
Our environment is open and welcoming to all. It is rich in opportunities that reflect the world today as well as being appropriately stimulating and safe, so as to encourage fun and experimentation with a wide range of materials inside and outdoors.

Our team are experienced and excellent role models for the children in our care. They seek to develop their personal skills and knowledge so that they are always best placed to identify the needs of the individual child.

For example, they can transfer pasta from bowl to bowl using a scoop, pour water from a jug through a funnel, thread some colourful beads onto a string, use brushes, cloths and sponges to clear up, practice doing up zips or buttons to dress themselves, or enjoy preparing fruit snacks.

For example, they can build towers of blocks, feel 3D shapes, match sounds, colours and textures to start to categorise and make sense of the rich experiences in the everyday world. They will start to build their own mental concepts of "red", or "smooth", "heavy" or "round". Since they are particularly sensitive to language we always use the words to help describe their experiences at every step of discovery.



In our cultural shelves, the child can explore globes, puzzle maps and even create a volcanic eruption to understand the Earth and where we live. We share treasures from the beach, the woods and the gardens on our nature table where they can investigate using magnifying glasses or a microscope. Open our Continent boxes to discover photographs, dolls, and other cultural artefects from distant places.


At Forest School all children are viewed as:
- equal, unique and valuable
- competent to explore & discover
- entitled to experience appropriate risk and challenge
- entitled to choose, and to initiate and drive their own learning and development
- entitled to experience regular success
- entitled to develop positive relationships with themselves and other people
- entitled to develop a strong, positive relationship with their natural world

There are four main guiding principles that shape the EYFS and apply to all children in Early Years Education, which are:
- Every child is a unique child, who is constantly learning and can be resilient, capable, confident and self-assured.
- Children learn to be strong and independent through positive relationships.
- Children learn and develop well in enabling environments, in which their experiences respond to their individual needs and there is a strong partnership between practitioners and parents and/or carers.
- Children develop and learn in different ways and at different rates. The framework covers the education and care of all children in early years provision, including children with special educational needs and disabilities.
Following on from these principles there are seven areas of early years learning that EYFS concentrates on, the first three of which are identified as being particularly important for younger children:
- Communication and language
- Physical development
- Personal, social and emotional development
- Literacy
- Mathematics
- Understanding of the world
- Expressive arts and design
You can find out more about Early Years Foundation Stage here.