Our Curriculum

Minnie Me Pre School strives to provide the highest level of care, learning and
development. We believe our curriculum is effective and meets the needs of all our
children. This starts by working in close partnership with parents to build on their
children’s strengths and creating a welcoming stimulating environment. We always nurture
and support all children’s progression with an inclusive and holistic approach to child
development. Our curriculum consists of everything we want the children to experience,
learn and be able to do. Our intention is for our curriculum to be ambitious and inclusive,
educating all children in knowledge, skills and understanding. Minnie Me Pre School provides
a safe, caring environment which enables our children to be inquisitive, curious, and
independent learners.
We feel that children learn by observing the people around them and develop their
attitudes from their social environment. We understand that a child’s early experiences
form the foundation upon which their future attitudes are formed.
Our Fundamental British Values play an important role here too. These important,
universal, core values are not only vital for preparing our children for life in modern Britain
but are also integral to equality, diversity, and inclusion.
We are proud of the trusting relationships our parents have with us we value prior learning
and work together with parents to ensure every child progresses. Through this partnership
we endeavour to enhance the skills they need for future success, enabling them to fulfil
their potential. We promote these partnerships through open discussions, and we use the
Tapestry learning journal to share experiences from home and in the setting, we also have
a private Facebook page where we can share information, photos and parents can
contribute, ask others for advice and contact us. During the settling in process, we share
information with parents such as “All About Me” this is so we can work together and form
secure attachments with our families. These contributions are sought, valued, and highly
respected.
Intent
We are passionate about creating opportunities for the children to communicate more
easily through developing language and communication skills from birth. Communicating is
how we get to know about each other and developing strong communication and language
skills from a young age is an essential foundation. The development of these skills is
paramount to promote self-esteem, independence, and confidence and in turn helps
friendships flourish which are incredibly important for children. The staff within the
nursery environment communicate with all the children effectively, we scaffold and model
language through nursery rhymes, storytime, dialogue, constant narrative and modelling
affective communication.
We form strong relationships with our children. At Minnie Me Pre School we consider it
important for all adults working with children to understand what attachment is and know
how to help parents and carers become attuned to their child’s needs. We allow our
children time to build a safe, settled and secure bond with staff. We want all our children

to feel, happy, safe, secure and valued so we ensure that there is space to cuddle, be calm
and comforted, this is at the core of our ethos,
It is our intention that the children experience the areas of learning (EYFS Curriculum)
which are centred around the three prime areas:
• Communication and Language
• Physical development
• Personal, Social and Emotional development.
We then support children’s experiences within the four specific areas, through which the
three prime areas are strengthened and applied. These are:
• Literacy
• Mathematics
• Understanding the world
• Expressive arts and design
We use the Department of Education’s Development Matters curriculum guidance to form
the basis of our planning and assessments, but also give regard to the Early Years Alliance
document “Birth to five matters” to extend those milestones and development guidelines.
Our intent is that when children leave us they will be ready to start school, strong
independent learners.
Implementation
The way we achieve a broad and balanced curriculum is through in the moment planning,
alongside a more structured planning to ensure all opportunities are recognised,
implemented and celebrated. We feel privileged to have time to play with the children in
our setting and this leads to high levels of engagement and learning. Children demonstrate
high levels of interest and involvement, persevering, and showing a ‘can do’ attitude whilst
creativity, critical thinking, and motivation for all is evident in the constant thrum of
activity. For the practitioners, planning, preparation, and assessment is a celebration of
children’s learning, inputting the children’s ‘wow!’ moments, contributed by all the staff, is
a delight and leads naturally to knowing what’s next. Practitioners can scaffold and enhance
each child’s individual needs in a way that is nourishing for them and us.
At Minnie Me Pre School we have an outdoor learning environment which provides space for
the children to be active, develop co-ordination, control and movement, our outdoor
environment provides a unique chance for sustained shared thinking and extended periods
of play. Being in the outdoor environment is both positive from a health perspective but
also for connecting children with the environment.
We are situated in an area of ‘High deprivation’ and appreciate that children who have lived
through different experiences can begin to grow stronger when they experience high
quality early education and care.
Each room from our youngest children to our pre-school children, uses the curriculum
guidance to ensure a flow of development. We can therefore support smooth transitions as
children progress through the setting. All staff understand child development and value
working collaboratively with each other, this ensures consistent expectations allowing each
child to progress no matter where their starting point is. All practitioners have a
consistent approach to behaviour management, we work hard to create clear boundaries
and have high expectation. However, we still value each child as an individual and help
children to live and learn alongside others catering for individual needs.
The management team have many years’ experience working with the EYFS, and this
knowledge is used to ensure each staff member understands their children’s needs and can
respond appropriately. We currently have an effective programme of continued

professional development. It closely considers the context and performance of the setting
and feeds into our setting development plan. We support and encourage reflective practise
throughout the nursery and actively work alongside staff encouraging and creating an
effective team. We have regular supervisions, peer observations, staff meetings and
rigorous staff training. Effective professional development improves the quality of
interactions between children and practitioners.
We use our planning, assessments, observations, and discussions to inform next steps and
intents for each room.
At Minnie Me Pre School we ensure that every child at the setting is included. Every child
is unique and will develop at their own pace, so it’s not about treating all children in the
same way but treating each child fairly and paying attention to their individual interests
and needs. We have a range of additional interventions and support for children who may
not be reaching their potential or are showing a greater depth of understanding and need
further challenges. Where children are not experiencing success, they may have barriers
to their learning. These barriers might be short term, or they may indicate a longer special
educational need and/or disability. In these instances, more assessment will be needed to
try and get to know the child better and focus on their needs. We work collaboratively
with the Derbyshire Specialist Teaching team when extra support is needed, using the
Early Years SEND Toolkit and Celebratory Checkpoints to access early interventions and
support. We also use Every Child a Talker monitoring tool and implement individual plans
for children needing extra support and will refer to Speech and Language support if
required.
We ensure the needs of individual children are met through grouping our children flexibly
throughout the nursery, our rooms are not solely designated by age, more centred around
each child’s individual needs and stage of development.
Impact
We truly believe that the hard work we do in early years education is vital in creating the
foundations for future success and understand the value of working together, in the best
interests of the child. The skills and competencies the children learn in the early years
setting will help them tackle the new challenges they may face in the next phase of their
education and our ultimate aim is to help to create confident, resilient, and capable
learners who are secure, happy and eager to continue their learning journey.
We believe that the whole family feels supported and valued, we offer advice, signposting
and support to the parents and carers of our children as parent’s are the children’s first
and key educators, we understand this and strive to support parents to feel valued.