Play is an essential part of being a child from earliest babyhood onwards. Much of children's play is exploration and experimentation and it is through this exploration of the world around them that children learn and develop skills at a pace suitable to them.

Staff 'plan' for each individual child by taking the child's interests and needs and allowing the child to develop and extend their knowledge and abilities through the environment and activities.

Free Play

We make sure that our environment is enabled so that the children can access all the toys and activities to achieve the desired Early Years Foundation Stage outcomes independently as well as being led by skilled practitioners when needed through fun activities and play.

Play gives a child opportunity to learn to be independent, by making choices about what they would like to play and being interested in their choices.

Our practitioners help the children enrich their vocabulary, around the activities the child has chosen. Children then remember what they have learnt and build on those experiences.

With this the child becomes more inquisitive more confident and sociable in their environment.

Our Environment

The environment is set up using our knowledge of children and our expertise from continuous training, studying of children in the setting through on going observations and planning in staff meetings, ensuring it is always with the child's interests at heart.

We know what helps children learn and feel confident and happy because we have seen it work over and over again.

Child's Development

Play is a child at work and at Fledgelings Nursery we help children learn their sounds (letters), numbers and knowledge about the world through these opportunities and by the environment around them being enriched both physically and verbally with language.

Children learn through being sociable and having one to one situations to play and enjoy what they are doing. Children will gather for self initiated activities and practitioner led activities. The children have many opportunities to sing familiar songs and learn new rhymes, by themselves if desired and in groups.

The children have time to discuss the 'sound of the week', and relate it to an item familiar to them bought in from home.

Register Time

The children self register themselves on arrival and departure, this is a job that they can be in charge of, supporting their independence and the fact that they belong, in the setting. This is also an opportunity for name recognition not only of their own name but also the names of their friends.

The Garden

At Fledgelings Nursery we make use of the outside area in all weathers and operate a free flow system allowing the children to choose their environment. We use the garden as an extension/reflection of our indoor environment, allowing children to learn (play) in a way that suits them best, thus stimulating children’s sociable play, communication, language and knowledge of the world around them.

Children's creative development is also supported in the outside area through mark making to constructing pirate ships and trains with boxes, chairs and anything else the children find (indoors or out).

Numbers and letters are also used in the outside areas for example, through labelling of plants and numbering of the cars and bikes.

In all areas of our nursery we offer opportunities, materials, an enabling environment, good examples (role modelling) and encouragement for happy and productive play..

But most of all we have fun!!!!!