Long Term Curriculum
At Little Steps nursery we encourage our children to be:
- Independent
- Kind
- Imaginative
- Artistic
- Athletic
- Safe and Healthy
- Communicators
- Musicians
- Readers
- Explorers
- Writers
- Mathematicians
For further insight into what these goals look like for our children, please have a look at our Long Term Curriculum Goals
We achieve these goals through:
- Carefully resourced, well-considered environments in which children can be the leaders in their play and exploration
- Interactions between children and knowledgeable practitioners who follow the children’s lead and engage in sustained, shared thinking – encouraging deep thought processes with the children which further their learning
- Flexible themes which build on children’s interests. Although the majority of the children’s day follows the ‘in-the-moment planning’ model, in which children explore as they wish and adults scaffold the children’s learning within their play, we believe interspersing this with adult-led, thematic activities adds further interest for the children and is something that can be picked up in conversations and activities at home.
- Small group sessions in communication, and in older years in phonics and numeracy to prepare the children for their next step into Reception.
Observations and Next Steps
Every child is assigned a key person who will observe their children throughout the day. These observations will allow the practitioner to assess the child’s development and therefore provide the child with opportunities to develop their learning, at that moment. Although some ‘next steps’ will be big ones, developed over several days or weeks – learning to walk, potty training etc – many will change as the child moves between activities. They will be dependent on the skill the child is learning at that time. Therefore, our approach to next steps is a fluid one, as points of development are continuously assessed and re-evaluated by our well-informed practitioners.
Once a term, every child will have a ‘focus week’. This week is a time for the key person and parent/carer to collaboratively assess how the child is developing. At the end of the week the key person will create a full reflection based on observations from home and nursery.