Curriculum - Rowlands Avenue Preschool

Our Curriculum

Our Mission Statement

To provide quality childcare and education in a safe, loving and stimulating environment.

Overarching Curriculum

When children leave Rowlands Preschool, we aim for them to have developed the skills they need to be ready for their futures. We believe being ready for their futures includes children being able to communicate successfully with their friends and familiar adults, understand how to keep their bodies healthy and show confidence in learning new skills. We aim to support children to develop the skills needed to be thoughtful, caring, and sociable team players. When children leave Rowland Preschool to start school, we plan for them to be able to cope emotionally and physically with new challenges that school life brings.

2-3 year old priorities

Our specific curriculum priorities focus on 2- to 3-year-olds to:

Understand many of their feelings and begin to regulate their behaviour.
Manage their toileting and personal care needs more independently.
Communicate with increasing confidence when sharing their wants and needs.
Begin to play with and alongside their peers in self-chosen activities.
Learn to sit for short periods of time to listen to stories and take part in circle time activities.
Build their fine motor skills and control of tools for making marks.

3+ year old priorities

We use Development Matters to support our children and guide the delivery of our curriculum. Where children may require additional support, we use Birth to Five Matters to identify in more detail where this additional support may be needed. We follow age-appropriate expectations and principles, based mainly on the prime and specific areas of learning, that help our pre-school children develop the knowledge and skills needed so they are ready and equipped to move on to school.

Our specific curriculum priorities focus on 3- to 4-year-olds to:

Become independent learners who are confident in their play and learning.
Use problem-solving skills to make considered choices and decisions.
Use clear communication to share their wants and needs.
Develop a desire to collaborate and play constructively with their peers so they are less reliant on adults to resolve problems and conflict.
Develop a love of books and stories to enrich their vocabulary and nurture their interest in letters, sounds and literacy.
Strengthen fine motor skills by providing varied opportunities for children to use tools for mark making and early writing.
Develop good independence skills in dressing/undressing, toileting and personal care and self-feeding.

Our curriculum is based on the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS), a universal curriculum for children from birth to 5 years which must be delivered by all Ofsted registered early years settings. We use the EYFS as a framework for enriching and broadening children’s experiences through a balance of exciting play opportunities and adult-guided activities that are planned in response to the needs of our children, families and community.

Through this curriculum our children develop the knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviours that equip them well for the next stage of their learning in school.

Your children’s learning will link to the areas of learning set out in the Early Years Foundation stage, which are summarised here, and all activities will be appropriately planned to the relevant stage of development and understanding of the children:

Personal, Social and Emotional Development

Children’s personal, social and emotional development (PSED) is crucial for children to lead healthy and happy lives, and is fundamental to their cognitive development. Personal, social and emotional development is split into 3 areas based on the educational programmes:

Underpinning their personal development are the important attachments that shape their social world. Strong, warm and supportive relationships with adults enable children to learn how to understand their own feelings and those of others. Children should be supported to manage emotions, develop a positive sense of self, set themselves simple goals, have confidence in their own abilities, to persist and wait for what they want and direct attention as necessary. Through adult modelling and guidance, they will learn how to look after their bodies, including healthy eating, and manage personal needs independently. Through supported interaction with other children they learn how to make good friendships, co-operate and resolve conflicts peaceably. These attributes will provide a secure platform from which children can achieve at school and in later life.

Communication and Language Development

The development of children’s spoken language underpins all seven areas of learning and development. Communication and Language is split into 3 areas based on the educational programmes:

Children’s back-and-forth interactions from an early age form the foundations for language and cognitive development. The number and quality of the conversations they have with adults and peers throughout the day in a language-rich environment is crucial. By commenting on what children are interested in or doing, and echoing back what they say with new vocabulary added, practitioners will build children’s language effectively. Reading frequently to children, and engaging them actively in stories, non-fiction, rhymes and poems, and then providing them with extensive opportunities to use and embed new words in a range of contexts, will give children the opportunity to thrive. Through conversation, story-telling and role play, where children share their ideas with support and modelling from their teacher, and sensitive questioning that invites them to elaborate, children become comfortable using a rich range of vocabulary and language structures.

Physical Development

Physical activity is vital in children’s all-round development, enabling them to pursue happy, healthy and active lives. Physical development is split into 3 areas based on the educational programmes:

Gross and fine motor experiences develop incrementally throughout early childhood, starting with sensory explorations and the development of a child’s strength, co-ordination and positional awareness through tummy time, crawling and play movement with both objects and adults. By creating games and providing opportunities for play both indoors and outdoors, adults can support children to develop their core strength, stability, balance, spatial awareness, co-ordination and agility. Gross motor skills provide the foundation for developing healthy bodies and social and emotional well-being. Fine motor control and precision helps with hand-eye co-ordination which is later linked to early literacy. Repeated and varied opportunities to explore and play with small world activities, puzzles, arts and crafts and the practise of using small tools, with feedback and support from adults, allow children to develop proficiency, control and confidence.

Literacy

It is crucial for children to develop a life-long love of reading. Reading consists of two dimensions: language comprehension and word reading. Literacy is split into 3 areas based on the educational programmes:

Language comprehension (necessary for both reading and writing) starts from birth. It only develops when adults talk with children about the world around them and the books (stories and non-fiction) they read with them, and enjoy rhymes, poems and songs together. Skilled word reading, taught later, involves both the speedy working out of the pronunciation of unfamiliar printed words (decoding) and the speedy recognition of familiar printed words. Writing involves transcription (spelling and handwriting) and composition (articulating ideas and structuring them in speech, before writing).

Mathematics

Developing a strong grounding in number is essential so that all children develop the necessary building blocks to excel mathematically. Mathematics is split into 3 areas based on the educational programmes:

Children should be able to count confidently, develop a deep understanding of the numbers to 10, the relationships between them and the patterns within those numbers. By providing frequent and varied opportunities to build and apply this understanding – such as using manipulatives, including small pebbles and tens frames for organising counting – children will develop a secure base of knowledge and vocabulary from which mastery of mathematics is built. In addition, it is important that the curriculum includes rich opportunities for children to develop their spatial reasoning skills across all areas of mathematics including shape, space and measures. It is important that children develop positive attitudes and interests in mathematics, look for patterns and relationships, spot connections, ‘have a go’, talk to adults and peers about what they notice and not be afraid to make mistakes.

Understanding the World

Understanding the world involves guiding children to make sense of their physical world and their community. Understanding the World is split into 3 areas based on the educational programmes:

The frequency and range of children’s personal experiences increases their knowledge and sense of the world around them – from visiting parks, libraries and museums to meeting important members of society such as police officers, nurses and firefighters. In addition, listening to a broad selection of stories, non-fiction, rhymes and poems will foster their understanding of our culturally, socially, technologically and ecologically diverse world. As well as building important knowledge, this extends their familiarity with words that support understanding across domains. Enriching and widening children’s vocabulary will support later reading comprehension.

Expressive Arts and Design

The development of children’s artistic and cultural awareness supports their imagination and creativity. Expressive arts and design is split into 3 areas based on the educational programmes:

It is important that children have regular opportunities to engage with the arts, enabling them to explore and play with a wide range of media and materials. The quality and variety of what children see, hear and participate in is crucial for developing their understanding, self-expression, vocabulary and ability to communicate through the arts. The frequency, repetition and depth of their experiences are fundamental to their progress in interpreting and appreciating what they hear, respond to and observe.