IN FOCUS 2020
By Mrs Mason, Head of Early Years
What a year we have all had! Despite these incredibly disconcerting times, we do still have so much to celebrate within our Early Years Department. Over the summer of 2019, we finished updating our Nursery building. We are incredibly pleased with all our new, neutral and calming spaces. We are continuing to look at our resources and are slowly moving away from artificial manufactured items and continue to focus more on natural, loose part materials. Of course, these will take many years to build up, but we have made a good start, and our children certainly have access to a broader scope of new learning materials and opportunities. I am incredibly excited to watch this develop over the years. As we move forward, we are looking to redesign and develop our Pre-Prep provision, again creating a neutral, natural and non-overstimulating environment. We will continue to provide lots of challenging opportunities for the children using a vast array of resources and look forward to sharing with you how this progresses over the year.
on their faces, particularly with our youngest children as they are simply bursting with inquisitiveness! Children can learn to be fearful from the anxieties of others around them, so we provide an environment that is calm, encouraging and patient, and gives the children the confidence to have a go. We are very much looking forward to a return visit at the start of the next academic year. In November, we opened The Rising 3s Room led by Mrs Samantha Tempest. This learning stage is designed to be slightly more challenging than the Toddler room and will be preparing the children for their transition over to PrePrep. We are now able to focus a little more on phonics preparation, pre-writing skills, independent skills and developing the children’s social interactions with both adults and their peers.
The room is once again a very calming space but continues to provide a fun environment, thought-provoking and challenging. This will encourage all the children to extend their learning naturally with an Early Years Educator scaffolding their progress. Back in November 2019, we participated in a fundraising event for Tam O’Shanter Farm. The children made some animal handprints on canvas, and families were able to purchase them from us. All funds raised went to help support the farm, as they survive on donations and fundraising alone. They have had a particularly hard time
In October we had a wonderful visit from ‘Animals Take Over’. The children had the opportunity to get up close and personal with some frogs, a chinchilla, a snake, a sugar glider, a hedgehog, a bearded dragon and so much more. It is truly amazing to watch the curiosity and wonder
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