Category: Montessori

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Books for children Cockfosters Nursery Early Years Education Early Years Foundation Stage Enfield Nursery Forest Schools Hadley Wood Nursery Montessori Ofsted outstanding Pre-School Learning Reading for early years

Supporting learning at home: How to boost your child’s reading comprehension

In early years education, reading comprehension refers to a child’s ability to understand and interpret what is being read to them. It involves a specific set of skills, such as vocabulary understanding, word recognition, decoding (the ability to read some individual words), and question answering (the ability to ask or answer questions about what has been read to them).

The importance of early reading comprehension cannot be underestimated, as numerous studies over the past decades show that it lays the foundation for future outcomes at school, and has been linked to better self-regulation and social-cognitive abilities. In turn, these are known to support overall well-being, are conducive to learning and act as a protective factor for a range of early mental health challenges.

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Cockfosters Nursery Early Mathematics Early Years Education Early Years STEM Science Technology Engineering & Mathematics Enfield Nursery Forest Schools High Scope early years approach Montessori Ofsted outstanding Pre-School Learning Reggio Emilia Research on Early Years Development

Intent, Implementation, Impact – the key to every early years curriculum

It is crucially important that an early learning curriculum is responsive to the changing needs of children so that opportunities for growth and development are not missed.

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Cockfosters Nursery Early Years Education Early Years Foundation Stage Early Years STEM Science Technology Engineering & Mathematics Enfield Nursery Forest Schools Hadley Wood Nursery Montessori Ofsted outstanding Pre-School Learning

Measures taken for a safe reopening of our nursery following the Covid-19 lockdown

On the 1st June we reopened our outstanding nursery and were extremely happy to be back in our natural environment so we can maximise on the face-to-face interactions with the children. We supported our children during the closure period through our online learning that involved a weekly pack of activities supported by recorded and live teaching sessions. It was great seeing our children make progress through these methods. Following our reopening, we implemented a “blended learning approach” where both remote and on-premises learning takes place. However, the physical environment itself and our processes had to change to accommodate the highest standards of infection control and risk assessment.

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Books for children Cockfosters Nursery Early Mathematics Early Years Education Early Years STEM Science Technology Engineering & Mathematics Enfield Nursery Forest Schools Hadley Wood Nursery Montessori Ofsted outstanding Pre-School Learning Reading for early years Reggio Emilia

Our blended-learning approach for early years education

We were so happy to return to our home as a nursery school last Monday, 1st of June. During the weeks of lockdown due to Covid-19 we found many innovative ways of staying connected with our children and their families, and continuing their learning journeys remotely. Unfortunately it has not been possible for all of our children to come back to the classroom in our Hadley Wood site in this half-term. We saw this as a challenge to overcome, so we have opted for a “blended learning” model, which allows us to expand on and complement our nursery-based offering with a remote learning curriculum.

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Cockfosters Nursery Early Mathematics Early Years Education Early Years STEM Science Technology Engineering & Mathematics Enfield Nursery Hadley Wood Nursery High Scope early years approach Montessori Ofsted outstanding Reggio Emilia Research on Early Years Development

Maths in Early Years: building children’s confidence from an early age

The older a child gets the harder it is to get them to engage with and truly appreciate mathematics and the powerful reasoning behind it. Therefore, introducing maths at an early age is of crucial importance: not only does it help them understand how to deal with abstract symbols, like numbers, but more importantly it helps them develop problem solving and reasoning skills.

Children need to be given an opportunity to practice their skills with numbers, linking them to concrete quantities, which are out there in the physical world, their sensory world. Knowledge of shapes and patterns also improves their competence and confidence in using mathematical concepts and language.

However, shapes, space, and measures is a key area that the Government is considering to remove from the Early Years curriculum from next year. As an outstanding nursery school, we place a lot of value on this area and we will certainly continue teaching and developing it. In this post, we summarise some of the things you can do at home to support your child’s learning in this area, which is so beneficial to children.

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