Leading Childcare Provider

Developing Your Child(rens)'s Education

Research highlights the importance of key adults, exploration, and peer interactions in early childhood development. At Little Monsters Day Nursery, we create a stimulating and safe learning environment where children can experiment and grow. Daily focus activities and child-led choices support their learning, guided by continuous observations. We maintain strong links with local primary schools, ensuring a smooth transition for children by collaborating with Reception teachers to discuss progress and school readiness.

Learning & Development

The Curriculum

We provide a well-planned curriculum that nurtures each child’s unique learning journey in a caring and supportive environment. The EYFS framework recognizes individual development rates, overlapping age ranges into six broad phases. Learning is structured around seven key areas: three prime areas—communication & language, physical development, and personal, social & emotional development—laying the foundation for future growth in four specific areas: literacy, mathematics, understanding the world, and expressive arts.

We integrate adult-led and child-choice activities in both morning and afternoon sessions, ensuring opportunities for learning across all seven areas of development. Keyworkers plan activities based on each child’s interests, developmental stage, and next steps.

We prepare children for school by fostering independence, problem-solving, and responsibility through tasks like setting tables and putting on shoes. Close links with local schools, including The Mosley Academy, help ensure a smooth transition.

We enrich children’s learning by providing diverse experiences that spark curiosity and broaden their understanding of the world. Through storytelling and daily conversations, we expand their vocabulary and help prepare them for future education.

The Early Years Foundation Stage (for all children from 0-5 years)

The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) is how the Government and early years professionals describe the time in your childs life between birth and age 5. This is a very important stage as it helps your child get ready for school as well as preparing them for their future learning and successes. From when your child is born up until the age of 5, their early years experience should be happy, active, exciting, fun and secure; and support their development, care and learning needs.

The EYFS is based around four Themes: & each Theme is linked to an important Principle:

Every child is a competent learner from birth who can be resilient, capable, confident and self-assured.

A Unique Child

Children learn to be strong and independent from a base of loving and secure relationships with parents and/or a key person.

Positive Relationships

The environment plays a key role in supporting and extending children's development and learning.

Enabling Environments

Children develop and learn in different ways and at different rates and all areas of Learning and Development are equally important and inter-connected.

For more information on the Early Years Foundation Stage, visit the Foundation Years website.

Broad Phases of Development

All children develop at different rates and, to reflect this, age ranges have been overlapped in the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) to create broad developmental phases. This emphasises that each child’s progress is individual to them. The observations we do on the children are centred on them as individuals and used to plan activities to enable them to take their own ‘next steps’ along their own developmental storyline. A child does not suddenly move from one phase to another, and they do not make progress in all areas at the same time. However, there are some important ‘steps’ for each child to take along their own developmental pathway.

Make progress in all areas at the same time. However, there are some important ‘steps’ for each child to take along their own developmental pathway.

There are six broad developmental phases:

During this period, young children's physical development is very rapid and they gain increasing control of their muscles.

As children become mobile new opportunities for exploration and exercise open up. A safe and interesting environment, with age-appropriate resources, helps children to develop curiosity, coordination and physical abilities.

Children in this phase are usually full of energy and need careful support to use it well. Growing physical strengths and skills mean that children need active times for exercise, and quiet times for calmer activities.

Children's fine motor skills continue to develop and they enjoy making marks, using a variety of materials, looking at picture books and listening to stories, important steps in literacy.

An increased interest in joint play such as make-believe, construction and games helps children to learn the important social skills of sharing and cooperating.

During this period children are now building a stronger sense of their own identity and their place in a wider world.

Teaching is good because all staff fully understand how to promote children's learning and have high expectations for their achievements. As a result, children's progress is rapid given their starting points and capabilities.

– Ofsted

Leading Childcare Provider

Developing Your Child(rens)'s Education

Learning & Development

The Curriculum

Balanced Learning Approach

School Readiness

Cultural Capital

The Early Years Foundation Stage (for all children from 0-5 years)

A Unique Child

Positive Relationships

Enabling Environments

Broad Phases of Development

Birth to 11 Months

8 - 20 Months

16 - 26 Months

22 - 36 Months

30 - 50 Months

40 - 60 Months & over

Areas of Learning & Development

Teaching is good because all staff fully understand how to promote children's learning and have high expectations for their achievements. As a result, children's progress is rapid given their starting points and capabilities.