At Oxclose Nursery we are ambitious for every child to thrive and we are committed to working with parents to achieve the very best for all of the children. On this page, you will find out about what your child is learning.
We aim to create a safe, purposeful and fully inclusive, language rich learning environment. Our newly evaluated curriculum seeks to foster a love of reading and utilises the power of story, with a focus on a deliberate choice of key texts and deliberate planning which is based on stories, rhymes, songs and poems and opportunities to explore a range of areas for learning.
Please take a look at our new curriculum planning documents and get in touch if you would like more information.
Long Term Curriculum Plans
Half term Curriculum Overview
Please find below the link to our half termly overview which explains our focuses for this half term in nursery.
READING AT OXCLOSE
Thursday 3rd March marked World Book Day and reading and learning through story are both crucial to our curriculum at Oxclose Nursery. On Monday we revealed our fabulous new reading area. Lots of work has been put into this and the children are loving reading there, as can be seen from the photos below.
Tuesday was also a wonderful day as we welcomed parents back into the setting for the first real time since COVID struck. Parents helped us to take the children to the Library and it was wonderful to see them reading with the children.
Over the next few weeks, we are looking forward to sharing story time with parents and we will also be posting tips to help with reading at home. Watch this space!
Musical Story Telling
Parents recently enjoyed one of our wonderful visits from Brendon Renwick, the Music Man. Brendon is a really popular visitor and he helps us to inspire the children to love stories as well as learn all about rhythm and rhyme. We are excited to share links to 4 musical stories which Brendon has produced. Please open the links and share with your children – enjoy!!
The Three Little Pigs
https://youtu.be/YbektSiSL94
The Three Billy Goats Gruff
https://youtu.be/m3lEYICgK_o
Goldilocks And The Three Bears
https://youtu.be/BLzyGxz-vqE
The Little Red Hen
https://youtu.be/T-SVASiAJyQ
Curriculum, Intent, and Implementation
At Oxclose Nursery we believe in a working partnership with parents/carers, to promote the learning and development of all children in our care, to ensure they are ready for the next stage of their education in the Reception class.
The EYFS curriculum has seven areas of learning and development that are important and inter-connected.
At Oxclose Nursery we believe the Three Prime areas of learning are particularly important for building a foundation and for ‘igniting children’s curiosity and enthusiasm for learning, forming relationships and thriving’.
These are the prime areas:
- Communication and Language: Listening, Attention and Understanding- Speaking
- Physical Development: Gross and Fine Motor Skills
- Personal, Social and Emotional Development: Self-Regulation- Managing Self- Building Relationships
Communication and Language
Intent
At Oxclose Nursery we believe that developing a child’s language is the most important job we have as educators. The world belongs to children who can communicate and express their feelings, ideas and needs. The development of children’s spoken language underpins all seven areas of learning and development.
We want to develop:
- Children who have age appropriate speech and language skills and the confidence to ask questions, and express their opinions and ideas.
- A language rich environment that floods the children with new vocabulary to enable them to succeed in the next stage of their learning.
- Children who can listen when they are in a group of children.
- Children who can talk about what they are doing and the things they remember.
Implementation
Staff will model language skills through the conversations and interactions they have with children as they play. Staff will work alongside children, commenting on what they are interested in or doing, and echoing back what they say with new vocabulary added. New vocabulary will be used repeatedly as staff demonstrate the practical applications of new words. Reading and books are key to developing our children’s vocabulary and understanding of words. Staff will read frequently to children, and engage them actively in stories. We will also introduce children to non-fiction, rhymes and poems, and provide them with extensive opportunities to use and embed new words in a range of contexts. In Oxclose, children will experience conversations, story-telling and role play. We want children to share their ideas with confidence. Teachers will support children through modelling of language and sensitive questioning to help children to become comfortable using a rich range of vocabulary and language structures.
Personal, Social and Emotional Development
Intent
At Oxclose Nursery we want children to develop the personal, social and emotional skills that they need to thrive as they grow. We want our children to be happy and sociable learners.
We want to develop:
- Children who are happy and settled in nursery.
- Children with the skills to be confident learners, who are willing to try and persevere with new things.
- Children who can understand their own feelings and show an awareness of the feelings of others.
- Children who can build happy healthy friendships.
Implementation
At Oxclose we believe that children’s personal, social and emotional development is crucial for children to lead healthy and happy lives, and is fundamental to their cognitive development. Each child will be assigned a keyworker who will support them on their learning journey. Your child’s keyworker will provide a strong, warm and supportive relationship to enable your child to learn how to understand his/her own feelings and those of others. Children will be supported to manage their emotions, and develop a positive sense of self through praise. Staff will model how to manage a variety of different scenarios that children will encounter as they play with other children. Children will receive guidance from their keyworker as they learn to play and make friends with other children. Staff will support children as they learn to co-operate and resolve conflicts with their friends. We will provide challenging activities that will encourage children to set themselves simple goals and have confidence in their own abilities. We want our children to be persistent learners and staff will encourage children to keep trying as they learn new skills. Effort and persistence will be praised and encouraged. As part of our group time sessions children will learn how to look after their bodies, by learning about healthy eating, and managing personal needs independently. If children are successful in learning these skills it will provide a secure platform from which children can achieve at school and in later life.
Physical Development
Intent
To be independent learners our children will need good gross and fine motor skills. In developing these skills our children will also develop the strength and dexterity needed for good self-help skills. Independence with self-help skills will give our children the confidence to succeed and take care of themselves. We have a beautiful outdoor space which helps to provide opportunities to develop these important physical skills.
We want to develop:
- Children who can use the toilet independently
- Children who have the dressing skills they will need when they go to school
- Children who can climb, run and jump with confidence.
- Children who can use toys and tools safely
Implementation
We will provide the children with a large outdoor space for physical activity. ‘Physical activity is vital in children’s all-round development, enabling them to pursue happy, healthy and active lives’. Our outdoor space has been designed to have hills, slopes, steps and different surfaces to provide challenge as children move around the garden. As children use climbing equipment in nursery, staff 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’. Staff support children as they access sensory activities, use tools in our woodwork room, small world play, puzzles, craft and baking which will develop children’ fine motor skills. ‘Fine motor control and precision helps with hand-eye co-ordination, which is later linked to early literacy’.
The Specific Areas of Learning
Once children are proficient in the Prime areas, staff will support children in the four specific areas, through which the three prime areas are strengthened and applied.
The specific areas of learning are:
- Literacy: Comprehension-Word Reading-Writing.
- Mathematics: Number- Numerical Patterns
- Understanding the World: Past and Present- People, Culture and Communities-The Natural World
- Expressive Arts and Design: Creating with Materials- Being Imaginative and Expressive
Literacy
Intent
We want our children to love stories as much as we enjoy reading them at Oxclose nursery. Listening to stories is vitally important in widening a child’s life experiences, building their vocabulary, and understanding of writing, and sentence structures. There is nothing more language rich than books and stories!
We want to develop:
- Children who love stories and books.
- Children who will be able to retell familiar stories.
- Children who can make marks to represent their name and talk about their drawings.
- Children who know the difference between pictures and words
Implementation
We want to develop in children a life-long love of reading. ‘Reading consists of two dimensions: language comprehension and word reading’. To develop children’s language comprehension, we will talk to children about the world around them, and share books that are both stories and non-fiction. Stories are not just restricted to a set story time. Staff also support children throughout the day as they read in the book corner. We provide our children with a variety of rhymes, poems and songs that we can enjoy together and supplement this work with retelling stories and rhymes using puppets, small world play and role play. We use quiet group sessions to teach children to listen carefully to sounds and to recognise syllables, rhymes and rhythms in preparation for phonics work in school. There is a space for children to experiment with mark making where staff model drawing pictures, and turn pictures into stories and writing. Staff use play, to model writing letters, messages, recipes and construction plans.
Mathematics
Intent
‘Developing a strong grounding in number is essential so that all children develop the necessary building blocks to excel mathematically’.
We want to develop:
- Children who have a positive attitude and interest in mathematics
- Children who can count objects in their play.
- Children who understand how different shapes fit together.
- Children who will understand mathematical vocabulary such as tall, long, short, heavy, light, fewer, more
- Children who can copy and begin to create simple patterns.
Implementation
Staff will demonstrate counting both in practical activities and during group sessions. Staff will support children as they learn to count confidently. We will provide a variety of materials for children to explore that will enable them to develop a deep understanding of numbers, 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.’
During construction activities, loose parts, woodwork, craft and baking activities children will get the opportunities to develop their spatial reasoning skills across all areas of mathematics including shape, space and measures. We will encourage experimentation with mathematical concepts so that children have the confidence to ‘have a go’, begin to notice patterns and relationships, and spot connections as they learn.
Understanding the World
Intention
We want to develop:
- Children who are curious and excited to learn about their physical world, local community and family’s history.
- Children who describe what they see and ask questions to learn more.
- Children who explore how things work, experiment, compare and test ideas.
Implementation
‘Understanding the world involves guiding children to make sense of their physical world and their community’. At Oxclose we believe in giving children a wide range of experiences to increase their knowledge and sense of the world around them. We love to take children into the community to visit parks, libraries and the community garden. We invite important members of society such as police officers, dentists and firefighters to talk to the children about their work. We also give the children exciting experiences such as The Music Man, Footballing and Theatre productions. We have a fabulous garden which is visited by a wide range of wildlife, hedgehogs, woodpeckers, frogs, newts, dragonflies and other insects. The children also grow a range of plants and flowers. We use a broad selection of stories, non-fiction, rhymes and poems to develop our children’s 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
Intention
We would like all children in our nursery to be creative, imaginative and musical.
We want to develop:
- Children who are confident to explore and experiment with colour, texture and materials.
- Children who play imaginatively with their friends to make up simple stories.
- Children who sing simple songs and experiment with instruments and dance.
Implementation
We will use books and pictures from a range of artists and cultures to grow children’s artistic and cultural awareness and support their imagination and creativity. Children can access the craft area throughout the day, so they will have regular opportunities to explore and play with a wide range of media and materials. They will be supported by staff who will enable them to make their ideas a reality. Staff will model how to join materials and mix paint in a variety of ways. We will provide music sessions so that the children will see real instruments being played and they can explore using instruments to follow rhythms and beats. Staff will model the vocabulary that children will use to describe both what they see and want to create.
Our garden is a fabulous place to develop children’s imagination and to tell stories. Staff will play imaginatively with children to support their play. Pretend play could be in the role-play area, garden, small world or with puppets. Stories have been chosen that will inspire the children to retell them using a range of resources, before extending the tale with their own ideas.
‘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’.
Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND)
At Oxclose Nursery School, we believe that inclusive education means providing all pupils with appropriate education and support alongside their peers. The Curriculum is all the planned activities that the school organizes in order to promote learning, personal growth and development. Further information can be found in the SEN Information Report. Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND)
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