Young children learn by doing things for themselves; by watching and listening, exploring and investigating, talking and discussing, creating and demolishing; in other words by PLAYING!
Playing is children’s work and as they are very involved in learning through their play, it is very tiring.
That’s why our high quality learning environment is about much more than shapes, colours, numbers and letters. It is about developing children’s curiosity, independence, persistence, confidence and self-belief. We want children to think of their own ideas and find new ways to do things, they are the scientists and artists of the future. We want to light the fire of excitement from learning within them, so they can have the skills to achieve anything they want to in their lives.
We help children to develop positive attitudes to learning, help them build positive relationships, all through valuable play experiences. We observe children’s play and interests closely, to explore what they are learning and how we can support them towards their ‘next steps’ in their thinking. We document some of this learning in our Learning Journeys for each child. Some learning is highly visible, through paintings, mark-making or modelling for example. However some learning has no concrete physical ‘outcome’, but is just as valuable, e.g. climbing to the top of the climbing frame, building a strong mud structure, closely examining a worm in the garden.