At Beechdale we hold the Nursery environment at the core of our ethos and like to think of our environment as the ‘third teacher’. It plays a vital part in the development, learning and overall well-being of all of our children. Our environment is thoughtfully designed and arranged in a way that engages and informs our children beyond the direction a teacher provides.
The goal is to create an atmosphere that fosters creative exploration, demonstrates respect for children’s work, while encouraging encounters, communication, relationships, magic and awe and wonder of the world around us.
Here is a glimpse of what our environment looks like:
- Open and inviting, common spaces are carefully integrated with one another, as well as with the outside community.
- Use of natural furnishing encourages real life interactions e.g. plants, mirrors, natural lighting
- Presentation of classroom materials and resources in a way that draws attention and curiosity without feeling institutional.
- Display of project work, both completed and in-progress, is interspersed throughout the classrooms, to spark new creative ideas and engage the children.
- Design and layout of the work space facilitates small and large group activities or independent work.
- Real life and natural objects for the children to interact and play with e.g. the use of open ended resources allowing the children to use and build on their own imagination.
Please see the individual areas for specific images showing that part of the learning environment. Please note these images can change in response to the children’s interests.
