Our curriculum planning for Stoke Goldington Pre-School is guided by the framework issued by the Department for Education and Skills. The Early Years Foundation Stage became mandatory for all Ofsted registered settings and schools caring for children under the age of five. The overall aim of the Early Years Foundation Stage is to help young children achieve the five 'Every Child Matters' outcomes, as follows:
Staying safe
Being healthy
Enjoying and achieving
Making a positive contribution
Achieving economic well-being
The Early Years Foundation Stage principles for learning and development are summarised as below:
Play and Exploration: Learning through experience, Adult involvement, Contexts for learning
Active Learning: Mental and physical involvement, Decision making, Personalised learning
Creativity and Critical Thinking: Making connections, Transforming understanding, Sustained shared thinking
The Foundation Stage divides children's learning and development into six areas:
Personal, social and emotional development: developing confidence and independence while learning to concentrate & to enjoy learning as part of a group.
Communication, language and literacy: communicating with one another and developing skills in talking, listening, writing & reading.
Mathematical development: using ideas about number, quantity, measurement, shape & space.
Knowledge and understanding of the world: investigating and beginning to understand the things, places and people around them.
Physical development: improving control and co-ordination of their bodies while learning to move and to handle equipment.
Creative development: finding ways to communicate by using colour, shape, sound, texture, movement & stories.
This is achieved by basing each term on a theme. For example, we may work on a theme of 'Nursery Rhymes' or perhaps 'Transport.'
We recognise that children progress at different rates which we support through individual attention and assessment.
Children who have special educational needs will be supported in their progress towards the aims for the Foundation Stage.
The children’s favourite activity this week was creating the props for Jack and the Beanstalk! First they listened to the story. Then they used a range of resources to build a HUGE giant, a life-size Jack, a chicken and her golden eggs and the leaves with numbers on to attach to our beanstalk that grew taller each day!
The children’s favourite activity this week building Rapunzel’s tower!
The children’s favourite activity this week was acting out the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears in our home corner. The children helped set up the cottage with large, medium & small bowls, chairs and beds and pretended to be characters from the story! They used lots of size and descriptive language. 
The children’s favourite activity this week was our Christmas Party!
The children’s favourite activity this week was making snowmen out of old plastic bottles! The children had adult support to use a variety of media to construct and decorate a seasonal snow man. They chose different fabrics and resources such as pipe cleaners, buttons and pasta and discussed the texture of the different materials. They used words to describe how things felt such as soft, hard, fluffy, shiny, sparkly and hard. 
The children’s favourite activity this week was creating a Christmas picture for our display board! They painted their hands & did prints to make the green Christmas tree& then helped stick them in place.
The children’s favourite activity this week was creating pre-school’s very own Christmas post box! The children chose a large box and with adult support cut a slit for the cards to be posted through and painted it bright red. When it had dried they decorated it with seasonal snow and frost! The box will be used for posting our Christmas cards in and those all important letters to Santa!
The children’s favourite activity this week was joining in with fund raising for Children in Need! Lots of the children helped raise some money for the charity by coming to pre-school wearing spots, they brought their teddies and made spotty bandages for them to wear and took part in some Pudsey Bear activities such as colouring Pudsey activity sheets. We discussed raising money for children who aren’t as lucky as we are in our setting. The day helped strengthen the children’s sense of belonging too.
The children’s favourite activity this week was making and baking fruit and cheese scones! The children listened carefully to instructions and grated the cheese, mixed & measured the ingredients and rolled out the dough. They were encouraged to work independently, be aware of the risks of the equipment they were using and discussed health & hygiene in the kitchen. The best bit of course, was eating the yummy scones!
The children’s favourite activity this week was making smoothies for snack time! We discussed healthy practise in the kitchen, chopped fruit with knives and finally mixed the ingredients in Teresa’s smoothie maker! There was lots of laughter and discussion about variations in noise, sound and speed and how the ingredients changed in the mixer.
