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Quality Assurance Mark for Early Years

Friday, October 02, 2009

We are delighted to have been awarded the Early Years Quality Assurance Mark.  This award recognises the quality of our early years provision, and took several years work to achieve.

 

A number of different modules had to be completed and verified. These included ‘Welcomes, Farewells and Transitions’, ‘Meals, Snacks and Celebrations’ and ‘Working Together as a Team’. Working through these modules has given us an opportunity to evaluate what we do and to embrace new experiences. We introduced a self-registration system that has now continued into Years 1 and 2. We aim for 80% of activities to be self-initiated by the children. In Reception children can free-flow between the classroom and the outside area. The module, ‘Making the Most of the Outdoors’ focused our attention on how we could ensure that the unique nature of the outdoor environment offered our children opportunities to explore, invent and experience on a larger scale. We were able to almost double the size of our outside learning space by incorporating a large sloping grass area. This has provided the children with countless opportunities to create and investigate, which have included making a log pile for mini-beasts, and constructing ‘rain catchers’ and dens. The children are now able to access the whole curriculum both indoors and out. 

 

The action plans we developed in order to attain the quality assurance mark will continue to help us implement the early years foundation stage in the future.