Kings Hill Pre-School

About Us - Ethos and Curriculum

Our Ethos

We aim to ensure that each child:

is in a safe and stimulating environment
is given generous care and attention, because of our ratio of qualified staff to children, as well as volunteer parent helpers
has the chance to join with other children and adults to live, play, work and learn together
is helped to take forward her/his learning and development by being helped to build on what she/he already knows and can do
has a key person who ensures each child makes satisfying progress
is in a pre-school that sees parents as partners in helping each child to learn and develop
and is in a pre-school in which parents help to shape the service it offers.

The Foundation Stage Curriculum

The provision for children's development and learning is guided by one national framework, The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS). This covers the age range from birth to end of their first (Reception) year in school.

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

The EYFS Framework describes how your child should be kept safe and cared for and how all concerned can make sure that your child achieves the most that they can in their earliest years of life.

It is based on four important principles that guide the work that the pre-school staff undertake with your child’s learning and development. These principles consist of:

A Unique Child - Every child is a competent learner from birth who can be resilient, capable, confident and self-assured.

Positive Relationships - Children learn to be strong and independent from a base of loving and secure relationships with parents and/or a key person.

Enabling Environments - The environment plays a key role in supporting and extending children’s development and learning.

Learning and Development - Children develop and learn in different ways and at different rates and all areas of Learning and Development are equally important and interconnected.

The Learning and Development principle divides children's learning and development into six areas:

personal, social and emotional development
communication, language and literacy development
mathematical development
knowledge and understanding of the world
physical development
and creative development.

For each area, the guidance sets out early learning goals broken down into easily achievable stepping stones. 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.