At Wimbledon Day Nursery we nurture each child and develop them to their maximum potential allowing them to explore the Early Years curriculum through play and active learning.

“Every child is a competent learner from birth who can be resilient, capable, confident and self-assured… Babies and children develop in individual ways and at varying rates.”

—  (EYFS, 2007)

A diverse group of young children engaged in art activities at Wimbledon Day Nursery.

What is the Early Years Curriculum?

The Early Years Foundation Stage is a curriculum that starts from birth and is a framework for your child’s development that follows them into their first year in school. The EYFS, rather than being a structured curriculum, offers guidance on the developmental stages of your child and allows staff to follow your child’s own developmental journey offering them learning experiences through fun, playful activities allowing your child the opportunity to explore their own ideas and understanding.

The EYFS is broken down into seven areas of development under two main groups;

The Prime areas are the skills which your child innately has to interact with the world around them that need to be nurtured from birth to enable them to flourish. They consist of;

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

The Specific areas are the skills your child learns to help them understand and contribute to the world around them. As your child becomes more confident across the prime areas of development their interest and capabilities across the specific areas grow to offer your child a more balanced view of the world. They consist of; 

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

What is Play and why is it important to learning?

“Children’s play reflects their wide ranging and varied interests and preoccupations. In their play children learn at their highest level. Play with peers is important for children’s development.”  (EYFS, 2007)

A child’s play is the best and most effective way for a practitioner to promote learning. It is through their free exploration of ideas that they achieve their highest level of understanding and thinking. A skilled practitioner will use each child’s own interests and ideas to plan and deliver play opportunities to promote the skills they need across each area of development.

The Role of the Practitioner

The role of the practitioner is to observe each individual child in their care and support their learning through role modelling behaviour, supporting investigation through shared thinking time and scaffolding new methods of discovery, promoting play opportunities and imagination and providing a stimulating environment that allows children the opportunity for independent learning and challenging play and keeping records that reflect each child’s journey.