The happy and secure surroundings will enable your child to have freedom to learn, whether indoors in the large, bright and airy rooms or outside with the wildlife pond area or using the extensive range of physical equipment in their dedicated garden and playground.

Play inspires learning

We promote learning in all aspects - social, cognitive, emotional and physical - in a creative, play-based environment with a balance of adult led and child initiated activity. The girls and boys in the Nursery are encouraged to be adventurous and take risks; they love being mini explorers looking for bugs and beasts under logs by the pond. Imagination is encouraged to run wild, several times a week the mud kitchen in the garden is occupied by our young chefs who create the most amazing concoctions for their friends and staff to 'dine on'!

Through Mrs Kirby's (Head of Nursery) weekly bulletin, parents are encouraged to talk to their child about the theme for the week. Chinese New Year is always a fun one, as our confident pupils parade around the ‘big’ School as a Chinese Dragon, even stopping at the Head's office to say hello, before tackling exotic food with chopsticks. Colours, numbers and letter sounds also have a weekly focus as part of the Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum.

Our activities are designed to support and facilitate learning in all seven areas of the Foundation Stage, which are:

PRIME AREAS:

• Communication and Language
• Physical Development>
• Personal, Social and Emotional Development

SPECIFIC AREAS:

• Literacy
• Mathematics
• Understanding the World
• Expressive Arts and Design

Nurturing Independence and team spirit

Through nurturing and guidance your child will learn the simple skills required to accommodate the needs of others, such as waiting, taking turns and sharing. They will develop the confidence to access and use resources independently; finding books, choosing where to play, taking themselves to the toilet and putting on their own coat can be huge milestones for some but with gentle encouragement they soon achieve these.

Being part of Claires Court creates some wonderful opportunities for your child in the Nursery, during the summer term squeals and cheering can be heard on the School field as the children practise running on the track for their sports day! The children understand there are winners and losers, but, it is the ‘well done for getting to the end’ medal, that they all want! December brings other highlights, with at times, a cast bigger than that of a west end play taking to the stage for their Christmas performance. There are no tears from the children but we guarantee tissues will be on hand for the parents.

A smooth transition into a new environment is really important and we want children to feel safe and secure in their surroundings, so all children new to Claires Court Nursery will receive a home visit from our staff. This helps the transition process and will enable us to start building a relationship with you and your child. We also offer a taster session for the children to spend time in Nursery before they start.

Monitoring and assessment

We use an online tool called '2 simple 2build a profile'. We use this to record observations of the children’s learning across the Foundation Stage. This information is then emailed to parents twice a term so you know how your child is developing at Nursery and the types of things they are doing. 

The observations are linked to the seven areas of learning so we are then able to use this to inform future learning for each individual child.

Preparing for school

We work with children to support and extend their learning so they are ready for their next step, whether this be within the Nursery or getting ready for Reception. We do this through targeted group and 1:1 work in sounds and numeracy.

Educational provision and outcomes for children in the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) are excellent.

ISI report 2014