
"There's no such things as bad weather, just inappropriate clothing" - Sir Rannulph Fiennes, World Explorer
At Home from Home Day Nursery we keep spare clothes, sun hats and supply rain suits so that all children are able to enjoy the outdoor space what ever the weather.
As children prepare for school (Owls group), practitioners will provide more structured activities- working one to one with children and providing small group activities to support children’s transition and readiness for formal school.
We know that on-going formative assessment is at the heart of effective early years practice and so Home from Home practitioners will observe children as they act and interact in their play. Practitioners will consider ways to support children to strengthen and deepen their current learning and development. They will plan ‘what next’ by closely matching what activities, resources they provide to a child’s current needs and by creating a learning environment that children have been involved in developing.
We are unanimous in that “We listen to and respect what children say, and act on their ideas”.
We understand that each child develops uniquely during their first three years of life, therefore practitioners will not have rigid expectations about what your child should and should not be doing at a certain stage, practitioners are skilled at noticing and adapt to, and will respond to individual children’s changing interests and abilities, including those with disabilities and special needs.
As well as looking after babies and very young children’s basic individual care needs, we know that developing motivation is also ‘key’ to your child’s learning and development, practitioners are responsive and understand that children need to develop at their own pace, practitioners make sure their interactions are timely and appropriate, supporting children to develop a sense of safety, so that they are more likely to observe and learn about the world around them. We know that young children learn from everything they do, children are naturally curious, they want to explore and discover, if they enjoy their experiences they will want to learn more. We know that the attitudes children form will last a lifetime, so children at Home from Home will be given lots of positive encouragement and support during their early years with us.
We know that babies are born with a tremendous amount of intrinsic motivation. This motivation is aimed toward having some viable effect on the environment, when babies and toddlers can actually see the results of their actions as a reward they are motivated to continue those actions. However, attempts toward control are limited in very young children, so our knowledgeable practitioners will provide unstructured and structured play activities that offer your child the opportunity to be a creative and active learner, for example, lots of physical exploration,- treasure boxes, drawers and baskets placed at children’s level so they can look in and explore the contents, heuristic play (a basket of natural and safe objects), materials and boxes, tunnels and tents to make a place, filling and emptying, transporting and travelling, lots of art activities, soft play climbing, that develop motor skills and help children to learn and develop confidence.
Practitioners recognise and value the importance of body language, voice tones and facial expressions and recognise that children can communicate from the moment of birth and they provide resources that encourage talking and listening, for example telephones, music, noisy toys, storytelling etc. and will use sign language as a further way of encouraging communication with babies and young children.