OUR CURRICULUM

At Coppice Childcare – Shard End, we are dedicated to nurturing enthusiasm, self-confidence, and independence in every child. We believe play is fundamental to early learning: it helps children make sense of the world, develop socially and emotionally, and grow at their own pace. Through play, children learn, explore, and enjoy meaningful interactions with adults who understand, support, and care for them.

Our goal is for every child to feel secure and empowered, with the confidence to reach their full individual potential. Since the introduction of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS), its revisions have increasingly emphasized what matters most—particularly the vital role parents and carers play in supporting children’s development.

Our practitioners combine care with education, delivering a broad and balanced curriculum while introducing children to new experiences and the world they live in.

We assess children's progress by:

Planning, Reviewing, Recording - Planning around areas of our curriculum, a child's interests, Learning Opportunities - reviewing progress -  recording progress - repeat the cycle.

Welcomm  - to assess progress in speech, language, and understanding. This allows us to provide tailored support—whether a little extra guidance alongside parents or enhanced provision for children with identified special educational needs.

The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) statutory framework.

A statutory set of standards for early years providers in England, ensuring children from birth to five learn and develop well and are kept healthy and safe. It is based on seven areas of learning and development: communication and language, physical development, personal, social and emotional development, literacy, mathematics, understanding the world, and expressive arts and design. All Ofsted-registered early years providers, including nurseries, childminders, and reception classes, must follow the framework. 

• Quality and consistency: The framework promotes quality and consistency across all early years settings.
• Secure foundation: It provides a secure foundation for learning and development, with activities planned around the needs and interests of each child.
•  Parent-practitioner partnership: It encourages partnership working between practitioners and parents or carers.
• Equality: It ensures equality of opportunity and uses anti-discriminatory practices so that every child is included and supported. 

 Areas of learning and development

•  Communication and language
• Physical development
• Personal, social and emotional development
• Literacy
• Mathematics
• Understanding the world
• Expressive arts and design 

 Key aspects of implementation 

• Play-based learning: The EYFS recognizes that children learn best through play and active learning.
• Characteristics of effective learning: This includes how children learn, with behaviors such as playing and exploring, active learning, and creating and thinking critically.
• Assessment: Practitioners assess children's progress and use this to plan future learning opportunities. 
• Statutory framework: Updates to the framework, such as those in September 2025, focus on aspects like safeguarding and safer recruitment.

Birth to 5 Matters

The nursery also uses Birth to 5 Matters,  a non-statutory guidance document for early years practitioners in England that supports the legal requirements of the statutory framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS). It provides guidance on best practices for the development and learning of children from birth to age five, incorporating updated research and reflecting current societal issues. Key principles include viewing the child as unique, the importance of positive relationships, creating an enabling environment, and understanding that children learn best through play.  

British Values

Teaching children British Values provides reinforced guidance on improving their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development - guaranteeing that that they leave school prepared for a life in modern Britain. The values underpin what it is to be a citizen in a modern and diverse Britain; and promote moral and cultural understanding of the diversity of the UK

Democracy

Let the children know that their views really count by encouraging them to respect each other’s opinions and thoughts. • You can help demonstrate democracy in action by having a show of hands when it comes to discussing what activity should come next. • Provide activities that involve turn-taking, sharing and collaboration – sustained shared thinking. • Give children plenty of opportunities to develop their enquiring minds by creating an atmosphere at your setting where questions are encouraged and listened to

Rule of Law

You can promote the rule of law in your setting every day by working with the children to create rules and codes of behaviour, such as agreeing rules about tidying up, and also ensuring children understand that the rules apply to everyone. • Self-regulation helps the children understand not just their own but other’s behaviour; You can promote the rule of law in your setting every day by working with the children to create rules and codes of behaviour, such as agreeing rules about tidying up, and also ensuring children understand that the rules apply to everyone. • Self-regulation helps the children understand not just their own but other’s behaviour; and enables them to come to terms with how they feel and how they can learn to manage their feelings.

Individual Liberty

Provide opportunities for the children in your setting to develop their self-knowledge, self-esteem and increase their confidence in their own abilities, talking about their experiences and what they have learned from them. • Encourage a range of experiences that allow children to explore the language of feelings and responsibility. Reflect on their differences, discuss them in a group and allow them to understand that everyone is free to have different ideas.

Mutual Respect and Tolerance

Encourage and explain to the children the importance of tolerant behaviours, such as sharing and respecting each other. • Promote diverse attitudes and challenge stereotypes, for example, by sharing stories that reflect and value the diversity of children’s experiences. • Provide resources and activities that challenge gender, cultural and racial stereotyping so that the children learn to respect the unique backgrounds of everyone. • Create an ethos of inclusivity at your setting where beliefs, faiths, cultures and races are valued. • Arrange visits whereby the children can engage with the wider community, for example, to a nursing home, or different places of worship, if appropriate. • Talk to them about their favourite football teams and music. • Encourage the children to acquire appreciation and respect for their own and other cultures by discussing with them their similarities and differences between themselves and others; and among families, faiths, communities, cultures and traditions. Share and discuss practices, celebrations and experiences.

  https://coppicechildcareshardend.co.uk/data/documents/13TH-OCTOBER-2025-MENU-.pdf