Active Learning

We work using the Early Years Foundation Stage, which is guidance produced by the Department for Education and Skills, to include children from birth up until the end of their Reception Year at school.

The care and education offered by our setting helps children to continue to do this by providing all of the children with interesting activities that are appropriate for their age and stage of development.

The Early Years Foundation Stage encourages us to plan individually for children’s learning and development, including children who have particular needs and disabilities that may need additional support.

The guidance divides children's learning and development into six areas. For each area, the guidance sets out early learning goals. These goals state what it is expected that children will know and be able to do by the end of the reception year of their education.

For each early learning goal, the guidance sets out stepping stones, which describe the stages through which children are likely to pass as they move to achievement of the goal.

We use the stepping stones that lead to the early learning goals to help us to trace each child's progress and to enable us to provide the right activities to help all of the children to achieve and progress.

Area of Learning 1

Personal, social and emotional development

• Having a positive approach to learning and finding out about the world around them
• Having confidence in themselves and their ability to do things, and valuing their own achievements
• Being able to get on, work and make friendships with other people, both children and adults
• Becoming aware of - and being able to keep to - the rules which we all need to help us to look after ourselves, other people and our environment
• Being able to dress and undress themselves, and look after their personal hygiene needs; and
• Being able to expect to have their ways of doing things respected and to respect other people's ways of doing things

Area of Learning 2

Communication, language and literacy

• Being able to use conversation with one other person, in small groups and in large groups to talk with and listen to others
• Adding to their vocabulary by learning the meaning of - and being able to use - new words
• Being able to use words to describe their experiences
• Getting to know the sounds and letters that make up the words we use
• Listening to - and talking about - stories
• Knowing how to handle books and that they can be a source of stories and information
• Knowing the purposes for which we use writing; and
• Making their own attempts at writing

Area of Learning 3

Problem Solving, Reasoning and Numeracy

• Building up ideas about how many, how much, how far and how big
• Building up ideas about patterns, the shape of objects and parts of objects, and the amount of space taken up by objects
• Starting to understand that numbers help us to answer questions about how many, how much, how far and how big
• Building up ideas about how to use counting to find out how many; and
• Being introduced to finding the result of adding more or taking away from the amount we already have

Area of Learning 4

Knowledge and understanding of the world

• Finding out about the natural world and how it works
• Finding out about the made world and how it works
• Learning how to choose and use the right tool for a task
• Learning about computers, how to use them and what they can help us to do
• Starting to put together ideas about past and present and the links between them
• Beginning to learn about their locality and its special features; and
• Learning about their own and other cultures

Area of Learning 5

Physical Development

• Gaining control over the large movements that they can make with their arms, legs and bodies, so that they can run, jump, hop, skip, roll, climb, balance and lift
• Becoming aware of - and being able to keep to - the rules which we all need to help us to look after ourselves, other people and our environment
• Gaining control over the small movements they can make with their arms, wrists and hands, so that they can pick up and use objects, tools and materials; and
• Learning about the importance of - and how to look after - their bodies

Area of Learning 6

Creative Development

• using paint, materials, music, dance, words, stories and role-play to express their ideas and feelings; and
• becoming interested in the way that paint, materials, music, dance, words, stories and role-play can be used to express ideas and feelings.