Fees
Take a look at our fees and find out how you can apply for help with funding.
Our belief
We believe that young children learn from everything that happens around them, and that play is their natural medium for learning. We believe in the importance of child-initiated play where children make their own choices. We have topics throughout the year to extend, explore, excite and enthuse our children, bringing new ideas and new themes. Some activities are also adult led, where we can take a closer look at your child’s progress and development, helping to extend and expand their play.
Our setting will plan and provide a range of play activities which help children make progress in accordance with the learning & development journeys of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS).
What is the EYFS
The EYFS is how the Government and early years professionals describe the time in your child’s life between birth and age 5. This is a very important stage as it helps your child get ready for school as well as preparing them for their future learning. Their early year’s experience should be happy, active, fun and secure, and support their development, care and learning needs, which is achieved through seven key areas; “Personal, Social and Emotional“, “Communication and Language“, “Literacy“, “Mathematics“, “Understanding The World“, “Physical development” and “Expressive Arts and Design“.
Click here for more details into the seven areas.
Our curriculum
Our curriculum follows the EYFS and is fun, purposeful, balanced, and broad, ensuring your child has an enjoyable time with us whilst naturally learning through their experiences. Our activities ensure that we are continually responding to your child’s individual needs and providing opportunities for them to develop their skills across the curriculum.
We look closely at the characteristics of effective learning of each child, which are split into 3 groups; playing and exploring, active learning, creating and thinking critically.
Knowing that children need to feel safe to think, explore, approach opportunities, use initiative and have energy and enthusiasm to learn, we also use the 3i’s in daily practice:
- Intent- What does this child need to learn? What experiences does this child need to extend and gain knowledge? What does this child need to succeed?
- Implementation – How will we implement these plans into our daily activities? How will we deliver, encompass, teach and interact so a child makes progress in each of the seven areas of learning.
- Impact- Looking at outcomes, measuring progress, reflecting and planning. Is the child’s learning and development age appropriate?
This links to ‘Cultural Capital’ – each child has their own ideas and experiences based on their own circumstances. Getting to know our families and children is so important. It gives us the knowledge and tools to provide and extend their learning with exploring new skills, ideas and experiences. Our open-door policy, welcoming environment, welcome afternoons and ‘All About Me’ booklet helps us do this.
Next steps and learning journeys
Next steps are an important part of your child’s journey through the EYFS. We use them to identify what a child needs to do next to continue their development. Our next step journeys are based on; observations, child’s interests, their strengths, and their characteristics of effective learning.
Parents can keep in touch with their child’s learning and development by talking to their key person. Each child’s ‘Learning Journey’ will be sent home at the end of each term, more often if you request, and provides feedback on how your child is performing across our curriculum.
What would you like to do now?
Gallery
Come and see what we’ve been up to and what to expect from a day at YCPS
Joining Us
We’re always welcoming new families into our setting, find out more about joining us today.
Yateley Community Pre-school