Our Playrooms
Our rooms’ age ranges are flexible. Every child is unique and will progress through rooms at the time that is best for them and their development. We will always consult parents/carers on any room changes before these occur. All our rooms have access to our outdoor areas.
Room breakdown Under 3 years
Snowdrops (3-14 months) & Bluebells (14 months - 2yrs)
Our Snowdrops Room and Bluebells Room offer a gentle, warm and inviting environment for our youngest children. It is quite unusual for a nursery to have two separate rooms for the under 2’s age group and it is one aspect of our provision we are particularly proud of. In addition to the two playrooms we also have a dedicated sleep room for the under 2’s ensuring adequate undisturbed sleep opportunities.
Daisies (2 - 2.5yrs)
Dasisies Room is where the 2-2.5 year olds have fun and continue progressing through their development stages. This is a very busy time with lots going on – often including toilet training which we are mor than happy to help with.
Buttercups - 2.5 - 3.5 years
In all of the under 3’s rooms our staff work closely with the National Guidelines Pre-Birth to Three: Positive Outcomes for Scotland’s Children and Families. The underlying principles of this way of working are naturally in the best interests of the children, the central importance of relationships, the need for all children to feel included and an understanding of the ways in which children learn. It is based on four ‘R’s’ – Respect; Relationships; Rights of the Child; Responsive Care.
In our under 3 rooms staff work closely with national guidance and use Realising the Ambition.
The very early years are a vitally important time for the development of each individual person and we believe it is our responsibility to ensure every baby and young child in our care is treated with respect and responded to appropriately in order for them to develop their sense of self and their understanding of interactions with others.
Activities for the under 3’s are wide ranging and planning is led by observations of the children at play with children’s interests being developed and their learning extended through play. The children enjoy lots of physical play, messy activities, stories, singing and musical instruments as well as outdoor play in their own secure garden areas and going out for walks.
We work in partnership with parents to offer continuity of care and particularly with the very youngest children try to replicate the home routine as much as possible, accommodating sleep and feed times to suit their individual routines.
Sunflowers - 3-5 year olds
We have two main playrooms for the 3 – 5 year olds, the Butterfly Room, Rainbow Room and K2 area, where we are engaging with the early years section of the Curriculum for Excellence. We use 2 rooms which lead on to our extensive outdoor area offering free flow play where engage with the early years section of the Curriculum for Excellence.
The Curriculum for Excellence supports young people from the ages of 3 up to 18 years and establishes clear values, purposes and principles for education in Scotland. It sets out to enable young people to develop the following four capacities:
- successful learners
- confident individuals
- responsible citizens
- effective contributors
The early years are vitally important in providing the foundations for the development of these capacities. It is our role within the nursery to facilitate stimulating experiences and effective learning for the children through active play appropriate for each individual’s needs.
Active learning is widely regarded as an appropriate way for children to develop vital skills, knowledge and a positive attitude to learning by engaging and challenging children’s thinking. It takes full advanatage of the opportunities for learning presented by spontaneous play, planned purposeful play, investigating and exploring, events and life experiences and focused learning and teaching.
Children learn by doing, thinking, exploring and through quality interaction, intervention and relationships with staff. Children learn best in environments that offer differential play and challenge whilst supporting their hands-on independent play.
The children’s development in each of the four capacities is fully supported, and to give examples might be helpful –
The children develop as :
Successful learners through using their imagination and creativity, tackiling new experiences and learning from them, and developing important skills including numeracy and literacy through exploring and investigating whilst following their own interests.
Confident individuals through succeeding in their activities, having the satisfaction of a task accomplished, learning about bouncing back from setbacks when things don’t go according to plan and dealing safely with risk.
Responsible citizens through encountering different ways of seeing the world, learning to share, take turns and give and take, learning to respect themselves and others and taking part in making decisions.
Effective contributors through playing together either in leading or supporting roles, tackling problems, extending communication skills, participating in sustained conversations and thoughts and respecting the opinions of others.
The ethos is about developing the whole person, and not simply about making sure they can write their name and tie their shoe laces any more!
In the words of Freidrich Froebel “Play is the highest expression of human development in childhood for it alone is the free expression of what is in the child’s soul”.