Our Classrooms
The 'Nido' - Baby Room
The ‘Nido’ classroom offers an inviting and homely environment for our youngest children aged 6 months to approximately 18 months, or when we feel they are ready to transition to the ‘Preschool’ environment.
The room is spacious and bright, delivering a safe and loving environment. Low shelves, soft rugs, child-sized furniture and carefully selected resources foster children’s concentration, problem-solving skills and sense of achievement while promoting independence, building of character and communication skills.
The environment is carefully planned to satisfy children’s curiosity and fulfil their needs. There are plenty of opportunities for movement to support the development of gross motor skills and coordination and to begin refining fine motor and manipulative skills. Children develop their language skills through learning songs and rhymes, daily story telling and book reading, moving to music and dancing. The focus is on physical, intellectual and emotional wellbeing.
Under the watchful eyes of our knowledgeable and compassionate caregivers, infants are encouraged to learn and explore at their own pace, with the option to move freely as they are able to and engage in activities that interest them.
We encourage a healthy relationship to sleeping, eating and toileting and provide children for their needs on their own schedule which is discussed with parents upon joining.
Children have direct access to the garden from the ‘Nido’ classroom throughout the day.
The Preschool
Our ‘Preschool’ offers an inspiring and stimulating classroom for children from around 24 months to 5 years. At this stage, children are increasingly independent and start being socially aware and interested in interacting with their peers. In the ‘Preschool’, children are still learning through their senses and manipulation but the array of activities available to them is more advanced and there is a greater focus on cooperation and developing social skills with their peers.
The transition from the ‘Nido’ to the ‘Preschool’ will be almost seamless as both classrooms are based on the same principles of independence, concentration, patience and respect.
The Montessori activities in the 'Preschool' classroom are subdivided into five specific areas:
~ The Activities of Everyday Living help children to increase their competence while using everyday objects such as spoons, jugs, ladles, tweezers, art and craft and gardening tools. Children learn things such as cultural etiquette for setting tables, welcoming visitors and asking for help, brushing their teeth after meals, zipping their jackets up or tying their shoe laces.
~ The Sensorial area offers activities for all of the five senses. It introduces new concepts and deepens their ability to organise and classify information. They also serve as indirect preparation to more academic learning in literacy and numeracy.
~ The Knowledge and Understanding of the World area sows seeds of interest by introducing the children to a multitude of subjects. Children learn about creatures in the garden, life cycles of animals, our solar system, our planet, continents of the world and their peoples and much, much more. Children are introduced to science through experiments such as floating and sinking, magnetism and the three states of water.
~ The Literacy area introduces children to a wide variety of pre-reading and pre-writing activities before moving on to a more structured reading and writing curriculum. By the end of their time at the nursery most of our children confidently identify letter sounds and have had a thorough introduction to phonics as well as being able to write their name and read and write some short simple words. Our beautiful book corner gives children a space to sit in a calm environment and explore books or be read to by a teacher. ‘Story sacks’, collections of items relating to some of our favourite books, support and extend children’s imagination and creativity in storytelling.
~ The Numeracy area offers children an array of activities that provide a structured introduction to this subject through hands on experience from concrete to abstract concepts that are interesting and easy to grasp. Many mathematical concepts will already be present in other areas of the environment giving children a solid foundation and understanding of introductory concepts, numbers and shape.
As well as these predefined areas, children have access at all times to:
~ themed ‘role play’ area based on children’s interests, cultural festivities or different professions
~ ‘art and creativity’ area stocked with a variety of art materials to create art independently and where teachers lead projects of famous artists and support the children in craft making
~ ‘construction’ area with a variety of materials for building
~ ‘sensory play’ with different themed sensory materials to explore with all the senses
~ ‘interest table’ where we collect real objects and resources relating to and extending on a particular topic of interest
In the ‘Preschool’ classroom children are welcome to work individually or with their peers during the ‘work-cycle’ (three hours of uninterrupted work, morning and afternoon) during which the teachers act as guides, presenting new activities, delivering structured group lessons or simply supporting the children during play and in their social interactions.
The garden
Our garden has had a complete renovation and offers children a varied array of resources, bringing the classroom outdoors. Children can occupy themselves with physical activities such as climbing and gardening as well as art, construction and sensory play.
Children have access to the outdoor space throughout the day and we encourage outdoor play in all weather and all year round. We ask parents to support us by providing appropriate clothing for the weather.
