Skip to content We use a combination of educational philosophies with a best fit approach for learning and development through a varied range of differentiated play activities, adopted to suit individual learning styles. We plan and provide rich learning experiences and enabling environments following each child’s interests, needs and stage of developmental, fully supporting the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework, (EYFS) whilst going beyond expectations to create a highly stimulating learning curriculum using a wide range of pedagogy (how we educate children and support their development).
Our daily routine at The Lighthouse is organised by adapting a flexible High scope approach.
Our Early Years Educators play an important role, setting up an Enabling Environment, providing appropriate materials that are age and developmentally appropriate, and provide ample opportunities to form good relationships with teachers and with their peers whilst building confidence and self-esteem.
By implementing the best approach from Montessori, our Early Years Educators create a nurturing environment that encourages self-directed, hands-on learning with a range of natural, often open-ended resources that match the five Montessori curriculum areas; Practical Life, Sensorial, Mathematics, Language, And Culture. There are opportunities for independence in daily tasks, including weekly shopping trips where they choose what they want to cook on Friday and prepare and cook their own meals. Developing independent life skills for every day tasks. Our Deputy Manager has a Master’s Degree in Pedagogy and a diploma in Montessori and leads and plays a crucial role in providing the right materials for children to explore at the right point in their development.
At The Lighthouse Nursery we acknowledge every child as strong, capable, and resilient, and ready to explore. We recognise that children are natural communicators and work towards understanding the ‘100 languages of a child’ – the many ways children express themselves. There is an emphasis on child-led project-based exploratory play for problem-solving and the Implementation of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Maths) where children have opportunities to build their own learning based around their own interests with scaffolding from our Early Years Educators who act as a guide without interrupting or supressing children’s interests. There is also a focus on the children’s hands-on approach to learning, comprising music, drama, dance and singing interpretation, transient art, workshops and providing opportunities for children to further express themselves.
At The Lighthouse Nursery we recognise the importance of understanding a child’s schema (Patterns of repeated behaviour). Through observations we identify and encourage these patterns of repeated behaviour and provide rich opportunities for the child to explore their schema further. Some of the schemas include scattering, transporting, rotating, trajectory and connecting. We understand that schemas can be very helpful in understanding why children do the things that they do…
As part of our Extended Learning programme, we offer fun opportunities for parents to engage in their child’s learning and development. Parents that are engaged in their child learning make a significant difference to their child’s development, education and overall, well-being. Weekly homework packs follow the ‘Oxford reading tree and songbirds’ and ‘Read write inc.’ schemes. The Lighthouse Lion homework bag and book to record activities go home with the younger children once a week and travels with the child to different places where the parents are encouraged to take pictures and record what the Larry the Lion Cub has been up too and the children then share this at circle time. We invite parents and carers to come in and share a specialist activity, Police Force, Fire Man, Nurse, Doctor, Dentist, Chinese New Year, Spanish and French music and songs… parent’s assist walking the children when we visit the local community, shops, walks, park, library, forest school in the local woods…
As part of our Extended Learning programme, we offer fun opportunities for parents to engage in their child’s learning and development. Parents that are engaged in their child learning make a significant difference to their child’s development, education and overall, well-being. Weekly homework packs follow the ‘Oxford reading tree and songbirds’ and ‘Read write inc.’ schemes. The Lighthouse Lion homework bag and book to record activities go home with the younger children once a week and travels with the child to different places where the parents are encouraged to take pictures and record what the Larry the Lion Cub has been up too and the children then share this at circle time. We invite parents and carers to come in and share a specialist activity, Police Force, Fire Man, Nurse, Doctor, Dentist, Chinese New Year, Spanish and French music and songs… parent’s assist walking the children when we visit the local community, shops, walks, park, library, forest school in the local woods…
At The Lighthouse we believe that early learning in an outdoor environment creates a comprehensive variety of benefits for children, facilitating the understanding more closely of the world around them whilst enabling them to actively participate in physical activity that supports wellbeing and keeping fit and active. All play, learning, exploring and investigating also takes place outdoors in the substantial outdoor play area with carefully planned sessions following the child’s interests and the early years framework. Extensive opportunities throughout the day enable children to connect with the natural world and experience their surroundings independently. They can explore and investigate nature, to run, jump, swing, slide, climb, hide, balance, dig, grow, and enjoy messy play in our considerable outdoor sandpit with mud kitchen and 2 large Wendy houses…. children plant their own flowers, fruits and vegetables in the garden whilst discovering nature and enjoying healthy eating of their own fruits and vegetables. They also have opportunities to attend forest school in the woodlands with ample opportunity for: adventure walks, tree climbing, building dens, hide and seek, minibeast hunts, transient arts and crafts activities and identifying and recording plant life, and sharing story time… Weather permitting there are opportunities to cover the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) curriculum’s seven areas of learning including; Communication and language, Physical development, Personal, social and emotional development, Literacy, Maths, Understanding the world and Expressive arts and design in our outdoor classroom.
Our Forest Fridays and sometimes Wednesday gives children the opportunity to learn through hands on experiences in our local woodland adjacent to the nursery. Children are able to explore, discover, develop confidence and self-esteem and to engage with risks and understanding in the natural world around them, through hands on learning experiences.
We take a holistic approach to training and retaining our Staff Team, many who have been with us since we opened in 2013, and this enables our nursery to continuously flourish. Our high employee retention rate, enables us to promote from within our Nursery, where each member of staff works the hours that are suitable for their wellbeing and family work life balance and this maintains productivity and high staff moral, our staff team appreciate opportunities for advancement and the potential for growth.
We have an annual diary of immeasurable on-going training which enables us to continually meet the needs of all our children whilst improving our early years practice. This approach enriches our Nursery culture of a caring family team and helps everyone feel inclusive and working towards a common goal.
At The Lighthouse Nursery quality improvement is a continuous cycle of self-reflection, self evaluation, and conducting a vast range of routine termly audits and surveys to identify areas for improvement. Implementing the improvement plans and reviewing their impact ensures our drive for continuous quality improvement.
Analysing the audits are crucial to recognise the actions that need to be undertaken for quality improvement.
Involving all our staff team in this process ensures we are working together and meeting all requirements of the statutory framework.
We actively pursue opportunities for extended learning with regular trips and outings
A Lighthouse Nursery designed programme where our children are transported to France where they learn a new language and culture which will reinforce their language skills.
We introduce the children to the world of science and the scientific method in these classes with experiments that will help them to understand the world around them and learn about new and exciting discoveries. The children have enjoyed learning about: Volcanoes, Dinosaurs, Climate Change, the Water Cycle and Planets as well as undertaking experiments with Plants and food.
Our Diverse and Multicultural staff created and run our Precious Polish programme where children learn about the language and culture of Poland as well as discover of Polish art, traditional wear and music.
Forest School is our Woodland learning programme exploring how the world works and nature in the local woodlands opposite the nursery, following the green chain nature walk trail. The children enjoy learning about Woodland animals like bunnies and badgers as well as learning to count with sticks and stones and learning about habitats and ecosystems and the importance of green spaces
We allow the children to select a meal they would like to cook then take the Excellent Eagles [3-5] on a trip to the local Waitrose (5 minute walk) and help them to pick out the ingredients listed on the recipe, then read the instructions and work as a team to count what is needed and cook the meal. The Excellent Eagles will make the main dish, the toddlers will create the side dish and the Cuddly cubs will produce the desert. This activity reinforces all aspects of the curriculum, encompassing, reading, art, maths, science, listening and teamwork. The children as closely supervised throughout.
We have specialised extra-curricular activities available to further promote learning and development, tying into our broader objectives including the range of extra-curricular activities below:
Literacy and Phonics Workshop: a fun, exciting and innovative activity class designed to teach children letters and sounds through play. A variety of interactive and fun games have been developed especially for pre-schoolers to teach the phonic sounds and letters needed to read. Using memorable actions and phrases, supported by engaging illustrations.
Fun, Exciting Sports Classes: Prostars run courses to develop confidence and social skills, gross and fine motor skills, agility, balance and coordination to provide a good lead into school readiness with courses focused not just on a physical level but on a technical, social and psychological level too. They are all qualified coaches with outstanding outcomes from toddlers to 5-year-olds.
Early Talk: Early Talk is I CAN’s highly successful flagship speech, communication and language programme, that helps children learn to talk. Our staff have been trained to deliver this programme to the children to ensure that children in the nursery can communicate confidently and effectively for a perfect start to school.
Spanish Lessons & Dance: We are in Partnership with Poco Loco an organisation that runs Spanish language, culture, music and dance workshops where a foreign culture is brought to life and the children can enjoy speaking to one another in a new language.
Drama, Dance and Music: Each week the children dive into an interactive story and come up with ideas to solve a mystery through imaginative play and make-believe! Their structures compliment all seven areas of the EYFS Framework to increase confidence, boost self-esteem and nurture imagination.
Outdoor Learning in Our Woodland: Forest School is our Woodland learning programme exploring how the world works and nature in the local woodlands opposite the nursery, following the green chain nature walk trail. The children enjoy learning about Woodland animals like bunnies and badgers as well as learning to count with sticks and stones and learning about habitats and ecosystems and the importance of green spaces
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