Well-being
Child's Voice
We believe that giving children a voice promotes their well-being, self esteem and self worth. We give children a voice through choice, enabling them to express their opinions, feelings and emotions. In this way, children develop and learn that they are important and valued. Feeling valued plays a large role in how a child learns. In order for them to play and explore, actively learn and critically think they need to feel confident in their environment and have the knowledge that their voice and way of exploration are recognised and noted. These are some of the many ways our practitioners give children a voice.
- Widget Symbols/ Picture Cards – are used as choice cards at the beginning of the session to show what activities they would like or for various times of the day such as choosing a song they would like to sing. This is a great way of giving children a voice, even if they don’t have the language to support their own voice
- Observations underpin all aspects of our early years practice. Practitioners tune into each child’s likes, dislikes and stages of development. Working in close partnership with parents, we encourage them to add their observations and to help convey and understand ‘the child’s voice’.
- We include children’s interests in our planning. Practitioners sensitively take account of children’s interests, opinions, likes and interests when planning activities and creating an enabling environment.
- Celebrating diversity and cultures shows children that they are valued and that they can express their thoughts/feelings about who they are and what they believe.
- We provide well-resourced and accessible play and learning areas. We empower children to become increasingly independent, both in relation to their actions and to their thinking. By creating a child centred space and planning activities that teach children fundament skills, we also give them opportunities to practice those skills on their own. for example, through loose parts play, play dough making and cooking activities.
Inclusion, diversity and equality
We are a highly inclusive, warm and welcoming nursery.
We have extensive policies and procedures in place that support our work in promoting inclusion, diversity and equality.
But we believe that policies alone are not enough to build an inclusive workplace, and inclusion should never be a box-ticking exercise.
At the most basic level, we work to ensure that no one feels left out because of their age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, or other factors such as social background.
Our inclusive working environment allows people to be themselves at work.
Equality and diversity can bring with them many challenges, so to promote workplace inclusion, we remain sensitive and alert to how our leaders and practitioners work together on a daily basis.
We understand that equality does not mean treating everyone the same, it is about taking into account differences appropriately.
Diversity in the workplace has numerous benefits.
Put simply, the greater the mix of people, the greater the mix of skills, experiences, perspectives and ideas we can draw on.
We have created an inclusive environment where everyone benefits from being a member of a rich and diverse early years family.
A richness of language spoken in the setting
The ability to speak multiple languages is linked to strong critical thinking. There are many benefits to bilingualism and exposure to multiple languages.
Exposure to multiple languages helps children build healthy cultural identities. We believe it is beneficial to expose english only speakers to the wide range of languages present in their community and country. This supports healthy identity development for all children as members of diverse communities.
We are extremely fortunate that our practitioners speak a range of languages including Arabic, French, Spanish and Urdu.