At Farley Hill, we know that the Early Years are the most important in a child’s development. We value working in partnership with families as a TEAM to provide the best possible learning and nurturing experience for your child. Every child is unique and their learning is a continuous journey that begins at home.

Our Nursery and Reception environments fosters and values the children’s natural curiosity, enabling all children to become actively engaged in their learning.  It is an environment where they can demonstrate both independence and resilience in their learning, confident to face any challenge that may come their way. In following the EYFS framework, we aim to provide a broad, balanced and differentiated curriculum which addresses the children‘s social, emotional, physical, intellectual, moral and cultural development within a safe, secure and stimulating environment. 

Our dedicated Early Years team will carefully plan activities and resources following Development Matters to meet and challenge their skills within the seven areas of learning.

The Prime Areas are:

Personal, Social and Emotional Development (PSED)

Communication and Language (C&L)

Physical Development (PD)
The Specific Areas are:

Mathematics

Literacy

Understanding the World

Expressive Arts and Design

The Characteristics of Effective Learning are a key element in the EYFS. They detail the ways in which children should be learning from their environment, experiences and activities. They are: 

• Playing and exploring - children investigate, learn from play experiences and ‘have a go’.   
• Active learning - children are involved and concentrate, show resilience with challenges and enjoy their achievements. 
• Creating and thinking critically - children explore ideas, make links and choose strategies for doing things.  

You will see us having fun with the children, adopting the roles of a co-explorer carefully questioning and challenging them in their thinking. We work inside and outside in our own outdoor learning environment (whatever the weather!).

The children in Nursery and Reception feel safe and they know they are special. Central to our ethos is our caring and nurturing approach which supports children in understanding their emotions, learning how to take care of themselves and stay healthy.

We are part of the school and as such regularly attend whole school assemblies and take part in Infant and whole school activities. Such activities ensure that the children soon become friends with older children throughout the school and our community spirit is fostered and enhanced from their very first term at Farley Hill.

The Parents Guide to EYFS provides further information.