Routines in the Baby Room are relaxed to suit the baby’s individual needs which may have been already adapted to at home, such as sleep times and bottle feeding times. However, meal times are set to co-inside with the other meal times across the nursery.

The Baby Room offers a stimulating and inviting environment, where children feel safe, building secure relationships with the Baby Room practitioners. These relationships are enhanced through key worker systems which are in place throughout the nursery, although children bond well with the practitioners in the baby room who care for them on a day to day basis.

Babies have the opportunities to explore a wide range of resources and materials such as sand, paint, chalks and crayons which are freely available daily.

Babies are encouraged to develop verbal communication, through nursery rhymes alongside non-verbal communication which involve actions. It is important to promote these areas of learning in young babies to help bring on communication and language skills.

Babies have an extensive menu of healthy foods available in order to promote a well-balanced diet from an early age. Babies requiring formula milk may bring their own, ready-made bottles, which will be kept refrigerated until needed. 

We operate a non-outdoor shoe policy in the Baby Room for hygiene purposes. Staff, parents and visitors are requested to remove their outdoor shoes or put on shoe covers provided when entering the baby room.

When the children move onwards and upwards to the ‘Snowy Owls’ room, routines become more structured in comparison to ‘Owlets’. Also there are greater boundaries introduced as a better understanding of expected behaviours become clearer as they develop better personal, emotional and social skills.

Children are encouraged to eat more independently, gaining the ability to use a fork and a spoon to feed themselves with practitioner support and supervision.

The learning experiences children will encounter in this room are learning basic flashcards, introducing simple colours – red, yellow, blue and green.

Children have great opportunities to explore many table top activities to further encourage walking and balancing skills, these include messy activities which enable children to investigate and experiment with various materials and tools.

A wide range of communication and language tools are used to develop and challenge children’s vocabulary and letter/word pronunciation. These are enhanced through singing, nursery rhymes. Language and communication is also encouraged through social interactions at meal times with the practitioners and children.

Children have opportunities to enjoy more physical activities in the outdoor environment, with the use of trikes, bikes, sea saws and slides.

Tawny

Children within this room begin to learn more colours and are also introduced to shapes and simple letters, such as the letter of their name.

Circle time is completed daily within the morning session after breakfast where the children’s learning is reinforced and developed further to challenge their knowledge and understanding.

Toilet training is a big development stage within this room; however, some children may have completed toilet training in the Snowy Owls, or some may not quite be ready depending on their stage of development. 

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During meal times, children have the opportunity to develop more independent eating skills, using a knife and fork with support from the practitioners.

This room is where we prepare children for school, with a strong focus on developing children’s concentration and independence. Some of our key focuses for school readiness are to ensure that children are:

• Curious and confident about learning.
• Resilient and ready to take part.
• Able to take risks, ask questions and find solutions.
• Confidently active and be healthy.
• Independent with self-care skills.
• Comfortable to make friends and take turns.
• Cared for and feel safe and secure.
• Able to vocalise choices.

 Developing children’s independence through allowing children to choose what and where they would like to play is highly encouraged in this room. This helps promote self-learning. This is supported with specific planning on the areas of learning as formed in the EYFS. Adult focused activities and the continuous developmental provisions are planned in advance in order to meet the children’s development needs and next steps, allowing planning to keep in theme with the children’s own specific interests and enabling children to enjoy the learning experience.

Circle time and group work is part of the everyday routine, encouraging children to identify names, letters, days of the week, months and seasons.  There is a range of opportunities for the children to extend their own learning throughout the day, enabling them to build on their current knowledge with the support and encouragement from staff to scaffold their development.

We have excellent links with our local feeder schools and aim to make the transition from nursery to school as smoothly and as enjoyable as possible for each individual child.