Our bespoke, specialist Early Years Department offers a safe, structured environment for pre-main school children aged 3-4 years.
Located within a separate purpose-built area of Merton Court School, children here enjoy social interaction, intellectual stimulation and personal development under the caring guidance of our highly trained, specialist staff. They are also involved in Main School activities such as Swimming, Music and Forest School, ensuring a seamless transition when they move onto J1 (Reception).
Throughout the EYFS we ‘N.E.S.T.L.E’ our children.
Nurture – our children are all treated as individuals and the curriculum is tailored towards their ages and stages of development. We work in partnership with our parents to ensure the children grow both socially, emotionally and intellectually.
Exercise – children need to have daily exercise. Our children engage daily in a wide variety of exercise activities both indoors and outdoors in order to develop both their gross and fine motor skills; these range from P.E. and Swimming to Dance and Forest School along with free play exploration of our extensive outdoor environment.
Stimulate – children’s minds need to be appropriately stimulated in order to grow and without the over reliance on technology. Our children are stimulated both socially, intellectually and aesthetically through a wide range of varied child and teacher led activities, all of which are age-appropriate and take account of the children’s interests at the time.
Talk – children need time to talk and our children are given daily and plentiful reasons and opportunities to converse! They explore language in small and large groups and individually with their teachers, through stories, play, activities and circle time.
Love – children need acceptance, care and trust in order to feel loved and our Key Worker system in the EYFS ensures that each child forms an attachment and bond with their teacher. We work in partnership with our parents to ensure the best outcomes for our youngest children.
Environment – children across our EYFS benefit from a safe, stimulating and vibrant learning environment. Our outdoor learning environment (‘the third teacher’) is equally as important as our indoor classrooms and we have recently extended our self-contained Forest School woodland area giving the children new opportunities to become ‘nature detectives’.
During our 2022 ISI Integrated Inspection it was noted that children in Early Years absorbed new vocabulary, are focussed and attentive and confidently choose from a range of activities.