Curriculum

The Wishing Tree Nursery is registered under the Children's Act 1989 (re-registered under the Children Act 2006) and regulated by OFSTED (Office for Standards in Education). Our nursery is subject to regular inspection to ensure compliance with national standards covering every aspect, from staffing, organisation and curriculum to equipment, food and drink, safety and hygiene.

At The Wishing Tree Nursery we promote a natural and stimulating environment both inside and out to allow children the time to explore the world around them at their own pace. Our curriculum and approach to day care aims to include best practices from both private and government maintained settings, ultimately preparing the way for a child’s entrance into the school system and beyond.

We aim to achieve a sensible balance between free and structured activities by offering a wide range of supervised activities designed to encourage language, confidence and independence. Our curriculum is based on good childcare best practices and is underpinned by the Government's Early Learning Goals and Birth to Three Matters, which in 2008 was amalgamated into one framework for the under fives. 

(Click - The Early Years Foundation Stage). 

At the centre of the EYFS philosophy is that every child deserves the best possible start in life and support to fulfill their potential. A child’s experience in the early years has a major impact on their future life chances. A secure, safe and happy childhood is important in its own right, and it provides the foundation for children to make the most of their abilities and talents as they grow up. When parents choose to use early years services they want to know that provision will keep their children safe and help them to thrive. The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) is the framework that provides that assurance. The overriding aim of the EYFS is to help young children achieve the five outcomes of :

  • Staying safe.
  • Being healthy.
  • Enjoying and achieving.
  • Making a positive contribution.
  • Achieving economic well-being.

The way in which these outcomes will be achieved must be governed by:

  1. Setting the standards for the learning, development and care young children should experience when they are attending a setting outside their family home, ensuring that every child makes progress and that no child gets left behind;
  2. Providing for equality of opportunity and anti-discriminatory practice and ensuring that every child is included and not disadvantaged because of ethnicity, culture or religion, home language, family background, learning difficulties or disabilities, gender or ability;
  3. Creating the framework for partnership working between parents and professionals, and between all the settings that the child attends;
  4. Improving quality and consistency in the early years sector through a universal set of standards which apply to all settings, ending the distinction between care and learning in the existing frameworks, and providing the basis for the inspection and regulation regime;
  5. Laying a secure foundation for future learning through learning and development that is planned around the individual needs and interests of the child, and informed by the use of ongoing observational assessment.

Effective practice in the EYFS is built on four guiding themes. They provide a context for the requirements and describe how nurseries should support the development, learning and care of young children. The themes are each broken down into four commitments describing how the principles can be put into practice.

A Unique Child - recognises that every child is a competent learner from birth who can be resilient, capable, confident and self-assured. The commitments are focused around development; inclusion; safety; and health and well-being.

Positive Relationships - describes how children learn to be strong and independent from a base of loving and secure relationships with parents and/or a key person. The commitments are focused around respect; partnership with parents; supporting learning; and the role of the key person.

Enabling Environments - explains that the environment plays a key role in supporting and extending children’s development and learning. The commitments are focused around observation, assessment and planning.

Learning and Development - recognises that children develop and learn in different ways and at different rates, and that all areas of learning and development are equally important and inter-connected. These learning areas are broken down into six areas:

  • Personal, social and emotional development.
  • Communication, language and literacy.
  • Mathematical development.
  • Knowledge and understanding of the world.
  • Physical development.
  • Creative development.

Whilst it is very important to prepare a child for the school curriculum it is also important to remember that there are many facets to each child that need to be observed and encouraged. The EYFS will be a very important part of how our nursery will construct its care and learning framework, supported by our belief in finding best practices wherever they are and building them into our curriculum and activities.

It is our intention to use the Department of Education guidelines as the framework for our childcare delivery and at the same time seek to bring in innovation where appropriate and desirable. (Click - The Early Years Foundation Stage)