Our Curriculum
At Skylarks Community Preschool our approach to your child's development starts with the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) curriculum and goes beyond. Skylarks is committed to providing a range of learning opportunities that develops the child as a whole, as well as ensuring that they are prepared for the next stage of their learning journey.
Our preschool provides children with an exciting and engaging environment where children are able to learn through play, explore and develop their interests and gain a greater understanding of the world around them.
We follow the Government's Early Years Foundation Stage Framework, which sets out the standards for learning, development and care for children from birth to 5 years of age.
There are three prime areas of learning. These are:
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Personal, social and emotional development
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communication and language
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Physical development
Plus four specific areas of learning.These are:
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Knowledge and understanding of the world
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Literacy
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Mathematics
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Expressive art and design
Communication and Language
Listening, attention, understanding and speaking
At Skylarks children are encouraged and supported to express their needs, listen to others and participate in conversations with those around them. The ability to communicate effectively is a fundamental skills and forms the foundation for all the other areas of learning.
These skills are developed and nurtured everyday at Skylarks. Adults regularly engage in conversations with the children, where they are able to share their ideas with support and modelling from teachers. Adults ask questions that invite children to explain their thinking giving them the opportunity to become more confident using a range of rich vocabulary.
Children listen to stories, sing songs and rhymes, which exposes them to new sounds and words. Through the use of our core books children have access to high quality text which the children become familiar with and grow to love, acitivities are planned around these books which helps children to practise the vocabulary and language from those books as well as giving them the opportunity to be creative through play.
At Skylarks we provide a range of resources and experiences that help children to develop these skills such as: story sacks, role-play, cooking activities to promote new language, small group reading, speech and language games.
Personal, Social and Emotional Development
Children's Personal, Social and Emotional Development (PSED) is crucial for children to lead healthy and happy lives. At Skylarks, children are supported to manage their thoughts, feeling and emotions , develop a positive sense of self and have confidence in their own abilities.
We understand how important it is for a child that they have a strong and supportive relationship with an adult in the setting. For that reason each child at the preschool has a Key Person, who supports the child when in the setting. They will encourage them to explore the environment around them and help them to achieve their goals and celebrate their successes.
While at Skylarks, your child will learn important skills, such as how to look after their body with a focus on understanding how to eat healthily and have a balanced diet. Children will also be taught the importance of good oral health and learn about how to properly look after their teeth. We encourage children to be independent and support them to dress themselves and have good personal hygiene.
Through supported interactions with other children, they are taught how to take turns and share fairly, how to work co-operatively with others and resolve conflicts.
Physical Development
Physical activity is vital in children's all round development, enabling them to pursue happy, healthy and active lives. We support children to move confidently in a range of ways with increasing control and co-ordination with awareness of the space around them. They have the opportunity to use a range of equipment both small and large that support them when developing these skills, these include: climbing frame, balance beam, obstacle course and soft play.
We have a great outdoor space that children have access to all year round, this allows them to be come more confident in their movements and to climb and balance with increasing skill.
We support children to develop their fine motor skills through a range of resources and activity such as: threading, mark making, small world toys, puzzles, cutting, scissor skills and arts and crafts. We also have a tool station which gives children the opportunity to practise handling tools safely. Development of fine motor skills is an important step towards a child learning how to write, so it is crucial that they have as many opportunities to practice these skills as they can.
Mathematics
Our aim is to support children to develop a deep understanding of mathematical concepts, while inspiring enjoyment and curiosity. We want children to have a secure knowledge of mathematical ideas but also understand how these ideas apply to the real world. We provide the children with a variety of fun and engaging resources and activities that allow children to explore these ideas both inside and outside. They learn these concepts by: singing number songs and rhymes, sorting and matching activities, number recognition games that are played in all areas of the setting, identifying and making patterns, using materials like sand and water to explore weight and capacity, looking at and talking about numbers that can be found around the setting and beyond.
Literacy
At Skylarks we want to support children to develop a life-long love of reading. We encourage children to listen to and join in with stories, songs and nursery rhymes, which allows them to learn new vocabulary and practice using new words and sounds they have learnt. Children have access to a wide range of different books, including our Core Books which exposes them to a range of different genres allowing them to find books they enjoy reading. Children are able to use their imagination to retell stories and use the role play area to create their own. We support children to learn how to handle books and use the pictures to support their understanding of the story.
Children will begin to recognise their own name and familiar letters and words. We aim to develop their mark making skills to prepare them for learning to write. We offer lots of opportunities to practise mark making using a variety of different materials, such as corn flour, sand, paint, soil and shaving foam.
Understanding the World
We are all different! At Skylarks we understand why this is so important and help the children to understand some of the things that make them unique. We guide children to make sense of their physical world and their community.
We find out about a range of cultural backgrounds and enjoy celebrating different festivals together, these include: Chinese New Year, Christmas and Diwali.
Children learn about where they live, their local environment and their family. We take frequent walks around the local community and visit the local park to allow children to build a great knowledge of their local community. We also learn about important people in our community and have had visits from them.
The children explore the world around them, we encourage them to be curious, to ask questions, make predictions and solve problems. We talk about changes that we observe around us. We talk about changes in the seasons and observe changes in animals, such as a caterpillar becoming a butterfly.
Expressive Art and Design
Children are naturally creative and we aim to nurture and encourage their desire to be imaginative, to make and pretend. Children have access to a wide variety of different medias and materials that they can use and explore with.
Through art, music, dance, stories and imaginative play children develop their ability to listen, observe and use their imagination. It allows children to express themselves and communicate their thoughts through their art.
We encourage child-initiated activities and independent creativity. We understand that it is important to value the process rather than expect an end product, therefore, we celebrate all the children's efforts and creativity.
