Our Curriculum

At Blossom and Bloom Day Nursery, our curriculum is made up of five things:

Our ethos

Cultural capital

The statutory guidelines

Partnership with parents

Our 3i’s

 

Our Ethos

Essentially, we are parents and practitioners and the combination of the two means that the children in our care get the massive benefit of our combined qualifications and experience while the parents get the reassurance that we can empathise with their feelings surrounding trusting their single most important little person being in the care of others. We take a holistic approach to childcare, maintaining a need to support the whole family in order to support the child. Our overall ethos is largely based on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and the understanding that there are 5 essential needs that have to be met in order for children to thrive.

​

Children’s physiological needs have to be met - they need to feel physically comfortable, this means managing any aspects that prevent that, ensuring they are not hungry, thirsty, cold or hot or tired. Their basic physiological needs have to be met first and foremost.

​

Safety - Children have the right, need and are entitled to feel safe and secure both physically and emotionally - we can achieve this by ensuring risk assessments and policies are in place as well as ensuring the environment is warm, inviting and promotes curiosity.

​

Love and Belonging - Children need connection and warmth in order to feel comforted and promote strong emotional security. We can achieve this with a well thought out key worker system and ensuring every child/ family has a key person whose responsibility it is to love and care for them.

​

Esteem - Children find confidence in our trust in them, they need to be trusted to be curious and allowed the freedom to safely explore their surroundings. We achieve this by offering an environment which focuses on developing curiosity, wonder and awe. We use positive affirmations to promote children’s self esteem and we show we are proud of their achievements.

​

Self Actualisation - Fostering children’s creative needs and problem solving, this is something that develops over time and deals with a sense of contentment - it requires practitioners to be responsive to children’s interests and needs and reactive to their communication.

 

Blossom and Bloom has recently become a baby and toddler unit and we he high expectations for our children to leave our setting to attend preschool confident enough to communicate their needs and wants, curious about what a new setting has to offer.

 

We know that children develop more organically with access to outdoor space, we know it is healthier for the brain and the body to spend time outside. We know that the trees and plants produce phytoncides which are scientifically proven to boost our immune systems. We know (from careful observation) that 98% of children are happier outside, they are more open to learning, more imaginative and more engaged. So, it would make very little sense if we didn’t utilise the vast amount of outdoor space we have on our doorstep and the garden we can access at all times. We have a big wagon which enables us to take the babies out with the toddlers to explore their community and foster a sense of belonging.

​

We know that communication and language underpins all other areas of development so it is vital we focus on early interactions to support the babies to develop. We use the support of our local authority speech and language therapist to deliver training and support to staff and use singing, sign language and stories to encourage communication in our children.

​

We make weekly observations of children which over a period of 12 weeks we share with parents to determine the children’s strengths and any areas where they may need support. We initially do a baseline assessment within the first 6 weeks and use the support of the babies previous assessments by Health Visitors as well as thorough and vital conversations with parents.

​

We offer SEN provision as part of our Local Offer. We have a dedicated sensory room for focussed work with children who need extra support and to provide a stimulus for children with physical and developmental delays and sensory impairments.

​

We also offer dancing delivered by an outside company which has a huge impact on the children’s social, emotional and physical development.

​

Cultural Capital 

Cultural capital is the essential knowledge that children need to prepare them for their future success, for us that means for them to be ready to move on to one of our sister setting preschools. We aim for our babies to be walking steadily on their feet, able to navigate larger and more congested spaces - for children to have enough language to be understood and to understand - for children to have a good grasp of gross and fine motor skills including climbing and holding pencils - for children to have the confidence and resilience to cope with a busier setting and for children to know and be accustomed to a warm and loving environment.

​

We use the children’s backgrounds and information from parents/ carers to ensure we cater for their specific needs. We do this by viewing their red books, sending home ‘all about me’ forms for parents to complete, liasing with other professionals and observing the children during their time with us to gauge how they learn as defined by the

 

Characteristics of Effective Learning

We know there is some deprivation in our local area and not much support for families, we use this knowledge to offer parental support with things they may find tricky as well as offering access to resources for use at home such as our bedtime book to encourage bedtime stories.

 

Statutory Guidelines

Ofsted have a set of guidelines that we are legally bound to abide by, they can be found on the government website. We have a mandatory developmental assessment to make when the child is between two and three - assessing the children in the Prime Areas of Development (Personal, Social and Emotional development, Communication and Language and Physical Development) - in order to pinpoint any developmental delays and refer the child to the correct facility to get the best, earliest support. As the children generally move on to one of our preschool settings when they are three we aim to do a two year developmental check as part of our transition records.

 We then spend our time with the children, not completing online journals or writing endless observations but in play and conversation and joint learning. We are then able to use our knowledge of the children and how they learn and develop to ensure they are meeting expected developmental goals and plan activities to help them achieve those. Children with any SEN are assessed more regularly in order to track vital progress.

We are trained in paediatric first aid and all have regular safeguarding training to ensure the children are kept safe in our care and we are able to make referrals to the Integrated Front Door if we have any concerns about a child's wellbeing. We know to follow up any referrals within 48 hours if we hear nothing in the meantime. We know how to spot signs of abuse in babies who aren’t verbal such as a poor bond with parents, changes in behaviour/ general wellbeing, being dressed inappropriately or seeming unkempt. We do a termly wellbeing audit of all babies as part of staff supervisions in order to keep alert to any changes in the home.

 

Partnership with Parents

We may be trained practitioners but it’s widely known that parents have an intuition about their children that is often unmatched by professionals, even the most senior and experienced. So, we feel that working alongside parents and carers is vital to the children’s early development. When the child starts at Blossom and Bloom Day Nursery, we ask parents to complete an ‘All About Me’ form providing us with essential information about the child and their routine. We then work closely with the parents ensuring regular contact with the child’s key worker and feedback on their assessments. We also like a quick chat at handover to inform parents of any news. Parents are also invited to join an app called Famly for updates, photographs, observations, news as well as accident forms and medication forms. Photographs are taken of the children during the week for the parents to view rather than to evidence observations, they are uploaded at the end of the week to the app. WOW moments are recorded the same day.

Intent, Implementation and Impact

 

What is your Intent for the children at Blossom and Bloom Day Nursery?

​We want our babies to develop individually (to Blossom) and to develop within a group (to Bloom). We want the children to have the best possible opportunity to do those things within a safe, secure and stimulating environment. We want our babies to become confident talkers and cope well socially with confidence.

 

How will you implement that?​

We will ensure a secure foundation within our setting by planning for each child's individual needs, working together with parents and other professionals and ensuring consistency and equal opportunity. We will use the Development Matters as a guideline for assessing children's progress.

 

Our environment will always be safe, secure and stimulating and the adults working with children will have a deep and intuitive understanding of child development and what it is a child needs in order to succeed.

 

What will the impact be on the children? How will they benefit?​

Children will leave Blossom and Bloom as confident, resilient, kind and compassionate individuals who are aware of their own strengths and are able to communicate confidently.

​