Care, Learning and Play Policy
At Over The Rainbow Day Care we aim to provide a stimulating and supportive environment for all children in our care. We value the essential support and contributions from parents/carers and the wider community provide, and feel this all helps towards enabling children to develop to their full potential.
We promote respect for cultural diversity and include all aspects of anti-bias and equal opportunities into our planning, activities and attitudes to learning and play.
Aims
- To provide an inclusive, balanced curriculum and encourage progression for all children in every area of their development.
- To plan a stimulating environment using the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework.
- To provide opportunities for each child to acquire the self-esteem, skills, knowledge and confidence to enable them to eagerly embark on their journey to the next stage of play, learning and development, whether that is to go onto another early years setting or school.
- To build children's self-esteem and confidence as independent learners.
- To be aware of equal opportunities, inclusion and anti-bias practice in our planning and implementation of the activities and experiences we offer the children in our care.
- To work closely with parents/carers working in partnership with them to ensure consistency of care and education for every child.
We aim to provide a safe and secure environment in which the children can play, with practitioners who support and progress their learning. The manager has the overall responsibility to ensure this policy is implemented.
The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) is how the Government and early years professionals describe the time in a child’s life between birth and age 5.
This is a very important stage as it helps children to get ready for school as well as preparing them for their future learning and successes. At Over The Rainbow Day Care we follow the EYFS Framework. All children within our care will be learning skills, acquiring new knowledge and demonstrating their understanding through 7 areas of learning and development (See below).
The 3 prime areas are fundamental in a child’s life. If they are not achieved, the further four specific areas may not develop efficiently. The 3 prime areas are seen as essential ‘building blocks’ for securing positive outcomes and healthy development in young children and their future learning.
The prime areas are:
· Communication and language
· Physical development
· Personal, social and emotional development.
As children grow, the prime areas will help them to develop skills in 4 specific areas.
These areas are:
· Literacy
· Mathematics
· Understanding the world
· Expressive arts and design.
These 7 areas are used to plan each child’s learning and activities. The practitioners at Over The Rainbow Day Care will make sure that the activities are suited to each child’s unique needs. We will provide a safe, caring and stimulating environment where all children can learn and develop freely as individuals without discrimination or prejudice.
We are aware of the characteristics of effective learning and we reflect upon these as we plan and guide children’s activities. Children in the EYFS learn by playing and exploring, being active, and through creating and thinking critically which takes place both indoors and outside.
Playing and Exploring
We will support children to investigate and experience things and have a go.
Active Learning
We will support children’s concentration and support them to keep on trying if they encounter difficulties, and enjoy achievements.
Creating and thinking critically
We will support children to develop their own ideas, make links and develop strategies for doing things.
Parent/carers are the primary teachers of their children and carry the most influence. A successful partnership between parents/carers and staff enables both to benefit and share the detailed knowledge of the child’s experience, skills and abilities. With continual dialogue and sharing of information, we endeavor to do the best for the children in our care. We have home observation sheets that parents/carers are advised to complete to ensure we are aware of any recent achievements at home and to support us to build on that in the setting. As children start we share EYFS information with them as well as EYFS information giving ideas for activities at home.
Children have a natural desire to learn, explore and question. At Over The Rainbow Day Care we use the ‘in the moment’ approach that offers an environment that enables child-initiated play in order to capture the moment of engagement. Careful observation by our practitioners is key to utilising the approach. We recognise opportunities and seize the moment when a child shows interest in an activity which can be built upon, these are normally called ‘teachable moments’. Written planning is then carried out in the form of observations, records of the interactions and notes on the outcomes. Each child at Over The Rainbow Day Care will be encouraged to learn effectively through a range of self-motivated and sensitively planned educational play and practical activities. This approach provides a rich variety of experiences, challenging and relevant to their needs. This is built within a flexible framework that enables each child to learn at his or her own pace.
For children whose home language is not English we offer opportunities for them to develop their own language in play liaising with parents/carers.
Play
Play is an appropriate medium of learning for young children. Children need first hand experiences so that they can experiment, gain knowledge, grasp concepts and master new skills. Children are encouraged in their learning by the equipment, experiences and activities we offer them and most importantly the adults who support them. Therefore, it is important that plans are flexible and are changed or adapted when needed to ensure spontaneous learning opportunities and the children's particular interests are explored as these are most valuable learning experiences.
Recording and reporting
Over The Rainbow Day Care takes the ‘in the moment’ approach of don’t think ‘planning’, think ‘enhancing’ when it comes to providing the next steps of learning for our children. Our planning effort is to prepare an engaging environment with materials that will excite and interest the children, rather than detailing focus activities. Then it is important to showcase the child-led learning that has taken place to show how learning was further extended in the moment. Reflecting on sessions, and records of the children’s observations and progress help us to identify opportunities to enhance the environment and feed into teachable moments. It also aids understanding towards how moments initiated by the children themselves have been progressed.
Observations and record keeping
Observations and record keeping enables, staff to consider individual children's interests and needs and to create future activities and experiences that are appropriate for each of them. Staff can look at these records with parents/carers helping them to gain knowledge of their child’s time at nursery and share ideas and information. The aims of recording and reporting children’s progress is to aid staff to continually create an appropriate, fun and exciting learning environment that meets the needs of individual children. We also use these records to share information and insights with parents/carers and the children themselves.
A typical record for each child might comprise of:
· Observations on the development of skills and competencies.
· Dated examples of work
· Photographs of activities that are significant.
· A printed developmental record using the assessment tool ‘Early Years Outcomes’.
· Information from parents/carers and others.
· Some children may have IEPs or an early support developmental journal.
This will allow staff to know what a child can do, and what skills s/he needs support with. It also demonstrates what learning objectives have been on offer, and allow key workers to plan effectively for the needs of their children. If children attend more than one setting we regularly share developmental information to promote consistency and to ensure the child’s learning and development can be supported and consolidated consistently.
As children start at the setting we collate on entry developmental information from parents/carers, without initial observations this provides us with a baseline for each child. The nursery manager regularly oversees all tracker methods to ensure judgements are consistent. This is used to ensure planning reflects next steps for each child within the setting identifying contributors and barriers to learning.
As well as planning our environment we also plan our adult role. Each Key Person completes plans for their key group identifying some focused activities for individual children or groups of children. The nursery manager supports all staff with their planning to support consistency. Practitioners identify how they will differentiate each activity as well as space to add learning objectives to identify exactly what each staff member wants each child to learn by taking part in the activity. Evaluations are completed to support identification of next steps.
At Over The Rainbow Day Care children learn through lots of play and activities and are encouraged to use their increasing phonics knowledge in freely chosen activities. In order to make a good start in reading and writing, children need an adult to talk to and listen to them. At Over The Rainbow Day Care all children have access to a daily phonics activity. Children work in small groups and plans are developed to ensure groups are age appropriate.
Environment
The environment at Over The Rainbow Day Care is welcoming, safe and fun. Our nursery offers space for children to explore and play in, relevant and stimulating displays which are changed regularly to relate to the children’s needs, plans that are adapted to follow children’s next steps and interests and plenty of learning opportunities for children to learn and grow. We use enhanced continuous provision to ensure the environment reflects the needs and interests of the cohort. This is updated on a weekly basis and all staff have an input using their knowledge of their key group, evaluations of activities and interests.
Outdoor Play
Outdoor play is vital for the healthy growth and development of all children. Outdoor play is an integral part of the curriculum and it enhances the child's learning. It also helps to develop strong spatial awareness, co-ordination, balance and movement and develops strong muscles, with opportunities to run, push, pull climb and jump. We endeavour to create an atmosphere where children can learn and explore in their environment. The children have access to safe and fun equipment alongside open-ended resources in order to develop their imagination, solve problems and learn about the world around them. We have direct access to the outdoor area come rain or shine, throughout the year (with the exception of severe weather cases).
Children with Special Educational Needs
All children develop at different rates and we understand that some children will require extra support in order to reach their full potential. We work closely with the Early Years inclusion team and parents/carers to ensure any concerns are identified quickly and then support put into place to support the child and family (See Special Educational Needs and Disability Policy). With the systems that we have in place children’s progress is monitored on a regular basis and parents/carers are kept fully up to date. This enables us to respond quickly to support each individual child in partnership with the family and other professionals.
Local Authority Support
At Over The Rainbow Day Care we work closely with the Local Authority to ensure the quality and inclusivity of our setting. The Childcare Act 2006 places a duty on Local Authorities to improve outcomes for all young children and reduce inequalities between them.
- We understand that children who experience high quality early years provision are well placed to achieve better outcomes in school and beyond and develop better social emotional and cognitive abilities necessary for life-long learning.
- We work with the Local Authority to develop an action plan to further develop our practice. The Early Years Quality Improvement Programme (EYQIP) is used as a tool to support continuous quality improvement in line with the EYFS Framework. It also draws on the OFSTED self-evaluation form (SEF). This is used to inform our categorisation process.
- The ‘Criteria for Categorisation’ document is used and a representative from the Early Learning and Childcare team works with the manager to agree our strengths and areas for development in each of the areas identified.
- An overall judgement is then made as to the amount of support that we will receive throughout the following year.
The staff will:
· Act as enablers for the children, with careful planning and organisation of the play-setting, both formal and informal, within and beyond the nursery in order to provide for and extend learning.
· Observe each child’s progress and report to parents/carers on their child’s achievements.
· Have high expectations of each child’s ability to achieve and will look for progression and continuity in their development.
· Provide emotional and social support so that children can gain confidence to master new experiences and challenges.
· Provide opportunities for children to work together in small groups to promote conversation and discussion.
· Introduce adults who will stimulate and encourage dialogue and questions and who will offer views and ideas.
· Regularly review the effectiveness, value and appropriateness of the provision made and, where possible, involve parents/carers in this process.
· Have a professional, patient and caring attitude.
· Be willing to explore every avenue of development in order to appropriately support the children they care for.
· Regularly attend training in order for them to develop professionally so they are best equipped to aid all children in their care.
Key Policies are featured on our website. All other policies are available at any time from the nursery manager.
REVIEWED ON: January 2024
REVIEWED BY: C.Cummins