At Little Bees, we believe that the most profound early years experiences arise when we listen to the child’s voice and place great value on what we hear. You might be wondering what we mean by the “child’s voice”? It is any expression of their interests, inspirations, feelings, or thoughts. Listening means doing more than just hearing what a child says or observing their physical movements. Listening means tuning into what motivates and inspires your child. When children’s voices are truly valued, they will see their thoughts and interests reflected in their environment and in the experiences taking place. New ideas and interests transform into fantastic learning projects. By seeing the impact that their ideas and interests have on the world around them, our children develop a confident, positive self-image as respected collaborators and co-constructors within a community.
We have developed our own blended curriculum based on influential early years approaches that have resonated with our setting, children, families and staff. We take inspiration from Reggio-Emilia, Scandinavian early years education models and forest school. Our children are able to experience rich, vibrant projects which allow them to explore their interests and inspirations in depth over long periods of time. We believe and have seen that project based learning provides opportunity for rich learning and exciting experiences and our expert staff take pride in crafting the environment and experiences based on the children's inspirations.
At Bumble Bees, we make use of the Early Years Foundation Stage statutory framework to ensure that the children's developmental and safeguarding requirements are met.
If you would like find out more about the statutory framework and non-statutory guidance, please see the links below. While we rely on staff expertise and our blended curriculum to guide our practice, we use the non-statutory guidance to ensure we are tracking progress towards the statutory early learning goals.
It is a statutory requirement to operate a Key Person system whereby your child is assigned an adult who is both a point of contact and responsible for overseeing your child's development.
During the settling in period, your child will be assigned a Key Person with the aim of building a strong positive relationship as a basis for your child to feel safe and secure. The Key Person will also be responsible for overseeing your child's development and will be a first point of contact for relaying information about their day to day progress or any feedback in general.
It is great for parents to have a 'catch up' with their child's Key Person when possible and to share information about activities, interests and any important events in their life. The Key Person can keep track of their Key Children's interests in a variety of ways. Please see the picture below which shows how toddler room practitioners are using name tags and notes to keep track of interests.
Parents and practitioners also share information through tapestry, an online system that we use to share your child's learning both within the setting and at home. We believe that parents/carers are the first educators and that practitioners are the second educators and it is therefore crucial that we work together. Tapestry is an online platform that greatly facilitates this collaboration between key workers and families.