Effective Learning at Nursery Stage

At Oasis Academy Short Heath, we ensure that our environment and delivery of the curriculum incorporates the three characteristics of effective teaching and learning: 

1. Playing and exploring - children will have opportunities to investigate and experience things,  and ‘have a go’. 
2. Active learning - children will have time and space to concentrate and keep on trying if they encounter difficulties, and enjoy their achievements. 
3. Creating and thinking critically - we encourage and support children to have and develop their own ideas, make links between ideas, and develop strategies for doing things.

The EYFS sets the standards that all early years providers must meet to ensure that children learn and develop well and are kept healthy and safe. It promotes teaching and learning to ensure children’s ‘school readiness’ and gives children the broad range of knowledge and skills that provide the right foundation for good future progress through school and life.

Nursery Curriculum

Take a look at our Nursery Curriculum for the academic year 2021/22

Click Here

Planning

The Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum provides the basis for planning throughout the Foundation Stage. The planning objectives within the Foundation Stage are from the Development Matters Statements from the Early Years Foundation Stage document.

The Planning follows ‘Writing for Real’ Medium Term Plans (MTP’s), which are based around half termly themes such as ‘All about Me’, ‘Christmas Countdown’, ‘Space’, ‘Down in the Jungle’, ‘Dinosaurs’ ‘People who help Us’ ‘Traditional Tales’ ‘Under the Sea’ ‘At the Farm’ . These Medium-Term Plans are used by the Nursery teachers as a guide for weekly planning. However, the teachers may alter these MTP’s in response to the needs (achievements and interests) of the children. This is indicated on weekly planning which provides detailed activities for the week.

Staff make regular assessments of children’s learning and we use this information to ensure that future planning reflects identified needs.

Routine

The routine of our day is structured to allow for the mix of play and more formal teaching, ensuring the balance between adult-led and child-initiated activities.

During the day, children have time to choose where they want to take their learning and develop their interests, whether it is indoors or outdoors. We call this Continuous Provision. Outdoor learning is an equal and large part of our Nursery curriculum.

Play and Talk- Why it is important

Childhood is important and we want all children at Little Explorers to have many, many enjoyable, successful and satisfying learning experiences. Play is the key to the way young children learn. Through play children can develop the confidence for learning, social skills needed for personal development, and skills needed for writing, counting, and exploring their environment.

Children must play because…It means that brain building is in progress!

We have lots of fun ideas you can also try at home that will help your child learn and have fun! Here are some great ideas for things you can try at home. 

Learning Journey and Maths Books

Maths is structured across the Early Years phase to ensure a progression of skills that build from Nursery through to Reception. The approach uses NCETM Numberblocks as the main tool for learning, however it is also influenced by NCETM Mastering Number and White Rose Maths.

Throughout your child’s time at Little Explorers, we will show you all those achievements, special moments, artwork, photos and fond memories and add these to your child’s learning journey or maths book which captures your child’s progress at Little Explorers. Learning takes place in many different situations and all of a child’s experiences are valuable to their Learning Journey or Maths Book. Your Class Teacher will talk to you about how we can capture these together.

This Learning Journey can be shown to your child’s new school so they can see how well they have developed at Little Explorers. This is then yours to keep and cherish forever.

Approaching the curriculum – Phonics

Phonics is delivered through Bookwings Phonics, which is an immersive, multi-sensory approach designed to capture children’s interests. This approach is closely linked to the OCL Reading intent, promoting the use of high-quality texts and develop a love of reading.

Approaching the curriculum – Literacy and The Write Stuff

The Write Stuff is used in EYFS to develop children’s vocabulary, talk and writing. Embedding this through the use of the FANTASTIC lenses in Nursery to promote talk and the development of vocabulary in all areas of learning lays a strong foundation for the use of the lenses to form the basis of writing in Reception and beyond. The approach is rooted in early language development, inspiring and introducing new words to children in meaningful ways to enable them to navigate the world.