Nursery Curriculum

'Children learn by playing and exploring, being active, and through creative and critical thinking both indoors and outdoors'. (Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum)

We support and actively encourage this throughout all that we do at Hordle Explorers and it is our personal mission to ensure that each and every child becomes a competent and confident learners who ask questions and makes discoveries, developing the skills they need to grow as the unique individuals that they are. We recognise that every child learns in their own way and staff are experienced in tailoring children's learning experiences to best suit each child.

The Early Years Foundation Stage Framework is the curriculum which all Early Years settings follow and it exists to support professionals working in Early Years to best help your child. It was developed with a number of early year's experts and parents and explains how and what your child will be learning to support their development across 7 areas of learning and development:

• Personal, social and emotional development

• Physical development

• Communication and language

• Literacy

• Maths

• Understanding the world; and

• Expressive arts and design

These 7 areas of learning are used to plan your child's play opportunities and learning activities. These activities are planned by the HEN team, to support your child's unique needs and interests, and are designed to be flexible so that these needs and interests can be met.

The curriculum is play-based and child-centred, involving a balance of children self-selecting activities, whole class work, and focused small group activities, which are adult led. Themes through which to deliver the full coverage of the EYFS Framework are identified and developed according to the children's interests. All staff make continual observations to record the children's progress; these assessments form an important part of the future curriculum planning for each and every child.

At Hordle Explorers we also believe that developing skills is essential for our children and we celebrate the success of our nursery children by teaching them to become superheroes! Becoming a hero in our nursery can be achieved by learning the super hero life skills: being a great team member, helping to pack away, trying your hardest when something gets tricky, learning to share, helping an adult with a job, and many, many more.

We also positively encourage our children to become confident communicators and actively teach all our children the skills required to communicate their thoughts, needs, feelings and ideas. We pride ourselves on our ability to communicate with families - keeping you regularly informed of your child's achievements and progress through contact with the HEN team and your child's key worker. Tapestry, an online learning journal enables you to see what activities your child has been taking part in, as well as having the ability to add your own comments and photos to share with the HEN team - if your child learns to ride their bike or receives a swimming badge, share it with us so we can celebrate with your child! We also have a HEN Facebook page, allowing you to keep updated with everything going on, with useful reminders and updates on events taking place.

Fun activities you can do with your child

Many little things light up our children's imaginations. Children take everything in, and even the smallest things you do with them can make a big difference.

They love it when you chat, play and read with them, even when they’re too young to understand everything. Whatever the time and wherever you are, you can turn almost anything into a game.

And every little thing you do together will help them develop the skills needed when they start school.

Visit the Government website Hungry Little Minds for some great ideas!