In Little Owls Pre-school room, the teaching is shared between Mrs Simpson (Preschool teacher), Tash and Mrs Roberts (Room Leads). We also have a team of experienced nursery practitioners who strive to ensure all our Little Owls children feel happy and safe during their preschool sessions.
In Little Owls, adult-led teaching is focused around high quality key stories. From this our planned continuous provision incorporates plenty of enrichment opportunities that ensure that children are developing in all seven areas of learning . Alongside this, we want all children to have the opportunity to follow their own interests and own lines of inquiry. We ensure that children are well supported by an adults as they explore and discover for themselves. Our environment is key to providing the children with meaningful learning experiences. Independence and resourcefulness are encouraged by making resources available to the children all of the time. This way, they are able to select and use resources independently, find what they need to extend their play and taking responsibility and ownership by learning where everything goes and by helping to put things away at the end of the sessions as part of our daily routine.
We also provide lots of enrichment opportunities throughout the week, such as welly walks, cooking and woodland learning activities which sometimes include a bonfire and outdoor cooking experience. Children also take part in daily phonic sessions.
A typical day in our Little Owls Pre-school room starts with 'own learning time' (free flow play) whilst children settle in and have conversations with staff about their morning so far or how they are feeling today. Children are encouraged to self register and put their belongings on their peg supported if necessary by a member of staff. All of our children then come to the carpet for our morning welcome routine which includes our morning registration songs and wake and shake. We then split off into smaller groups across areas of our provision where we take part in an adult-led planned activity linked to the seven areas of learning. There is always a communication and language group activity and a woodland session each day. We than have snack and story in our groups before moving into 'own learning time for the rest of the morning'. Just before lunch, we come together on the carpet to reflect on our mornings learning and for our daily phonic session. We sit in small groups for our lunch, with an adult supporting independence and communication and interaction as we eat lunch together. Following a story, we then continue with 'own learning time'. We end our day with one final group session that focuses on our gross motor development. One group a day takes part in our 'Healthy Movers' scheme whilst the other groups engage in other physical activity in different parts of our nursery and school grounds. The day ends with a story time, singing or show and tell.
Children who stay to after school provision take part in Book Club, where they select and borrow a book from the nursery library bus and enjoy reading it with their friends and adults, before returning to their preschool room for 'own learning' time.