Kindergarten, Nursery School, Ante and Preschool Education at Hopscotch
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Educational Policy
The Scottish Executive states 'Our aspiration is to enable all children to develop their capacities as successful learners, confident individuals, responsible citizens and effective contributors to society.' This is embodied in a ‘Curriculum for Excellence’. In Hopscotch therefore we follow the Scottish Executive ‘Curriculum for Excellence’, a ‘Curriculum Framework’ for children age 3 – 5 years, further explained in the ‘Learning for Living’ guidelines published by South Lanarkshire and ‘Birth to 3 years’ guidelines.
The essence of this is to have lots of fun and to give freedom for the individual child to make choices and to develop to their full potential in a happy, structured environment!
Each child is assessed on entry to the nursery, their development continuously charted and regular Parents’ Evenings held. The children will learn simple computer keyboard skills and the latest educational computing programs are available. Visiting teachers of music and drama, dance and language are organised if there is sufficient demand.
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What will I do with this?
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The Curriculum
The children will have lots of fun and learn through play in a warm and happy environment where cuddles abound. The emphasis will be on stimulating the children’s own interest in learning. They will learn to enjoy each other, to help one another, to behave, to develop social skills, to learn to make choices and to start to understand the world about them. When the time comes they will start to learn their colours, numbers, pattern recognition and much much more.
The children will enjoy dance, drama and music as part of the syllabus. To augment the nursery based activities the children will enjoy visits such as to the Transport Museum, the Hunterian Museum or a nature trail and we will welcome into the nursery many of the services such as visits from the police and ambulance personnel. All in all the children will have a full active day learning through play.
A typical day care timetable, structured for the particular age group may include registration and breakfast, imaginative play in a hospital, kitchen, dentist, travel agents or arts and crafts, morning break, French, computing, abc, free choice of play and a home cooked healthy lunch.
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There is always
time for a cuddle!
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Isn’t it wonderful to see children enjoying a social occasion, sitting at table making their own entertainment, without the need to be entertained? |
Afternoon tea, perhaps?
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A rest period usually follows lunchtime when the younger children sleep and those who no longer need a sleep engage in quiet activities in order that they can relax before the challenges of the afternoon session.
The afternoon day care session is similar in format to the morning but usually with different activities for the children to engage with and includes afternoon tea.
The Kindergarten timetable for the pre and ante pre school children is embedded within the day care day. During the day the children are encouraged to make choices about what they do and care is taken to ensure that they participate in a wide range of challenging activities to promote their age and stage of development. To allow this to happen each area of the nursery designated for the development age, offers opportunities for emotional, social and intellectual development as well as opportunities for vigorous play and knowledge of the world around them.
The children’s development is closely monitored and they are encouraged to take a pride in their achievements. They actively participate in monitoring their own progress and in filling up their own folders for their parents and carers to look at during parents’ evenings.
A presentation on the curriculum is given to the parents during the first session of every school year. We endeavour to explain to the parents the Scottish Executive expectation of the nursery, how the curriculum is delivered in a child friendly and led setting and how the development needs of each child are being met through play.
Hopscotch never loses sight of the fact that parents are the prime educators of their children and we seek a strong partnership with the parents through individual discussions, reports and parents’ evenings to take their child’s development forward.
To view details about our Children at Hopscotch, click here.
Further details can be found in our prospectus. Click here to view it.
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