The Abbey Weaverham

From approximately 12 months old your child will be ready to transition into the Toddler Room. The ratio within this room remains at 1:3 and the children usually stay within this room until their second birthday. Our Toddler Room staff work closely with both the Baby Room and Early Learner Room to ensure that transitions into their room and in to the next room are smooth, ensuring routines are passed on and parents are consulted on room movement dates and children’s settling in times, also giving the child’s new key worker the opportunity to bond with your child.

The Toddler room offers a variety of different levels in order to explore, unlike the baby room which provides mainly floor based activities. This allows the Toddlers to investigate their physical development and extend their curiosities in a variety of areas. A role play area is introduced within the Toddler Room to allow the children to start developing their imaginative skills through the use of simple props to begin to make believe.

The children enjoy two outdoor play sessions within this room during these they make full use of the physical development resources, bikes, bats & balls as they learn how to co-ordinate their movements.

Our Toddlers have a sleep after their lunch on individual labelled beds and blankets so they are fully refreshed for the afternoon’s activities.

Mealtimes are a social occasion within this room where we encourage children to develop their social skills through communication and all the children are encouraged to feed themselves with the aid of the staff sitting close by. Children are given a variety of refreshments throughout the day which include fresh fruit and milk.

We also introduce hygiene as they help their carer’s with hand and face cleaning before and after meal times.

From the age of 2 your child will progress into the Early Learner room. The ratio changes for over two year olds to 1:5. The children within the Early Learner room are encouraged to become more independent with their choices. The layout of the room means that children are able to move around freely, accessing the activities they particularly enjoy as the staff plan activities they know their key worker children will particularly enjoy.

Children are building confidence and relationships with both peers and carers, and also being prepared for their move up in to the Reception room. At this important stage, staff are ready to help support parents with children’s development, liaising carefully at the correct times to implement toilet training and possibly reduce sleep times. As part of this leap into independence, children are encouraged to brush their teeth after meal times and begin to manage their own personal hygiene more effectively, washing faces and hands independently.

The staff plan age and stage appropriate activities in accordance with the Early Years Foundation Stage in order to support their learning. Children are encouraged to begin looking for and recognising their name and participating in group activities such as stories, singing and directed circle times. Within this room our core rhymes baskets (which are available in every room) play an important part in children’s literacy development as well as their communication, listening and understanding skills. We use these during circle and story times in order for the children to understand the structure of stories as well as encouraging them to repeat familiar phrases.

At the age of 3 your child will be ready to transition into the Reception Room and start their preparations for ‘Big School’. The ratio within this room increases to 1:8 and at this point parents can claim their early years grant entitlement for their child whilst in the Reception Room offering a great reduction in child care costs.

The planning within this room is still play based but the activities become more structured in order to transition your child into school. We provide French, P.E and show and tell sessions within this room to develop their communication and physical development skills. These sessions are on rotas which are handed to the parents within a welcome pack to inform you of the days of the week each session commences on throughout the year. Within this room we also introduce a 52 week programme called letters and sounds which introduces phonic skills and begins to develop the children’s literacy and communication and language skills.

The Reception Room offers freedom of choice for the children to help develop their self help skills and independence. The room is set into many areas in accordance with the early year’s foundation stage, where the children can develop their skills with the help and support of the childcare practitioners in the room. They will support the areas building trusting relationships with the children. Children have access to plenty of outdoor activities both in our nursery garden to develop physical skills and on outside visits within the local community including trips to the local library, museum, and local attractions and to local shops and business to enhance the knowledge of their environment.

The children will also embark on a new reading scheme which is a fun way for the children to use pictures in a book to tell a story, this can be a bed time story at home and using the communication book we provide you can write comments about your child’s learning which will help the practitioners to enhance your child’s learning by providing a book that is of a good relevance to them.