Education
Aims and Objectives
These are the primary aims and objectives:
- To provide a happy, safe, child centred, caring environment that is stimulating and challenging for children.
- To offer high quality pre-school care and education in partnership with parents to children in our setting which is appropriate to their stage of development and following the pre-school curriculum outlined by the Department of Education for Northern Ireland.
- To promote the rights of the child as set out by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1991).
- To offer equality of opportunity to all children and families
within our setting, showing mutual respect, tolerance and understanding
at all times.
First Impressions Count
We are all aware of the impact of a first experience and how that first impression stays with us and defines how we think or feel about something or someone.
For many children playgroup will be their first experience of a learning environment with other children and with an educator other than the parents. The impression your child forms at this stage will influence the way they respond to all future schooling and education.
Good Pre-School Education
There is much evidence to indicate that a play based curriculum for children can raise the standards in early childhood education and beyond.
The Rumbold Report 1990 sites the following as requirements for good preschool education:
- Sensitive, knowledgeable and informed adult involvement and intervention.
- Careful planning and organisation of play settings in order to provide for and extend learning.
- Enough time for children to develop their play.
- Careful observation of children’s activities to facilitate
assessment and planning for progression and continuity.
Meeting The Requirements
At the Little Castle Playgroup, we believe in and understand the importance of play. Play behaviour is a way in which a child can acquire social, intellectual, creative and physical developmental skills. Through play children can practice skills and come to understand the world around them.
Play is a non-threatening way for children to cope with new learning and still retain self-esteem and self-image.
To fully learn through play, the activities must be age and developmentally appropriate.
There are six identified areas of learning and the curriculum we work with has been expertly designed to develop each of these areas.
“A richly developed person is more likely to emerge if
children are encouraged to fully experience the stage at which they
are at”
- Froebel.
Our aim is to go with the child’s abilities, not against them.
Early Years Educators
The Playgroup staff are fully trained to above national requirements (NVQ 3) and have an exceptional understanding and dedication to their profession.
Ongoing training in the latest developments in early years is provided by Early Years and it comes as no surprise that in a recent review of UK pre school provision, the Northern Ireland Community Playgroups lead the field in delivering a quality child-centred early years service.
“Early years educators are the people who help children
to build the bridges of understanding between their individual experiences
and the more formal understanding about the world upon which later
education rests”
- The Excellence of Play, Moyles, Janet R.,(1996), Open University
Press.