Birth to school is an important stage for babies and young children. Their future learning and social relationships are affected by the quality of care they receive during these years.

Working parents need to know their child is receiving the best quality care together with excellent learning opportunities and experiences.

At Company Kids we ensure your child's learning experiences are carefully planned and focus on their intellectual, linguistic, physical, emotional and social needs. We make sure this learning is constructive, fulfilling and fun to ensure your child has a positive attitude to learning.

Our curriculum is based on the guidelines set by the Government; the Birth to Three Matters framework and The Foundation Stage for ages 3-5. We have broken it down into 5 different learning stages, 0-8 months, 8-18 months, 18-24 months, 24-36 months and 3-5 years.

Birth to three matters follows four Aspects, they are; A Strong Child, A Skilful Communicator, A Competent Learner and A Healthy Child. Each aspect is broken down into four Components which identify different skills and experiences for babies and young children.

If you would like further information regarding Birth to Three Matters, you can refer to the Sure Start Website: www.surestart.gov.uk/ensuringquality/birthtothreematers

The pre-school is guided by the Foundation Stage early learning goals and learning outcomes specified by the School Curriculum and Assessment Authority.

During the first eight months, young babies react to people and situations with their whole bodies. They are also competent in observing and responding to their immediate environment and communicating with those around them.

We recognize that young babies are beginning to become aware of themselves as separate from others. We support this by imitation, eye contact, songs, rhymes, making this fun and full of enjoyment.

It is important for young babies to feel safe and loved, we ensure this is provided for with the role of a key person, who can form links with the parent finding out your babies likes and dislikes and to settle your baby as you leave.

Young babies are extremely sociable from birth and use a variety of ways to gain attention by crying, gurgling, babbling and squealing. We support this by mirroring and talking back during feeding, changing and playing.

Young babies explore their immediate environment, objects and feelings through all their senses and by movement. We use spoken language, a range of toys, finger rhymes and familiar songs to ensure this learning is fun and to encourage further exploration. We apply repetition, mirroring and imitation.

Young babies are social beings, they crave close attachments with a special person, we use key persons to help the young babies feel safe and secure, this is important to help them with further exploration and learning.

Young babies thrive when their nutritional and emotional needs are met. We ensure the young babies have a good routine for feeding, changing and sleeping.

During the period from eight to eighteen months babies' exploration of the environment becomes more intentional. Increasing mobility and language development enable them to find out and understand more about their world.

Babies are developing an understanding and awareness of themselves. We support this by getting down on their level using good eye contact and talking with them about who they are.

Babies are becoming more independent and ready to explore their world, they need to feel safe and secure to do so. We support this by using a key person to stay close, reassure and provide encouragement.

Babies enjoy sound. They are beginning to learn that their voice and actions have an effect on others. They are striving to make meaning of this. We help this with lots of talking about what is happening. We link words with the actions, (scaffolding) to give meaning to such activities as welcoming, getting toys out, tidying away and preparing lunch.

We provide lots of opportunities for stories, songs, action rhymes, some which require responses from the babies, others that encourage them to listen

Babies are quickly making sense of and responding to all of their senses; what they see, hear, feel touch and smell. We support this by using a variety of experiences so they can practice their skills and use creative materials such as finger paints, water, sand, sticking activities, musical instruments and physical play such as bouncing, rolling and splashing.

Babies are discovering their likes and dislikes. It is important to recognize this and we help them by valuing, building trust and encouraging your child to try different things.

At this stage of development babies are beginning to walk, climb and run. We support this by providing reasonable, safe, yet challenging activities.

From eighteen to twenty four months, young children begin to show increasing independence and obvious pleasure in moving, communicating and learning through play.

Young children are learning that they have similarities and differences from others. They need to feel safe, secure, valued about these similarities and differences. We help this by recognizing and promoting them, by talking about them both in single and group activities.

Young children are good communicators. They use single and two words. They understand and respond to simple requests. We support this by providing props, puppets, story sacks, stories and pictures. Actions and words also emphasise meaning.

We provide lots of opportunities for questions, listening, responding and valuing choices.

Young children are beginning to understand how things work and can use different types of play in different situations. We support this by providing variety in the role-play areas- e.g. a hospital, shop, garden centre, health centre. We provide dressing up, to help them develop imaginative play. We support the children's physical development by providing appropriate equipment and movement activities to practice their developing skills, we paint patterns, make marks with different materials like crayons, paint, chalk, sand and water.

Young children enjoy what they can do and will stretch themselves to extend their learning. We encourage the children to explore their potential within a safe environment. We allow them to practice their skills. We provide opportunities to build upon their existing learning through planned activities.

We provide clear and consistent boundaries but support the child to make choices in order to reduce frustrations and conflict.

From twenty four to thirty six months, children's competence at moving, talking and pretending is increasingly evident. They are gaining in confidence and skill in making relationships.

Children are showing their unique characteristics, preferences, interests and are able to demonstrate these in their daily activities. We recognize the importance of this as it boosts self esteem, confidence and independence. We support this by helping the children make choices, like who and what toys they play with. We also make sure the children can learn things for themselves, e.g. to select the toys and equipment they need, and put them away because they are easily accessible.

Children have great social skills and an increasing vocabulary. They are using lots of skills and are making sense of the world through bargaining, negotiating, questioning, describing and labeling. We support this by providing lots of opportunities for talking, with friends, adults and within small groups about what is happening, making choices and why things are done in certain ways. We provide a carpet area to talk and a role play area for a variety of learning opportunities e.g. shop, home and hospital play.

We provide a wide range of resources, stories, rhymes, games and photographs to extend their vocabulary and develop their early literacy skills.

Children are showing great understanding of their world. They begin to see that marks have meaning and can see and notice differences. We support this by exploring familiar themes such as names, favourite books and favourite food. We also explore pattern making, shapes and counting.

Children benefit from playful learning experiences. They especially enjoy and learn from sustained imaginative play, where they extend their language and try out ideas, feelings, relationships and movements. Adults provide and share in this, encouraging individual and group play, making it fun and developing their language.

Children are gaining control of their whole bodies and are developing their fine motor skills. We support this by encouraging personal independence skills like doing up fastenings on coats, pouring a drink, washing their hands etc.

They are also becoming aware of others and their needs. We support this by talking about and exploring this further as situations occur. This helps develop a sharing and caring attitude towards others.

Our aim is for the children to work and grow in an environment dedicated to their individual needs and to socialise in an atmosphere of warmth and trust.

We achieve this by supporting the children with their own individual learning plans allowing each child to work at their own pace. These are then shared with parents. They are specially designed and carefully planned by our early years co-ordinator to include topics, free play and structured activities, indoor and outside activities, group and one-to-one activities.

Our curriculum is guided by the early learning goals learning outcomes specified by the School curriculum and Assessment Authority and re-enforced by Ofsted. This means your child will follow an individual learning program which includes the following:

Our pre-school environment is set out to stimulate your child. We explore the natural environment, trees, plants, animals and elements. We use natural resources such as sand, soil, rocks and water. We also make sure the children are enriched with experiences from the local community, using parks, places of interests and museums.

These new experiences are supported through play. We guide the children and promote a strong ethos towards moral development. We teach care and concern for others and respect for cultural diversity and for ourselves. We develop children's talk to express themselves and develop role-play. We share children's literature and rhymes, we encourage mark making and practising forming letters. We explore number, shape and space, measurement and problem solving. We cover science activities, culture, past and places and develop early computer skills. We work creatively with paint, texture and collage, music. We develop children's physical skills through wheel toys and large and small apparatus and dance. We want to make learning fun and use exciting resources and ideas.

The activities are carefully planned and are regularly updated in line with child development and ongoing research and training. A typical day could follow this pattern.

In addition there are plenty of opportunities for feeding, drinks, nappy changing, toilet, rest and sleep.

For children over 2 years there will be a further range of activities including music, drama, role playing, puppet time, action time including gym time and yoga time and identity play which includes celebrations of different cultures.

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