The nursery children at Long Close follow the Early Years Curriculum, focusing on seven areas: communication and language; physical development; personal, social and emotional development; literacy; mathematics; understanding the world; and expressive arts and design. We have high expectations, continuously assessing their progress and pushing them to meet and exceed the levels we believe they should reach.

Our children largely learn through play, engaging in activities that our staff ensures are both enjoyable and meaningful. As each child progresses, we introduce more structure to their learning, exploring a subject in small groups or arranging for a specialist teacher from further up the school to lead them in a more purposeful activity. This might mean a music and movement session with the school’s music teacher, creative time spent with our specialist art teacher, or an expert introduction to the wonders of science.

We are always on the look-out for new opportunities to learn, making trips into the community to visit farms, libraries, churches and supermarkets, and inviting our local police officers, firefighters, doctors and opticians to come and talk to the children about what they do. This invitation also extends to parents, who are always welcome to share their particular interests.

We also give parents access to a virtual learning environment called Firefly, which is filled with advice on how to supplement the work of the school in the areas of reading, writing and language development. In this, as in every area of life at the nursery, we aim to work in close partnership with home to give each child a warm, encouraging and personalised introduction to life at Long Close School.