Our Curriculum
At Dottie Tots, our whole hearted approach is felt the minute you step in the door. With children at the heart of our every day, we ensure that we have a culture where educators, parents and the environment is carefully nurtured to ensure children get the best day and the very best education whilst in our settings.
We focus on learning through play with an emphasis on giving children the freedom to choose their activities in a nurturing environment. Our educators offer guidance during small group sessions and prioritise children's learning during focused activities. Our approach, 'Joining the D.O.T.S', complements our reflective style and aligns with how we understand children learn best. The key elements of 'Joining the D.O.T.S’ are:
D – Developing a love for learning
O – Opportunities for open-ended play
T – Time for play, socialising, exploration and consolidation
S – Skills for life
Our Curious and Confident Children
Children are welcomed with warm, caring and skilled educators who know that the early years are their most formative and children develop not only skills for learning but skills for life. We are dedicated to ensuring children feel good through strong relationships with peers and educators, they move their body well and learn how to feel valued, heard, seen and soothed where they build confidence and resilience, and a good sense of emotional intelligence.
With a good understanding that playing is how children learn, they are nurtured and encouraged to develop a ‘have a go’ attitude, where they ask questions and are taught how to learn, not what to learn. Developing fine and gross motor skills with climbing frames, water play, rolling, cutting and building is high on the agenda. Every activity is seen as a learning opportunity and every moment as a teachable moment, where children are given time to explore activities and more time to consolidate new skills, from doing up their zips to selecting and cutting up snacks to choosing where and what to play with.
Our Well Trained and Nurturing Educators
Best practice tells us that for children to develop a love for learning, they require a balance of child initiated and adult directed play to thrive. We achieve this well through a reflective approach, with skilled educators who embed our broad and ambitious curriculum and who ultimately ensure that the needs and interests of each of our children are fully met and are supported throughout their learning journey with us. We also have trained phonics teachers, yoga instructors and Forest School champions who provide regular sessions in these specific areas for our children to further develop their skills.
Staff enjoy regular team meetings and Inset Days where they can extend their knowledge and understanding of child development, and explore new theories and ways of doing things. Managers have good bonds between settings and support each other well. We pride ourselves on focusing on their wellbeing to ensure continued professional and personal development. If the team enjoys coming to work every day, they thrive and the children get the best from them.
Staff get to know our children in loco parentis or ‘second best’ as we call it. As well as any parent knowing their child, we make bonds with children where they feel relaxed and comfortable in our care. We limit how much time we do paperwork and make observations because we spend quality time with children, get down to their level and interact in a way that supports their emotional well-being. When educators know their key children well enough, we are able to freely talk about where they are developmentally without the need to write anything down.
Involving and Supporting Parents
We recognise parents as the most important educators of their children. Our educators regard themselves as partners in providing education and care for their child. There are many ways that parents can get involved, including the exchange of knowledge about their child’s needs, activities, interests and progress. Volunteering a skill or their time; we have parents who have cooked and shared a special dish with our children, grandparents have spent time reading with us and we hold annual events such as Mother’s Day tea, Father’s Day Forest School and pet week, when we have even had a Shetland pony visit us in the garden. These experiences are so incredibly valuable in shaping our children, building on their cultural capital and sense of self within the earliest and most impactful years of their lives.
Our Well-Equipped Environment
Our child centred environment encourages use of heuristic, loose parts and opportunities for open-ended play. Children learn to use their imagination through a well-planned environment, which sparks awe, wonder and curiosity in their play and in the world around them. Children enjoy time to socialise with their friends and siblings across rooms and meal times encourage children to share experiences with each other and their educators in a home from home environment.
We know that being outdoors is imperative for children to feel good, with plenty of fresh air, they have time to settle into their play and show high levels of engagement. We have excellent outdoor provisions and embrace the Forest School approach and are passionate about outdoor learning across our settings and have made links within our communities, which provide our children with a wider range of outdoor opportunities; our children learn bushcraft skills, have access to an allotment, open fields and outdoor spaces within the grounds of our local village schools. We also visit our local care home and really understand the value of intergenerational learning and have held our sports day there in previous years.
Our children’s experience is enriched with real life and first-hand experiences to build on their skills for life and their understanding of the wider world. Hatching chicks, feeding lambs, caring for our African land snail Winnie and releasing our very own butterflies into the sky connect our children to nature and allow them to question and explore ideas. Using real tools in our woodwork activities, cutting real fruit and vegetables for our snack and snipping herbs from our herb garden to enhance our tuff tray play and playdough activities allows our children to explore with their senses and builds on their language, which is so important for their development.
Upcycling, recycling and sustainability is important in our changing world. We ensure children take responsibility to look after the environment with positive role modelling. Even our organic milk is delivered in an electric milk float in glass bottles with recyclable metal caps. The children love washing the bottles up and popping them back in the crate ready for collection! We are always looking to utilise resources that are environmentally friendly, which can be recycled and repurposed and always try to avoid using single use plastics where possible.
The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) is the curriculum which sets standards for the learning and development for children in our care, It underpins and shapes everything that we do. Below is more information about the Prime Areas of Learning and you can click here to read more.
Personal, Social Emotional Development
Children’s personal, social and emotional development (PSED) is crucial for children to lead healthy and happy lives, and is fundamental to their cognitive development. Underpinning their personal development are the important attachments that shape their social world. Strong, warm and supportive relationships with adults enable children to learn how to understand their own feelings and those of others.
Children should be supported to manage emotions, develop a positive sense of self, set themselves simple goals, have confidence in their own abilities, to persist and wait for what they want and direct attention as necessary. Through adult modelling and guidance, they will learn how to look after their bodies, including healthy eating, and manage personal needs independently. Through supported interaction with other children they learn how to make good friendships, co-operate and resolve conflicts peaceably. These attributes will provide a secure platform from which children can achieve at school and in later life.
Communication and Language Development
The development of children’s spoken language underpins all seven areas of learning and development. Children’s back-and-forth interactions from an early age form the foundations for language and cognitive development. The number and quality of the conversations they have with adults and peers throughout the day in a language-rich environment is crucial. By commenting on what children are interested in or doing, and echoing back what they say with new vocabulary added, practitioners will build children’s language effectively.
Reading frequently to children, and engaging them actively in stories, non-fiction, rhymes and poems, and then providing them with extensive opportunities to use and embed new words in a range of contexts, will give children the opportunity to thrive. Through conversation, storytelling and role play, where children share their ideas with support and modelling from their teacher, and sensitive questioning that invites them to elaborate, children become comfortable using a rich range of vocabulary and language structures.
Physical Development
Physical activity is vital in children’s all-round development, enabling them to pursue happy, healthy and active lives. Gross and fine motor experiences develop incrementally throughout early childhood, starting with sensory explorations and the development of a child’s strength, co-ordination and positional awareness through tummy time, crawling and play movement with both objects and adults.
By creating games and providing opportunities for play both indoors and outdoors, adults can support children to develop their core strength, stability, balance, spatial awareness, co-ordination and agility. Gross motor skills provide the foundation for developing healthy bodies and social and emotional well-being. Fine motor control and precision helps with hand-eye co-ordination which is later linked to early literacy. Repeated and varied opportunities to explore and play with small world activities, puzzles, arts and crafts and the practice of using small tools, with feedback and support from adults, allow children to develop proficiency, control and confidence.