The Curriculum at Victoria Park
We believe that some of the best teaching and learning happens when adults interact with children during their play. Children are naturally motivated when they are involved in activities of their own choosing and when skilled adults join them they can model language, explain, demonstrate, encourage, question, encourage the development of ideas and set challenges – planning next steps for the child’s learning as they play.
Our aim at Victoria Park is to support children to become effective learners. The Early Years Foundation Stage calls these skills “characteristics of effective learning” and they are
- Playing and exploring
- Active learning
- Creative thinking and thinking critically
By teaching these skills in a play-based context, we hope our children will leave Victoria Park with high levels of curiosity, concentration, independence and resilience, ready to achieve well in the next stage of their education.
We focus in particular on making sure children achieve well in the prime areas of learning:
- Communication and Language: through singing songs, learning nursery rhymes and playing ring games, sharing lots of famous traditional tales and stories and making up our own “Helicopter Stories”.
- Personal, Social and Emotional Development: by supporting the children to the skills to be sociable, to manage their own feelings and behaviour and to develop a sense of right from wrong.
- Physical Development: by providing an outdoor environment that encourages a wide range of movement and teaches the children to challenge themselves and manage risk; by encouraging the use of resources to develop fine motor skills; and by encouraging healthy eating and drinking habits.
We provide a rich set of resources, teaching and experiences to support the development of skills and knowledge across the specific areas of learning:
- Literacy: by exposing the children to a wide range of literature, including Key Stories that we study in greater depth; and by learning songs and rhymes each term.
- Mathematics: by providing practical opportunities to develop number skills
- Understanding the World: through celebrating birthdays and the festivals that are important to our community; by meeting important people in our town; by providing an outdoor environment that encourages an interest in nature and by providing play-based and teacher-led opportunities to interact with everyday technology.
- Expressive Arts & Design: by providing a wide range of materials and resources to allow experimentation and innovation; by introducing the work of professional writers, artists and craftspeople and by encouraging self-expression across a range of media.
We hope to involve parents in their children’s learning by:
- Providing reports on each child’s achievement and progress via Tapestry and informal meetings with staff.
- Inviting parents to workshops throughout the year.
- Running a range of courses in our Family Hub.
- Having regular “stay and play” sessions.
The Early Years curriculum is the followed by all daycare, preschools and nursery schools in England and carries on until the end of Reception year in primary school. The curriculum emphasises the importance of developing what it calls “characteristics of effective learning” – which are the dispositions children need to be independent and enthusiastic learners as they move through their education. In Early Years, play is seen as the most effective way of learning.
At Nursery School we focus on the Prime Areas of Learning, which form an important foundation to all future learning and development. These are: communication and language; personal, social and emotional development and physical development. The Early Years framework was updated in 2021 and there is also a useful document called Birth to Five Matters which provides guidance to educators. Please clilck on the links below for more information.
