Orchard

Our Orchard room takes children from 18 months all the way up to 5 years allowing children to stay here right up until they go to school. Orchard can take up to 25 children a day working on mixed ratios following the Birth to Five matters curriculum and the EYFS as a base for children to learn. Orchard is a mixed free flow environment where the outside space is open at all times. Our Orchard gardens allow children to explore and take risk, offering resources such as mud kitchens, sand pits, water play, obstacle courses and loose parts such as hoops, tunnels, pin wheels, guttering and tyres. Inside, Orchard follows a similar approach to Baby Barn, offering low levelled resources, risky play, loose part exploration and objects that anyone would find curious from the real world- all taking inspiration from the Curiosity Approach. Children also actively engage in washing up, hanging up wet clothes, brining the foo d shopping in, and sorting the food out and packing it away. This all links to all areas of the EYFS as well as allowing children to feel they have an impact on how their nursery is run. All practitioners follow in the moment planning, and also offer adult led activities for their focus children of the week. This allows our Orchard children to have autonomy of their day, as well as their learning being extended. Pre school children will also have time in their day to learn about how to be ready for school as well as all children having constant opportunities for mathematics and literacy, such as using the poetry basket and helicopter stories as a tool and making sure mark making is embedded throughout their day. As a nursery, we have good links with local schools and the community, which enables us to make a smooth transition for children as well as children getting to know diversity of the wider community and bringing this into our setting. Orchard children follow the same settling in process as Baby Barn, along with having paper based learning journals for their observations of their learning and development.