At Child’s Play we work towards the curriculum called EYFS (Early Years Foundation Stage) We cover the seven levels of learning which are;

• Personal, social & emotional development
• Communication & language
• Physical development
• Understanding of the world
• Literacy
• Mathematics
• Expressive arts & design

We promote the EYFS continually throughout the children’s play. Each child has an individual EYFS folder which has a unique collection of children’s observation which we can use to monitor the child’s growth and development.

Children are able to express feelings throughout their play within a stimulated nursery setting; we encourage children to socialise with other peers. Children have a strong bond with staff as each child has a key worker who cares for them and monitors their development through the use of the EYFS development file.

The children have many opportunities to develop language skills, many children have learnt English as a second language through communicating at Child’s Play. To promote communication and language we do circle time twice a day, the activities during circle time vary and include Singing, Action Songs, Storytelling and Jolly Phonics.

Part of the EYFS states we should have stimulating outdoor provisions. At Child’s Play each room has their own garden to promote physical development. Each garden has UV protection shelters to keep the children safe from the sun when playing outside.

We offer lots of trips out to local areas such as Dewsbury Library and Crow’s Nest Park. This is for the children to experience the wider environment and offer children new experiences, We also take an annual trip to Hepden Bridge.

We also have many construction bricks available for children to use to develop early science and technology skills. Child’s Play also helps meet this area of the curriculum by offering opportunities to small world role plays such as Cars & Garage, Farms, Jungle and Trains & Track.

We focus highly on the importance of reading and writing. We encourage children to learn to recognise their names by having initial letters on all labels. The children have a self registration traffic light where they have to find their own initial and place this on green. This is the earliest sign of children reading, the labels are all the same and the children have these on all personal items too.

We continuously promote children to learn shapes and numbers from an early age, this includes Number Songs, Jigsaws, Counting, Shape Sorters and Treasure Baskets. In preschool we focus on a number a week, this is so that the children learn to count to this number in sequence, to form the number correctly and understand the number value. The children are really enjoying this way of learning mathematics. In each room there is continuous access to number cards and counting objects, the children often choose to play with the cards and enjoy learning their numbers.

Children learn through play and make believe so at Child’s Play we promote children to have an active imagination. We offer different opportunities such as role play areas which change monthly depending on topics that children are learning. Staff join in on role play situations, children enjoy copying adults and act out situations around them and this helps to children to learn about the ‘real’ world.

Other opportunities this area of EYFS offers to children is the chance to be creative. We have a designated room for the preschool children to be messy and creative and activities include;

• Cutting & Sticking
• Painting
• Mark Making
• Sand & Water
• Pasta Play
• Shaving Foam
• Cornflour
• Collage Making
• Playdough
• Clay and much, much more!