The Curriculum

Children start to learn about the world around them from the moment they are born.  The care and education offered by the playgroup helps children to continue to do this by providing them with interesting activities that are right for their age and stage of development.

For children between the ages of 3 and 5 years, we provide a curriculum for the foundation stage of education that is set out in a document called ‘Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage’ published by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority and the Department for Education and Skills.  Playgroup follows this guidance.

The guidance divides children’s learning and development into six areas:

For each area, the guidance sets out early learning goals. These goals state what it is expected that children will know and be able to do by the end of the reception year of their education.

PlaygroupFor each early learning goal, the guidance sets out stepping stones, which describe the stages through which children are likely to pass as they move to achievement of the goal.   We use the early learning goals and their stepping stones to help us to trace a child’s progress and to enable us to provide the right activities for your child.  Playgroup achieves each child’s movement towards these early learning goals with an emphasis on learning through play.

To ensure that what the Playgroup provides is right for your child’s particular needs and interests, we operate a key worker system.  This means that each member of staff has a group of children for whom she/he is particularly responsible.  When your child first starts she/he will help your child to settle and will work together with you to help your child to benefit from our activities throughout their time at Playgroup.

This Half Term...

Continuing our theme of 'Where we live' and we are broadening this to the village. We will cover Father’s Day and within this theme, we help the children to expand their knowledge, language and mathematical development, help them to share, be creative and explore within a safe environment.

Week 1 (6th – 10th June) - Father’s Day/Cars and garage/ Photographer

These first two weeks we concentrate on creating a father’s day present and card. The children will be cutting, sticking and writing their name.
On Friday the photographer is coming to take a group photo.

Week 2 (13th –17th June) – Continue from last week
On Tuesday 14th we would like to walk to the garage with the children to have a look at what goes on there.
We will need a couple of parents to come in and help, so ratios of adults to children are 1 – 4. Please see Jetty or Maria if you can help.

Week 3 (20th-24th June) – Growing plants - Hopleys
The children will be planting salad seeds, learning what seeds need to grow and how plants grow compared with people and that we can eat some of them.
On Wednesday we hope to walk to Hopleys and again we are looking for some extra help.

Week 4 (27th June –1st July) – The Church - Kneelers
On Monday we will need extra parents to walk to the church with us and afterwards we will be going to Mrs. Clark’s, who has been in charge of making kneelers for the church for a long time. She is an accomplished needle woman.
The children will be able to express themselves and try out a little piece of needlework.

Week 5 (4th – 8th July) – Sport’s day
Making a zig-zag book of sport’s day is fun. On Friday we will meet at the recreation / cricket ground for our annual Sport’s Day.

Week 6 (11th – 15th July) – Folders
Each child can make a building in the village. Painting, maybe sticking on a photograph we took on one of our walks.

Week 7 (18th – 22nd July) – Teddy Bear’s Picnic

This week will be about the Teddy Bear’s Picnic, which takes place on Friday 22nd July and starts at 10am. All children are invited.
We finish about 11.45 am.
We wish you a relaxing, healthy and enjoyable summer holiday.

Playgroup re-opens on 6th September 2011.