Our Curriculum and the EYFS
Nikki’s Childcare, Our Curriculum overview
Our Ethos
Our ethos underpins our care and education of the children we care for. Our ethos is simple, we 'care' for your child and we know every child is unique. Yes, we are fully registered, trained and inspected, follow the EYFS the same as nurseries and preschools, but more importantly, I promise to look after and care for your unique child. I will listen to them, and support you, dry their tears, cuddle them, keep them safe, teach them and fill their world with wonder while having fun!
Our Curriculum
We want every child we care for to grow, develop and learn through their experiences and activities with us, putting them on the road to being ready for school and beyond, increasing their cultural capital.
Our curriculum covers the 7 areas of development from the EYFS (The Early years foundation stage).
These are the 3 Prime areas: Communication and language, Physical and Personal, Social and Emotional and the 4 specific areas: Literacy, Mathematics, Understanding the World and Expressive Arts and Design.
Using the Road to school map with our curriculum and working in partnership with parents, we make sure children are developing all of the physical, mental and independence skills they need to start school. Our curriculum is ambitious for all and meets the needs of all children including those with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) through adaptation and really knowing the children we care for.
We want our children to be happy, confident, inquisitive learners who understand their place in the local community and have a deep appreciation of nature and the natural environment. They will learn to appreciate their bodies, having a healthy approach to food, exercise, and oral hygiene. We support and encourage each child to develop their physical skills, through regular physical activities and games, from yoga, dancing and climbing, indoors and outdoors, working on strength and coordination throughout their bodies from core strength to finger skills, threading beads, messy play and mark making ready for sitting and writing.
We will strive to help every child to be confident in asking for help and speaking out, making friendships, helping each other, cooperating, and working together. They will be able to understand and name their feelings and understand how other people are feeling thus developing empathy. We recognise the importance of providing a meaningful language-rich environment; we want our children to be able to express themselves and engage in conversations with their friends and adults. We share stories and sing songs regularly throughout the day, as well as using language to support vocabulary and thinking-skills. We also use our own Phonics song to introduce letters and sounds.
Our Planning and Tracking
We use each child’s interests, and how they learn including any current schemas, COEL (Characteristics of effective learning) in our planning whether that be an activity that was planned or in the moment. We share with parents the child’s progress, next steps and ideas for activities at home, in daily informal chats, using observations, 6monthly checkpoints, 2-year progress check and the 27mth IPR (integrated progress review) in partnership with parents and the child’s health visitor. This builds a picture of the child’s learning and helps us to provide what they need next. Each child has an ‘All about me’ development folder to track and capture moments, and transition reports written up for moving onto another setting or school.
Children identified as needed further support in an area will have an individual child plan agreed with parents, using the graduated approach and we will access the East Sussex Local offer for extra support or advice if necessary. All children including SEND are supported by our curriculum and I will apply for additional support and training if necessary. I am qualified holding SENDCO level 3 and am passionate about inclusion for all children.
‘Every child is unique, and they are our curriculum’.
