Our Curriculum
A safe, enriching and stimulating environment
At Margaret McMillan’s we have provided over 80 years of high-quality care, learning and development for generations of children and always stive for the very best outcomes for all. Our curriculum is designed around our values, whilst considering the developmental milestones of the Early Years Curriculum Guidance and is designed to be ambitious and inclusive, nurturing every child from their unique starting point.
Our offer is delivered through a holistic approach to learning knew knowledge and skills, with a rich blend of play based and adult guided experiences that allow children to be inquisitive, curious, and independent from a secure platform of trusting and supportive relationships with staff.
Intent
Our intent is to provide opportunities for all our children to grow, develop and flourish from their unique starting point through all that we do, preparing them for the next stage of their journey.
Implementation
Through trusting and supportive relationships with our families, we work in partnership, valuing prior learning, to ensure every child progresses to fulfil their potential. We promote these partnerships through open communication and effective Keyworker systems, parents’ information evenings, shared celebrations and events and using Tapestry (electronic learning journal) to share experiences and progress from home and in the setting. Our settling in process, ensures our families have the time and connection to share important information with us to begin our journey of working together and forming secure attachments with our families where your contributions are sought, valued, and highly respected.
The successful integration of the software ‘Tapestry’ into our practice allows staff real time information on the children in our care and is used to identify, track and share the developmental needs of each individual child through our assessment cycle, and allows our families to be active partners in their child’s learning journey.
We use the Department of Education’s Development Matters curriculum guidance to form the basis of our assessments, which then helps to inform our planning to support the progression of skills, whilst considering children’s interests and experiences we would like them to have. At Margaret McMillan’s we ensure every child is enabled to reach their full potential at their own pace and work closely with Plymouth City Specialist Teams when extra support is needed for children to progress.
Each room from our little explorers in the baby room to the investigators in our pre-school, uses the curriculum guidance to ensure a flow of development and supports a smooth transitions as children progress through the setting. All staff understand child development and value working collaboratively with each other, this ensures consistent expectations allowing each child to progress no matter where their starting point is.
Our rooms are designed to support the learning and development of the children and are carefully reflected on in order to adapt and change dependent on the current needs. Whilst our prime location at the heart of the city centre and extensive gardens provides us with endless opportunities to enhance learning through, real, hands-on experiences and allows us to offer a rich and board range of learning within our curriculum offer.
We embrace every part of your child’s day as an opportunity for learning and value every moment as part of our curriculum. This gives us the freedom to teach in accordance with children’s needs and in a way that is nourishing for them and us. Our curriculum consists of everything we want the children to experience, learn and be able to do.
The parts of our curriculum are centred around enrichments identified through our core values and focus on the Prime areas of the Early Years Curriculum Guidance which are Communication and Language Development, Personal, Social and Emotional Development and Physical Development whilst providing an umbrella for supporting learning within the specific areas of Maths, Literacy, Understanding the World, and Expressive Arts and Design:
Our enrichment offers centred on our values are:
We respect ourselves.
- Health Enrichment – we make healthy choices
- Expression Enrichment – we have a voice
- Safety Enrichment – we keep ourselves safe.
- Well- being Enrichment – We are kind to ourselves
- Personal Enrichment – We believe in ourselves
We respect each other
- Cultural Enrichment – We respect and celebrate individual differences
- Social Enrichment – We are caring, friendly and polite to all
We respect our planet
- Eco enrichment – We look after our planet
- Participation Enrichment – We care for our surroundings indoors and out
The continued professional development of our team is a high priority as it enables us to continually provide high quality provision for the children in our care. We currently have an effective programme of continued professional development which closely considers the context and performance of the setting and feeds into our setting development plan. We support and encourage reflective practise throughout the nursery and actively work alongside staff encouraging and creating an effective team. We have regular supervisions, peer observations, staff meetings and rigorous staff training.
Impact
Through the care and education, the children at Margaret McMillan Nursery receive, they will be given a secure foundation for future success and become equipped with the skills and competencies required to face new challenges in the next phase of their learning journey and throughout life. They will be children that are capable learners, who can communicate confidently, be resilient and independent, and are courteous to all.
