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Merrydale private day nursery
Our Curriculum
Our nursery curriculum follows a holistic approach that nurtures children as curious and confident learners. We celebrate children’s natural sense of awe and wonder, encouraging them to explore, question and discover through play-based learning. Our practice fosters curiosity while supporting every child’s development across the seven areas of learning within the Early Years Foundation Stage. These include Personal, Social and Emotional Development (building relationships, managing feelings and developing confidence), Communication and Language (listening, attention and speaking), Physical Development (movement, coordination, health and self-care), Literacy (early reading, writing and phonics), Mathematics (numbers, shape, space and measures), Understanding the World (people, communities, technology and the environment), and Expressive Arts and Design (imagination and exploration through media and materials).
Through this balanced approach, we create a rich environment where every child can learn, grow and thrive.
Concepts:
Within Merrydale, we deliver a concept-led curriculum. Our core focus is shifting from superficial themes to deep, transferable concepts, ensuring all learning experiences are truly meaningful, child-led, and fully aligned with the EYFS 2025 and Characteristics of Effective Learning (CoEL).
Characteristics of Effective Learning (CoEL):
1. Play and Explore –
Children investigate, experience, and ‘have a go’
2. Active Learning
Children concentrate, keep on trying if they encounter difficulties and enjoy achievements
3. Creating and Thinking Critically
Children have and develop their own ideas, make links between ideas and develop strategies for doing things
Our concepts for this year are as follows:
1. Belonging in communities
2. Changes
3. Our World
4. Cultures
5. The Arts
6. Growth
In the Moment Planning
Each child at Merrydale is allocated a key worker whose role is to build a strong, secure bond with them, ensuring that all their individual needs and next steps are effectively met. The key worker supports each child in reaching their developmental milestones in line with the seven areas of learning and development.
To ensure children remain engaged and develop a love of learning, we incorporate in-the-moment planning. This is a child-led, play-based pedagogical approach within early years education that encourages curiosity, creates enabling environments, and captures teachable moments to scaffold learning immediately.
In-the-moment planning begins with a child’s interests or “spark,” which may arise spontaneously during play or from experiences outside the setting, such as a weekend visit to the farm. These interests are then used to extend and deepen learning within the nursery environment.
Natural Learning
Within Merrydale we strive to give our children a traditional childhood in a modernised world. The world we live in is filled with technology and screens which has led to children being disconnected from the natural world. As educators, we are recognising the importance of children exploring the natural world around them to improve not only physical health but for their cognitive, emotional and social development.
With this in mind, we are very proud of our local environment that we are established in. We often have trips out to see the ducks, visit the train station, walks along the beautiful canal or visit our local independent shops such as the green grocers. Giving children experiences through regular walks encourages curiosity, observation and a sense of adventure as children discover nature, their local community and seasonal changes. They also support physical development through movement and fresh air, while promoting wellbeing and confidence. Outdoor experiences create meaningful opportunities for conversation, questioning and real-life learning, helping children develop their language, social skills and understanding of the world around them.
Schema Play
Schema play is an important part of how young children explore and understand the world around them. Schemas are repeated patterns of behaviour that children naturally use to investigate ideas such as movement, space, and relationships between objects. Through play, children may enjoy activities such as transporting objects, building and enclosing spaces, rotating items, or connecting materials. By recognising and supporting these interests, we provide meaningful opportunities for children to deepen their thinking, problem-solve, and develop key skills across all areas of learning. Schema play allows children to follow their curiosity, make sense of their experiences, and build strong foundations for future learning.
The types of schema play are:
1. Trajectory schema: One of the earliest schemas you might see in babies, children love seeing how things move. They might throw things up in the air and back down again, or how far things go when they’re thrown.
2. Positioning schema: Lining things up in a row, stacking objects on top of each other, or sorting toys by colour are classic examples of the positioning scheme.
3. Enveloping schema: It might be that the child loves to envelop themselves in blankets or make tents with chairs to hide under, or they might like covering every inch of a piece of paper in paint.
4. Rotating schema: Children will love things that spin and turn. They might turn taps on and off, trace circles round and round or wind string. They may also love twisting and turning their own body or riding bikes in circles.
The types of schema play continued:
5. Enclosing schema: Putting toys in a box, building the walls of a sandcastle, or using blocks to create an enclosure around an area will show up in this play schema.
6. Transporting schema: An interest in moving objects back and forth, often in different containers. They might use small trucks, pushchairs and wheelbarrows, and enjoy putting things into piles. Some children love filling their pockets to the brim with toys.
7. Connecting schema: Interlocking bricks like LEGO, the links between carriages of a toy train, or crafts using tape and glue will be big here. This is for children who love joining objects together and seeing how different objects relate and connect.
8. Transforming schema: How can we change the state, shape or colour of an object? Disassembling toys, mixing paints, or melting ice can all be fixations for children with this play schema.
9. Orienteering schema: This is for children who love to experiment with perspective by moving themselves around. Climbing, rolling somersaults, and hanging upside down can be especially exciting here.