The River Mole curriculum is a progressive curriculum that is a reflection of children of today. It builds upon the areas of learning and development from the Early Years Foundation stage adding additional knowledge and learning opportunities.
We have created 4 key focus areas that we believe complement the statutory framework areas of learning.
Physical development, personal, social and emotional development.
Communication and language, Literacy, expressive arts and design.
Understanding the world.
Mathematics
Play based on experiences is a process of learning where little ones learn by doing. Children learn best when they engage actively with their learning environment, and forming new experiences as they play. Experiential learning for early years bases itself on the idea that little ones learn best when they actively engage with their environment and reflect on their experiences. This kind of learning goes beyond traditional classroom instruction, encouraging students to apply theoretical knowledge to real-life situations.
We have daily small group ‘focus time’ where early years practitioners will guide the play with age appropriate activities such as music, dance and meditation, story time, singing, topical discussions and much more. Children will regularly take part in cooking and baking activities, yoga and Play-Doh disco.
Our Ready, Steady, Go! sessions over the course of the academic year, help our children prepare for big school and become independent and enthusiastic learners. We cover phonics ranging from basic listening skills, rhyming, alliteration and oral segmenting and blending. Part of our school readiness programme includes a library book scheme, where the children can take books home to enjoy and learn how to look after and care for them.
In Early years we often hear about children being given choice, and a Montessori approach believes that children would learn far more if children were given the opportunity to explore and be independent learners. She was an advocate for the hands-on-approach to learning, rather than a teacher imparting lots of information on the child. Our educators are on hand to help scaffold children’s learning sensitively, allowing them time and space to make choices and decisions, and to try things for themselves.
At River Mole, we teach the children how to understand and express their feelings, how to make positive choices and how to manage conflict or when they are feeling overwhelmed. We implement this daily through mindfulness, our values and role modelling how to use and adapt emotional vocabulary. We explore choices at the various, different stages and having a voice. The Emotional literacy element impacts the children’s sense of belonging, empathy, self-esteem, self-regulatory skills, resilience, and their overall happiness.
We use:
Parents are their child’s first and most powerful educators. That is why it is important to work together, so we can plan effectively, understand and meet their child’s needs. We use a digital software called Parenta to record children’s learning and development and is shared with parents through the parent portal. This supports their development with a holistic approach, building strong partnerships with our parents.
All children, parents, carers and grandparents become part of our River Mole family. Inclusion means we need to be sensitive to the possibility of barriers (real or perceived) that our children and families may face in life and we strive to ensure that these barriers are broken down.
As a nursery we promote equality of opportunity and inclusion, which means that all of our children at River Mole will have equal opportunities to achieve and flourish.
With the support of our Area senco our educators are guided in applying interventions, adjustments and differentiation to ensure children with additional needs reach their full potential. Where necessary we will ensure that support from additional external agencies and from the local authority is secured.
