Early Years provision at Mandeville promotes parental contribution by building a successful partnership. Our children benefit enormously from the rich, shared experiences this collaboration brings. We aim to nurture and support wellbeing in the Early Years with parental links being a priority, working together to help create an outstanding Foundation stage.                                      

The children in our Nursery and Reception follow the Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum framework. We offer our children the opportunity to learn through a wide range of rich, meaningful and multi-sensory practical experiences, in both indoor and outdoor learning environments. Children learn best through play-based activities and first-hand experience. As a result, we have placed a large emphasis on our role-play areas, creating the best possible environment for children to learn. We aim for the children to become independent learners through a balanced provision of child initiated and adult led experiences. Through continual and careful observations and assessments of the children, we are able to plan meaningful, motivating and personalised learning which the children can enjoy and be challenged by.

Within the Early Years Foundation Curriculum there are four key themes, which underpin seven areas of learning:

The Four Key Themes

A Unique Child - Every child is a competent learner from birth who can be resilient, capable, confident and self-assured.

Positive Relationships - Children learn to be strong and independent from a base of loving and secure relationships with parents and/or a key person.

Enabling Environments - The environment plays a key role in supporting and extending children’s development and learning.

Learning and Development - Children develop and learn in different ways and at different rates and all areas of learning and development are equally important and inter-connected.                                                

                                             

The Seven Areas of Learning

Prime areas

Personal, Social and Emotional Development

Communication and Language

Physical Development

Specific areas

Literacy

Maths

Understanding of the World

Expressive Arts & Design

 

       

 

Forest school at Mandeville

Forest School is an inspirational process, that offers children and young people opportunities to achieve, develop confidence and self-esteem, through hands on learning experiences in a local woodland environment.

The Forest School movement originated in Denmark and has been an integral part of Early Years.  It is holistic learning through play and exploration, where children learn about the environment, how to handle risks and use their initiative to solve problems and to co-operate with others.

 At Mandeville, we are training members of staff to lead regular Forest school sessions for the 2-3-year old and 3-4-year old Nursery and Reception in our local woodland environment, Hackney Mashes and our own wonderful Hackney School of Food gardens. 

The benefits, based on long term studies from other Forest Schools, and in particular in Scandinavia include:

•  Increased self-esteem and self-confidence
•  Improved social skills
•  Greater language expression
•  Increased physical dexterity
•  Children concentrate for longer periods of time than when indoors
•  Children develop an understanding and respect for their natural environment

      

Nursery 2-3-Year-old

Since 2021, Mandeville have created a 2-year-old provision attached to our usual 3-4-year-old nursery. Children attending our 2-year-old sessions, will have access to our Forest School provision and the Hackney School of Food gardens, as well as an exciting daily programme of activities designed to get your child learning, communicating and ready for school.

        

                                       

Admissions to Nursery & Reception

You can find out more about how admissions to Nursery and Reception classes work by visiting our Admissions page.