Pedagogy

Just as in Reggio Emilia, at Atelier Nursery, each child is viewed as infinitely capable, creative and intelligent. The role of the practitioner is to support these qualities and to challenge children in appropriate ways.

What makes our pedagogy special? At Atelier Nursery we recognise ‘play as the language of childhood’ and the best way for children to be learning. We recognise play as giving children the opportunity to gain and embed new skills, develop their understanding and demonstrate their competencies.

We have a range of elements to our pedagogy, each one is just as important as the others and together they underpin our philosophy and support us as a team to provide engaging and captivating learning experiences.

Our pedagogy has been developed through experience, research, and theory and continues to evolve as our practice deepens. They also encompass the principles of the EYFS. Each of the elements of our pedagogy are designed to strengthen children’s educational success.

We understand that what children learn is important, but for us how children learn comes first, both in terms of our planning and our approach. It is therefore through play that we support children to build their confidence and independence. Through our interactions and planning we empower children to choose, to reason, reflect, imagine and empathise thus embedding the characteristics for effective learning both now and for the future.

Really Darkened Background image.jpg — Culture Of Excellence

Mixed Age Approach

At Atelier children are cared for in key families. To us this makes absolute sense as it is what happens in every home across the world.

Each key family is made up of a group of children from across the age range, birth to four. Working in this mixed age approach encourages children to share their nursery experiences alongside each other.

Children quickly develop reciprocal relationships that scaffold their individual learning. Whether it is a toddler modelling the language of an older child during mealtimes, or a busy four-year-old developing a sense of responsibility as they support pouring drinks at a meal time, the mixed age approach at Atelier is truly beneficial and unique to our locality.

Through the mixed age approach children build a network of social relationships at Atelier and expand their cultural horizons. Just by attending Atelier, children build social capital through the friendships and relationships they make with other children from different ages, stages and backgrounds.

Key Families

At Atelier we value and celebrate the relationships held by and with the child. With recognition that relationships are central to a child’s wellbeing at Atelier, we have created a unique approach to caring for young children. Just as it happens in every home across the world, our children are cared for in family groupings.

The key family approach allows each of our staff members to take the time to truly get to know the children in their care. This promotes a strong, secure and genuine bond that enables a ‘professional love’ to develop between the child and their key person. Within key families friendships build between children of all ages, ensuring high levels of wellbeing and a sense of belonging.

Caring for children in key family groups, means you will find that there is no need for unnecessary transitions between age defined rooms. Instead seamless and consistent care and education is provided throughout your child’s time with us at Atelier.

Enabling Environments

The physical learning environment at Atelier is rich, but it is more than the resources and room scapes that make the environment enabling at Atelier. The emotionally enabling environment is promoted through our key person approach. This naturally facilitates the free flow approach taken at both of our nurseries.

We recognise that children, just like adults, learn best when they are able to explore their interests fully and follow their own agendas through play for any given length of time. As a staff team we support children to take personal risks and will extend our boundaries as appropriate to offer challenge to their learning, This encourages children to develop their self-knowledge, self-esteem, and increase their confidence in their own abilities.

We encourage children to become autonomous learners, making independent choices and decisions. We respect the decisions that children make and encourage them to work collaboratively with each other, sharing their thoughts, ideas and enquiries.

Personalised Learning

At Atelier we recognise each child as an individual, and as such we plan for them as an individual. Staff carefully observe the children within their key families, identifying their key interests and then use their professional knowledge to plan for a range of suitable learning opportunities that’s are personalised to each child.

These opportunities are collated on to a PLOD, which documents the Possible Lines of Direction a child’s learning make take. You will receive a copy of your child’s PLOD via Famly (our online communication platform). It will also highlight ways in which you can support and extend your child’s learning at home.

Sometimes we can see shared interests emerging across key family groups and these interests may be the start of a new provocation. Planning in this way, means children learn at the highest level as they are truly engaged by their captured interests.

Provocations

At Atelier we encourage children to develop their own hypothesis and to test their theories so they can make sense of the world.

Our skilled staff team act as researchers alongside the children, listening to and respecting their ideas. Children are encouraged to follow their interests and extend their understanding, skills and knowledge, whilst working at their own pace.

Our role as teachers is facilitate the learning taking place:

to ensure the environment is rich in opportunity
to provide resources and experiences that deepen and challenge the children’s thinking
To provide protected play opportunities and the time needed for children to develop skills and understanding.

Recent Provocations have included exploring the ‘Big Ideas’ that children hold, ‘Looking Closer’ and ‘Claying.’

Home Learning

The philosophy of Atelier holds the child and family at the centre of our work. We have promoted a culture characterised by involvement, openness and trust.

We promote a commitment to the children as well as to the wider family and each other.

Through collaboration we strive to offer high quality early years experiences. We recognise parents are advocates for their children and encourage families to share their understanding and observations of their children’s learning at home with nursery staff. This could be through effective daily dialogue or via the online platform Famly on which learning both at home and nursery can be uploaded and shared.

Planned family events such as picnics in the park, the exhibitions illustrating children’s work and our family festival bring together all members of our nursery community.

One of our most recent collaborations, is communication café, during which time parents, staff and artists come together for an evening meal over which they share in an honest and open discussion of the children’s learning. They work collaboratively to share ideas and resources, to plan for and enhance the learning opportunities offered to our children and most important identify how together we can make a difference for our children.

We recognise and promote the home learning environments of our children, by involving and engaging parents in our approach and their child’s learning and development. This could be something as simple as borrowing a book from the family library to read at home, inviting parents in to cook or read or joining in the fun at the family festival.

Leading a Learning Community and Culture of Excellence

At Atelier we will seek to continually reflect on our practice. We want to develop our own awareness and knowledge by examining our attitudes and values and developing recognition of how these affect children’s learning.

We strive to ensure that our staff team have wide and purposeful training opportunities so that they remain motivated and engaged in the roles they hold.

We work alongside many other settings and the Local Authority to ensure that we share best practice. Alongside this staff are members of the Ofsted Regional Network, Schools Forum, Early and Years Reference Group.

Staff have contributed towards sector publications and presented their work at national conferences.

Early Years Foundation Stage

The Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) sets the standards for promoting the learning, development and safety of children from birth to five years in Ofsted registered settings. The EYFS lays down the legal requirements that early years childcare providers must meet, including:

learning and development requirements: specific areas of learning and development which should shape the activities and experiences offered
assessment requirements: how children’s progress is measured and feedback to parents or carers
safeguarding and welfare requirements: what we must do to keep children safe and promote their welfare

What are the EYFS learning and development requirements?

The learning and development requirements cover three prime areas, which are considered particularly important for stimulating children’s interest in learning, and in building relationships:

Communication and Language: giving children opportunities to experience a rich language environment, develop their confidence and skill in expressing themselves, and speak and listen in a range of situations.
Physical Development: providing opportunities for young children to be active and interactive, develop their co-ordination, control, and movement, understand the importance of physical activity, and make healthy choices about food.
Personal, Social and Emotional Development: helping children to develop a positive sense of themselves and others, form positive relationships and respect others, develop social skills and learn how to manage their feelings, understand appropriate behaviour in groups and to have confidence in their own abilities.

The three prime areas are strengthened by four specific areas of learning: literacy, mathematics, understanding of the world, and expressive arts and design. These areas are connected, with learning in one particular area supporting learning in the others.