The six learning goals

Personal, social and emotional development

Social and emotional development is critical for very young children in all aspects of their lives and gives them the best opportunity for success in all other areas of learning.

It is crucial that we provide experience and support to enable children to develop a positive sense of  themselves and concern for others.

The children build up confidence and learn to trust the nursery staff team. This enables them to feel valued and creates a sense of belonging in an environment where they can predict the shape of the day.

Role play provides an effective environment where children can explore different cultures and build positive self-images of themselves and others.

Allowing children to think about and practice ways of solving problems helps them to gain confidence in themselves as problem solvers.

Communication, language and literacy

Communication, language and literacy depend on learning and being competent in a number of key skills, together with having confidence, encouragement and support.

This includes listening, disposition and speaking in different situations.

Children become aware of different cultural languages and learn to sing songs from around the world.

Every day situations such as, dressing up, shopping, walking or driving to the nursery, provide a rich context within which to encourage conversation about things that are happening around them.

Reading labels on packets and signs and beginning to recognise words in books.

Children should always be given the opportunity to act out situations they have seen and to talk about these experiences.

Mathematical development

Mathematical development depends on becoming confident and competent in learning and using key skills. This area of learning includes counting, sorting, matching, seeking patterns, making connections, recognising relationships and working with numbers, shapes and patterns.

Children may choose to play with shapes or wooden blocks, or to get out a game and play it independently. They may reveal their interest and curiosity by offering statements such as, 'this is pointy' or 'there's three and there's three! I'm three!'

Questions such as 'How did you work out the missing number?' will encourage problem solving and create an understanding of subtraction.

Knowledge and understanding of the world

In this area of learning, children are developing the crucial knowledge skills and understanding that help them to make sense of the world. This forms the foundation for later work in science, design and technology, history, geography and ICT.

Children learn to investigate and to be curious, enthusiastic and experimental. They solve problems and ask questions about things that are happening in the outside world.

Staff should provide activities and organise outings to encourage this aspect of learning.

Children need opportunities to gather information to satisfy their curiosity.

Parents can provide a diversity of insight into faiths, cultures, history and places ( e.g. when cooking in the home corner or visiting places such as the synagogue or market ). Their ongoing involvement ensures that children learn from the breadth of parent's experience and perceptions.

Physical development

Physical development at the initial stage is about improving skills of coordination, control, manipulation and movement.

Physical development has two other important aspects. It helps children to gain confidence in what they can do and they can also feel the benefits of it. They build a positive sense of well being.

It is important to allow children to be persistent at a certain skill until they have mastered it ( e.g. pedalling a bike ).

Large and small equipment enables the children to see things from a different perspective ( e.g. a large climbing frame, whereby the child would need to climb to the top of the frame and could look down ).

Creative development

Creativity is fundamental to successful learning. Being creative enables children to make connections between one area of  learning and another and so extend their understanding. This area of learning includes dance, art, music, role play and imaginative play.

Children will learn to respond, and explore and express their feelings through imaginative play.

Children learn a lot from adults who themselves are creative. The creative aspect is not always instant, so children need support in taking the time necessary to work at their ideas and to finish their work.

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