· Language, literature and communication
Providing children with opportunities to use language in all its forms; speaking, listening, reading and writing along with non-verbal communication skills. These are practiced in a widening range of situations and scenarios.

· Personal and Social Development
Gaining a better understanding of ourselves and those around us and how we can effectively interact with each other.

· Mathematics and Numeracy
Learning about how we use mathematics in the real world to solve problems and answer questions. Children will develop their understanding of and be able to talk about number, measurement, time, shape, space and pattern.

· Knowledge and Understanding of the World
Children will gain a greater understanding of the environment, people and places that are important in their lives. They will develop questioning and problem solving skills along with research and critical thinking skills.

· Physical Development
Developing fine motor and gross motor skills in a wide range of situations both indoors and outdoors. Children will gain understanding and knowledge about their own bodies and the concepts of health and safety.

· Creative Development
Through a mixture of activities such as art, music, dance, literature and role play activities children will develop their creative thinking skills. They will be able to talk about their feelings, thoughts and emotions.

Play in the Curriculum

Unlike adults, children do not make any distinction between work and play and therefore it is important to build play activities into the curriculum. These activities take two forms; free play and guided play.

In free play, children learn to be independent, creative, confident, problem solvers and to communicate to achieve their goals. Although the teacher may choose the means of play e.g. construction blocks, the child will decide what to do with those blocks. This also allows the teacher to observe the child and gain a better understanding of their intrinsic motivation and level.

In guided play, the teacher has a learning outcome that they want to achieve with the children. One example is to set up a gardening centre role play area in the classroom. The teacher can focus on particular aspects of language, mathematics, science, art and other skills in the 'play' area.

Visits and Visitors

Built into each theme we make sure that there are people and places involved that help children to formulate their knowledge and understanding in a real world context. All educational visits are planned ahead of time and children will complete work in preparation for their visit so that they can gain the most out of their experience. Parents are welcome to join us on such events.

Visitors are people we ask to come in either to talk to the children or to conduct specialized workshops with them on a particular theme; it may be an artist, theatre group or even someone's grandma.