With the support of experienced compassionate educators our children become independent learners and gain the confidence to voice their own thoughts. We encourage all children to be active listeners and communicators. Listening is a big skill in itself so we spend lots of time taking turns, practicing eye contact, performing back and forth interactions, and manging interruptions. Then our exciting phonics Read Write Inc. programme interwoven with lots of songs encourages active learning, music memory and sound blending to support communication and children’s early reading and writing skills. We weave all of this into everyday practice because learning how to have conversations is vital for building relationships (which includes the very important matter of sharing) and for general well-being. No topic is too silly for a chat, children’s views matter on even the seemingly most trivial of issues which means they can feel confident to have an opinion and contribute to decisions around ‘bigger’ matters.
We ensure our children are listened to and their views are valued through everyday interactions with the mantra of ‘letting everyone have their say’ but we also encourage structured time during our very special children’s council meetings. At these meetings we not only listen, but we act on and truly value children’s views and thoughts to make their nursery life even better! We give children the power to make change influenced by their own experiences be that new topics they might want to explore, food they want to see on the menu, help they want to give to their community or even the toys, books
and equipment they want in nursery. After the meeting an analysis of the children’s views and opinions is completed to establish clear actions, we commit to making their nursery a place they love and enjoy coming to. Children are then empowered to feedback after each council meeting addressing the rest of the children and teachers not present at the council on the outcomes. Our Little Pioneers relish the opportunity to get involved!
Children love to do things for themselves, even if that means it’s going to take half an hour longer to get out of the door in the morning! That’s why at Little Pioneers we set aside time for them to have a go and be independent. With lots of encouragement, some patience and a whole lot of praise we help children achieve. We concentrate on empowering children to succeed, be that dressing themselves, making their own choices, being critical thinkers and building connections, asking questions, following instructions, trying different foods, learning to feed themselves, or a whole host of other mini celebrations that mean they’re set off on the right foot before we blink and they’re off to school.
Children’s resilience is nurtured in collaboration with the adults around them. Learning to cope with defeat takes plenty of love from a trusted adult to show them that their disappointment is normal. We take every opportunity to encourage children to go outdoors where there are lots of challenges and opportunities to build independence and resilience from climbing to swinging, rolling and running. At Little Pioneers we support children to embrace their mistakes, they’re the perfect learning opportunities to get children problem-solving, to build their coping skills and to encourage them to dust themselves off, get back up and try again!