The Polar room (24 months+)
Welcome to the Polar Room
The polar room accommodates 26 children ranging in age from 2 to 5 years. The room consists of two teams - the Little Polars (2-3 years) and the pre-school Polars (3-5 years). During the day, the children are free to choose their activities from various resources in the room and interact across the two age groups. Free flow to the garden is offered to the children in the mornings and at other times children take part in age-specific activities.
Little Polars (2-3 years)
In Little Polars we have a wide range of natural resources that promote learning, curiosity and development. Our bespoke planning is based on child observations and interests. This enables each child to flourish and grow. Their interests underpin any activity or experience we provide. There will be a balance of child initiated and adult led play.
Come rain or shine our Little Polars will have lots of opportunity to play outside in our lovely large garden. Here they can run, climb, dig and explore the natural world around them.
Your child's keyperson provides a loving, caring and nurturing environment and keeps you up to date with their progress and development. They will work along side you when your child is ready for toilet training or any other development milestone.
Your child will be valued, respected and listened to. They will have stories, music and fun. They will become independent, confident learners ready to take on new challenges and reach their full potential.
Pre-Schoolers
In pre-school, our role as enablers is to observe the children's interests and theories in play, as well as their individual needs and unique skills. We support and build upon what is learnt through an evolving emergent curriculum focussed around project based learning - this is always co-constructed with children and supported by us, tow full-time teachers. The children's inquisitiveness and eagerness to learn is developed during dedicated pre-school time, which happens twice a day where we all come together as a group. Constructing pre-school in such a way allows for some amazing and creative learning. Children's projects can take days or even weeks dependent on their engagement and can take us in many different directions. One of our most recent projects stared with a simple question: "where does paper come from?" and led to some fantastic learning opportunities.
To support children's daily explorations, we provide challenging construction toys, open-ended and natural resources which often come from a local Scrapstore. Children also have the wonderful opportunities to develop areas of their learning through dedicated woodwork, storytelling and dough-disco sessions.
What else happens in pre-school?
We can be often found in our nursery garden, in the mud kitchen or vegetable garden. We also travel to Cherry Hinton Hall for our regular "Forest School" sessions, where we make dens, go on scavenger hunts, make environmental art, learn about nature and much, much more.
Our unique city centre position allows us to take full advantage of local opportunities for learning and fun. We can visit local parks, museums, local market, cinema, concerts and botanical garden.
It is important to note that we value the importance of mindfulness through daily sessions with their friends. They love our peer massage sessions to a favourite nursery rhyme.
How can you find out about your children's learning and development?
All our learning is recorded in the form of observations, photos and videos and is shared with you through the online Tapestry Learning Journal. You will see free-play sessions as well as pre-school activities. We also post a weekly 'This week in Pre-school' so you can see what your child has been up to as well as what we will be learning about the following week - this is where we will also mention about Show and Tell and any other important information (including pyjama parties!)
