Our Ethos
Our pedagogical approach at Chantry House includes a blend of theories and knowledge from a diverse range of sources. Some of the key principles that underpin our practice include:
- Young children are robust thinkers not fragile learners, children are all born with limitless potential. We at Chantry House support this by ensuring to nurture and enhance children’s natural curiosity, drive to identify and solve problems, innate playfulness and a child’s innate drive to socialise and explore human contact and communication.
- The offering of choices throughout play and learning both within the classroom and outdoor environment, to support a child’s need to share their own voice and opinion while supporting natural curiosity.
- Active listening: supporting children to feel heard and learn to listen to others’ ideas in an active way to support the child’s confidence and ability to thrive in communication.
- Playfulness and joyfulness: supporting a child to find their own playfulness and joy by freely expressing our own playfulness and joyfulness through all communications between both children and practitioners.
- Scaffolding: drawing on each individual practitioner’s knowledge base to support and enhance children’s play to enable each child to thrive to their full potential and beyond, by building on current knowledge and extending it.
- Risky play: children are encouraged to engage in risky play, planning and thinking about strategies to solve problems.
- Golden rules: the golden rules support children to self-regulate and achieve executive function as well as supporting positive behaviour reinforcement.
- Positive learning dispositions: fostering and nurturing each child’s love of learning by following their individual and unique learning styles and interests.
- Physical well-being: supporting the children’s understanding of healthy food choices, oral hygiene and physical activity benefits. This will be through strong positive role models and shared talk.
- Executive function and self-regulation: nurturing children as they explore and develop their own cognitive ability to display executive function, by ensuring to display high levels of executive function as practitioners and actively listening to children’s emotional needs as they explore their own unique executive function strategies.
- Natural world: nurturing the children’s understanding of why it’s important to look after our planet and supporting children to make active choices to help our environment.
- Parents as partners: nurturing a positive home learning environment, supporting families to feel involved with their child’s nursery education and practitioners supporting and enhancing home learning through shared goals.
- Cultural capital: ensuring that every child at Chantry House leaves with their backpack as full as possible with a wide range of experience explored and knowledge shared between both children, practitioners and families.
- British values: we support children to understand the British values and as a staff team ensure to always model the British values throughout our daily practices.
- High quality provision for all: all children attending Chantry House will receive the highest quality of care and education including supporting those with SEN to the highest standards.
