Why?

Children thrive when they feel safe, valued and loved. Executive function includes the ability to hold information, focus attention, regulate behaviour and plan what to do next.
The development of self-regulation is essential to support children’s academic ability and to develop children’s emotional and intellectual well-being. 

First milestone: Increasingly, children separate from their parent as they grow in confidence and develop relationships. 
Children identify and begin to name their emotions and regulate their behaviour with support.
Children will learn to use the zones of regulation.

As children grow in confidence, their involvement in nursery activities deepens. They explore a wider range of activities. They play for longer periods of time. 
Adults co-regulate with the children supporting them to bounce back when things get difficult and be patient for what they want.

Component

Children manage their strong emotions and regulate their behaviour with support.

Second milestone: Children regulate own strong emotions by monitoring and managing their feelings and the way they make them behave.
Children learn to comment about their learning. They begin to hold information in their mind, focus their attention and plan what to do next.

Adults support children to think of solutions to issues that cause them to feel strong emotions, choosing the best solution for the situation and putting it in place.

As children’s engagement and perseverance grows, they either challenge themselves with more difficult activities, or they respond positively to adults challenging them.

Adults model, narrate and explicitly teach metacognitive strategies.

With adult support they begin to engage in a plan, do review cycle.

Component

Most of the time children manage their strong emotions and behaviour independently. They begin to think and talk about their learning processes. 

Third milestone: 

Children organise and effectively manage their learning independently.
Children talk about and reflect on what they and others are learning and thinking. 

As children play and learn more collaboratively, over long periods of time, and take part in more challenging activities, they talk about and reflect on their learning. 
As the plan, do, review cycle is embedded children think flexibly, plan and prioritise and use their working memory. 

Component

Children independently self-regulate so they can persevere, challenge themselves and focus for sustained periods of time. 

Final milestone: (Composite) Children reflect on their learning and comment on their thinking. They work through problems and solutions through a plan, do, review cycle. Children self-regulate and use metacognitive skills as they learn.

Why?

Developing spatial reasoning in the early years lays the foundation for problem-solving, mathematical thinking, and creativity, helping children make sense of the world around them through movement, shape, and space.

First milestone: Explore space through movement.
Children will explore ‘space’ by physically interacting with the Nursery environment. They will move in varied ways and experience different viewpoints. They will start to use positional language, such as in, out, up, down, under, over, in front, behind.

Adults will use contingent talk – naming things in the moment and will repeat these words and experiences. 
Adults will use spatial talk to describe dimensions, spatial features, location and direction. 
Obstacle courses using equipment to go over, under and through will be set up. Children will use all aspects of the garden to see from high up, low down, across, to gain different perspectives and will have language modelled to them. Inside, children will explore blocks, small world, books, puzzles and play dough to encourage spatial talk. 

Children will be given experiences to explore space and start to use spatial talk to describe these experiences. 

Second milestone: Manipulate shapes and objects.
Children will explore how shapes and objects behave in space. They will fit and rotate shapes to make them fit. They will combine shapes to create patterns and pictures. They will predict how objects will look when moved. 

The first milestone will be extended with contingent talk (adults) and spatial talk (children and adults) being regularly used. 
Children will print and model with a range of objects to explore surfaces of 3d objects. 
Children will use block play, creative construction and junk modelling with adults to have back and forth conversations to describe spatial features. 
Children will explore symmetry and reflections with mirrors and adults will ask e.g “What will happen if we turn it?” during puzzle play

Children will further develop their own experience with space to incorporate the position of objects. 

Third milestone: 

Understand and use spatial language. 

Children will use spatial language and reasoning more independently to describe and navigate space. They will use directional language, understand relative position and understand and talk about simple perspectives

Children will explore maps and routes through fiction and non-fiction books. 
They will represent spatial journeys and solve spatial problems. 
They will use spatial language in storytelling and construction, using directional terms. 
 

Children will independently use their knowledge of position and space to deepen their perception of the world around them.

Final milestone: (Composite) Children will use spatial language to express their own ideas and physically interact with their environment based on their understanding of position and movement. 

Vocabulary: Positional words, directional words, comparative words, properties of objects – e.g curvy, round, straight, corner, side

Why?

We want children to be able to plan, construct and learn to handle tools confidently and safely. We want then to be able to take measured risks, to explain their choices and talk about what they have made and how they have made it. 

First milestone: Children undertake woodwork induction with 1:1 support. 

Second milestone: Children independently use a hammer to tap a nail successfully into wood.

Children access the woodwork bench and explore using the hammer and nails when an adult is close by.  

Control a hammer and nail safely.  

Third milestone: Children have repeated experiences at the woodwork bench. 

With support children use tools safely and with increasing confidence. They talk about what they are doing.  

Final milestone: (Composite) Children make decisions about the tools and resources that they want to use and manage the resources as independently as possible to design their own piece of wood.

Vocabulary: safety, plan, do, review, hammer, nails

Why?

Creative play allows young children the freedom to be able to explore their thoughts and feelings and come up with new and original ideas.  We want to foster a love of art and creativity in our children. We want children to learn to express their own ideas and express themselves using their curiosity and imagination. 

First milestone: Children learn how to use and look after the creative area. With adult support children experiment with a variety of resources. 

Group times will be planned to introduce specific skills and materials. Children are shown where they access the creative resources and how to use them. Children will be able to experiment freely with the range of resources, There is no need for a planned end outcome, rather an opportunity to experiment and learn what everything does, how it feels and how it can all work together to produce a piece of art.

Component

Second milestone: Children become more independent at accessing creative resources during free flow.
Children build up their experience of using a range of materials so that some may begin to plan for an end outcome and consider how they may want their art to look.

Children will be shown how to join card and plastic modelling materials together to begin to build 3D art. 

Children will choose to use our creative areas independently. Areas will be well stocked and organised.  
Children will be taught how to use the scissors and tape dispenser.

Third milestone: children will be exposed to a variety of artists and their work, highlighting the techniques that the artists use. Children will experiment with those techniques and media and with adult support will begin to use the influences in their own art work.

Every child will have an opportunity to experiment with various artistic styles during Group Time and artist’s art work will be available to the children during free flow to inspire and talk about.
Children will plan, do and review their work. 

Component

Talk about what you want to make and create it. 

Final milestone: (composite) children independently use a variety of techniques they have learnt to create pictures or models. 

Vocabulary: technique, artist, style, create, materials

Why?

We want all children to feel secure, accepted and have a sense of belonging. We want all children to value and celebrate difference and be free from stereotypes.

First milestone:Children talk about a range of story books where gender roles are challenged and in which children from all backgrounds, especially those from black and minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds, see themselves represented in the characters.

Jasmine/Biba, our Personna Doll is introduced.
A wide range of children’s books which reflect our diverse society without gender stereotypes are read and discussed

Second milestone: Children can notice and celebrate differences and similarities between themselves and value their uniqueness. 

Group Times are planned to incorporate Jasmine’s/Biba’s colour and gender to challenge prejudice. Learning about our diverse community is shared through stories of Biba’s experiences, celebrations through our children’s home experiences and visitors to Nursery. 

Take part in Group Times celebrating diversity and be able to talk about differences and similarities between us.

Third milestone: Children explore the feelings of others and think of ways to help including gender and racial bias as a teaching focus. 

Through our Personna Doll, help children to explore the feelings and issues she experiences, such as gender and racial bias. Use the problem, solution model to help her share and resolve conflict and use this model with our own conflicts. Books incorporating diversity, special needs and disabilities are shared.

Begin to talk about how others may feel by relating to a problem that doesn’t directly affect them.

Final milestone: (Composite) Be able to share and discuss our feelings and find solutions to problems

Vocabulary: Similar, different, problem, solution

Why?

‘Reading and writing float on a sea of talk’. We want our children to understand story structure so that they can make up, perform and tell stories. We want them to ignite their interest in stories to build a firm foundation for their literacy learning. 

First milestone: children join in with role-play and play imaginatively with ‘small world.’ Children join in with repeated refrains with well-known stories. 

Join in with repeated refrains/ actions in a well-known story.

Second milestone: The Tales Toolkit structure is introduced. Children act out a short story as part of a group. 

The structure and specific vocabulary of Tales Toolkit in introduced and children begin to create a collaborative story using character, setting, problem, solution.
Helicopter Stories are introduced. 

Contribute to creating a story. Join in with acting out a story.

Third milestone:

Children act out stories together both in Group Times and in Free Flow.

Adults begin to scribe stories that the children have started to make up. This can be continued in Group Time and during Free Flow.
Stories are discussed using the Tales Toolkit structure. The Tales Toolkit language goes beyond story-telling and into our everyday problem solving. 

Make up a story using the Tales Toolkit structure.

Final milestone: (Composite) Use Tales Toolkit inside and out at Group Times and during free flow. 

Vocabulary: characters, setting, problem, solution, audience, act out. 

Why?

We want children to see themselves as writers and use mark making, symbols and letters in their play as a way of communicating to others. 

First milestone: Children begin to use mark-making equipment independently.

Use mark making equipment independently 

Second milestone: children will have access to a variety of paper and our pen collection to mark-make and draw special messages to each other and hide them for their friends to find. Children’s messages may also take other forms such as chalk outdoors – using arrows to lead children to a message at the end of a trail.

‘Write’ a message to others.

Use writing type marks independently.

Final milestone:(Composite) Children choose to write in a range of play situations with a purpose in mind, making letter-type marks.

Vocabulary: message, write, symbols, meaning 

Why?

Being in touch with nature is important to our well- being and having knowledge of the natural world is an essential part of our lives as humans. We want our children to notice, value and investigate the natural world around them. 

First milestone: children will notice and be fascinated by what they find or experience. They can name living things in the environment such as worm or snail.

Adults will help children to explore the natural environment and provide opportunities to observe things closely through a variety of means, e.g., magnifiers and photographs and iPad to listen to and recognise birds. We will use non-fiction books to reference aspects of the natural world that the children have experienced, providing opportunities to extend vocabulary by naming living things. 

Can name some living things in the environment.

Second milestone: children will be able to notice and talk about materials using specific language such as wet/dry or textures such as rough/soft. Children will be able to notice and talk about the features of minibeasts e.g. wings, legs, shell.  

Adults will teach skills and knowledge in the context of practical activities, e.g. learning about the characteristics of liquids and solids by involving children in melting or making porridge, bread, or ice. Adults will support children in developing their knowledge of living things in the environment by close observation and opportunities for lots of discussion using all our senses. 

Third milestone: children can notice the similarities and differences between living things, materials and growth.

We will provide first-hand experiences to support children in making sense of micro-environments, the specific conditions which enable each plant or animal to live and thrive.
We will explore different habitats outdoors looking particularly at changes throughout the seasons. 
Children will have opportunities to record and creatively represent findings by, e.g. drawing life cycles, mark making.

Name changes in materials/record findings.

Final milestone: (Composite) children can notice and talk about the similarities and differences between living things, materials and growth. They can predict what may happen and why. 

Vocabulary: predict, similar, different, habitat, seasons, environment

Why?

First milestone: Children join in with number rhymes, saying some numbers in sequence. They begin to subitise and can answer the questions ‘what do you see and how do you see it?’

Second milestone: Children can show the different quantities on a 5-frame using subitising and handle and partition groups of similar objects (part/whole). Children build up an image of what amounts look like (pictorial image) 

Children use counters on five frames and use maths vocabulary about what they see.  

Children explore larger groups of objects – and can talk about what they see within a larger group (part/whole) They build up a picture of what totals look like using a variety of resources. Children recite numbers past 5.

Third milestone: Children relate their knowledge to a range of ‘real life’ situations – e.g. getting the right number of cups for the children at snack time. 
They can show you numbers to 5 and up to 10 on their fingers and with counters on a 5 frame. They know that when you add more objects to a group the total increases.

Children start to use their Number knowledge throughout the Nursery, seeing connections with what they have learnt at Group Times. 

Final milestone: (Composite) Use, talk about and apply knowledge of cardinality and conservation, comparison and composition in different play/real life situations.