Curriculum

Staff ratio

The staff ratio in Explorers is 1;3 and each baby is allocated a key person. At the end of each day, your key person will give you feedback on your child’s day utilising the Daily Diary on our Famly App. 

Routine

Your baby’s routine is important to ensure continuity of care between home and nursery, and we will make every effort to mirror your routine whilst your baby settles into nursery. Our baby rooms are spacious, bright and filled with wonderful soft furnishings and age appropriate resources to entice their curiosity, wonder and fascination in a safe nurturing environment. We introduce activities to meet their natural curiosity and wonder of the world, whilst encouraging exploration. 
We have a dedicated quiet rest space for our explorers, with cots, swings, rockers and mats so that your child can sleep peacefully as they would at home. We use high quality, muslin cellular blankets for all of our children to ensure that they are comfortable and safe.

Breakfast - 8:15 – 8:45am
Activities 
Snack time - 10:00am
Activities
Lunch – 11:30am
Nap time – from 12:30pm
Afternoon activities
Tea – 3:30pm 
Free play and activities 

Development and Learning

Children in our Explorers group are exploring the world for the first time so we surround them with a nurturing environment filled with encouragement. Your baby will experience the early successes that they need to grow and develop independence. We support babies to learn at their own pace and in their own way, by playing and exploring, active learning or creating and thinking critically. 

We nurture baby’s language development through songs, stories, rhymes and games. We surround our babies in a language rich world, exposing them to new vocabulary each and every day.

Explorers develop new skills every day and our rooms are set up to encourage free movement. Various methods of mark making are readily available to all of our explorers, and we have access to soft play facilities that cater to their physical development needs. We often use our prams to take our Explorers out for walks and will encourage walking Explorers to examine their surroundings on foot.

Explorers learn more about the world using their senses, so we have filled our Baby Room in sensory materials, textures, toys and objects. We spend lots of time singing, listening to music and playing with instruments. They have lots of opportunities to play with sand, water and other materials too.

Staff ratio

The staff ratio in Adventurer’s is 1;4 and each toddler is given a key person. At the end of each day, your key person will give you feedback on your child’s day utilising the Daily Diary on our Famly App.

Routine
Breakfast - 8:15 – 8:45am
Activities
Snack time - 10:00am
Activities
Lunch – 11:30am
Nap time – from 12:30pm
Afternoon activities
Tea – 3:30pm 
Free play and activities 

When they are ready, we will work closely with parents to support your child in learning to use the toilet independently. This is an incredibly important milestone in every child’s life, so it is important that we talk about each child individually to work out when they are ready to start this.

Development and Learning

The foundation for learning has been laid by making it fun and by recognising that personal, social and emotional development are key to future education. The key person continues to plan for your child’s individualised needs and interests, and offer opportunities to extend their development and knowledge of the concepts they have already developed through adult led and child initiated play. Children at the age of 2 are often adventurous in their play, learning to risk assess their own play based on the emotional and secure attachments they have already formed. The environment reflects the starting point of early stages of preschool.

Toddlers are curious and busy. They seek out new experiences and adventures. At Little Trees we are always looking for ways to challenge our Adventurers. We encourage them to share their thoughts and feelings with us, so that we can tailor the learning environment to their interests. We update and change our environment in the room regularly to stimulate their imaginations, as they begin to become young children. 

Adventurers enjoy opportunities to express themselves in many different forms. At Little Trees, we encourage and provide opportunities to role play, where they can engage in imaginative play, ample space for sand and water play, and opportunities to enjoy messy play encourage mathematical thinking. They enjoy mark making in a variety of forms and simple mathematical activities.

Adventurers are becoming increasingly independent. We support them in this transition to becoming young children. We encourage them to be more independent by teaching them the skills they need. Within our safe environment, adventurers are encouraged to take risks and to learn by trial and error. 
As they are learning to communicate more effectively, we teach them how to be polite and courteous to others. We talk to your adventurer regularly about their likes and dislikes, what they did at the weekend, and how they are feeling. We sing songs, play games, read stories and much more. 

Routine
Breakfast - 8:30 – 9:00am
Snack time - 10:00am
Lunch – 12:00am & 12:30pm (Two sittings)
Tea – 3:00pm

Staff ratio
The staff ratio in Investigator's is 1;8 and each Pre-Schooler is given a key person. The Famly daily diary is not used in our pre-school room as we encourage the children to become independent in communicating what they have been up to during the nursery day. 

Development & Learning

Our Pre-Schoolers are Investigators. They are inquisitive in their play. They want to be busy all the time and at Little Trees we encourage our children to explore through open ended experiences which come from their natural curiosity.  We encourage them to follow their own interests and initiate activities, building on their independence. Our Investigators are encouraged to be resilient learners who take risks, ask questions and find solutions.  They are becoming independent in their self-care skills and are becoming ‘school ready.’ Close friendships with their peers are formed at this age and our children will start to learn how to lead, how to compromise and how to resolve conflict amicably with the guidance of our skilled staff. In England we follow the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) which sets out the curriculum that we work within. These include:

Prime Areas
•    Personal, Social and Emotional Development
•    Communication and Language
•    Physical Development

Specific Areas
•    Literacy
•    Mathematics
•    Understanding the World
•    Expressive Arts and Design.

We provide a wide range of exciting activities and experiences which follow the children’s interests and next steps, so each child has individualised learning. Children learn best when they lead their own play and we guide and extend this with our skilled practitioners. Our Investigators are able to focus and concentrate on activities of their choice for a period of time. We introduce learning concepts in a structured manner in preparation for starting school and will start to learn the following skills:

•    Phonics, name recognition
•    Early Mathematics such as counting, number and shape recognition
•    Mark making such as letter formation, drawing a recognisable picture
•    Group activities such as circle time where children will become confident to speak in a large group sharing their news and experiences.

School Readiness
In the Summer term we will start to liaise with the primary school that your child will be attending sharing information that will help your child to successfully transition onto their next important step in their educational journey. We will provide activities such as reading books about starting school, sharing photos of your child’s new school and trying on various school uniform items.