Our Vision & Values

“To offer outstanding nursery and preschool experiences through embedding core values in the early years”

At Little Angels our philosophy is simple, we believe that …

• Child’s work is play!
• Moral and social development are key to a happy community and society.
• Our nursery is a home away from home, a happy place where our children feel that they are safe and cared for.
• By valuing children as individuals and making them feel special, we are helping them to develop their self confidence
• When we work together closely in partnership parents/carers, staff and multi agencies we can ensure that each child develops confidence, good manners, self confidence and independence
• If we provide a welcoming, nurturing, well organised learning environment our children will enjoy and achieve.
• When children are treated with respect and kindness, they learn to respect others and to be kind, responsible and considerate.
• By having high expectations of their own and others’ learning and behaviour, we are encouraging our children to be the very best they can be.
• By encouraging healthy eating and exercise this will lead to a healthy lifestyle and reduce the risk of obesity.
• A creative, interesting and well planned curriculum, which is relevant for our children, will help inspire a love of learning encourage a spirit of enquiry, both now and in the future.

This for us is equivalent to the recently introduced term “British Values” already delivered through the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) Curriculum.

Values

The core values our “Little Angels”  will have gained by graduation are:

• Good Manners
• Truthfulness
• Kindness
• Thoughtfulness
• Consideration
• Fairness
• Politeness
• Respectfulness

The ‘Prevent duty’ legislation introduced in July 2015 (as part of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 section 26) places additional responsibility on Early Years providers to prevent children from becoming radicalised and being drawn into terrorism.  So what does that mean for us?  This is seen as part of our wider safeguarding duties and business as usual as far as we are concerned!

We already promote mutual respect and are an inclusive setting.  We want children to be independent learners so that they can make their own choices and build and develop strong relationships and friendships with lots of people.  We expect children to join in and try their best and to follow our simple rules.  All of these things are the foundations for growing in to good citizens and promote the ‘British Values’ of democracy, the rule of the law, individual liberty, mutual respect and tolerance.

Little Angels vision absorbs what is now termed as British Values under the following headings:

• Democracy
• Mutual Respect & tolerance
• Individual Liberty
• The Rule of Law

These fundamental British values are also already implicitly embedded in the Early Years Foundation Stage, so for our children at Little Angels this means:

Democracy – Making decisions together (PSED)

• Allowing our children to share their ideas and experiences
• Children plan their own activities
• We encourage Parents to become involved and support the nursery community
• Children have opportunities to become aware of the local community through specially arranged trips
• We encourage children to see their role in the bigger picture, encouraging children to know their views count, value each other’s views and values and talk about their feelings, for example when they do or do not need help.
• When appropriate demonstrate democracy in action, for example, children sharing views on what the theme of their role play area via a show of hands.
• We promote decision making by providing activities that involve turn-taking, sharing and collaboration.
• Children are given opportunities to develop enquiring minds in an atmosphere where questions are valued.

Mutual Respect & Tolerance – Treat others as you want to be treated (PSED and UW)

• Our ethos is based on as understanding that all children are different and they all develop at different rates with different needs.
• We work hard to build relationships with all of our different families.
• We are inclusive and we value different views, faiths, cultures and races
  We celebrate different special occasions that are important to our families and the wider world
• Children are encouraged to appreciate and respect not only their own but other cultures; know about similarities and differences between themselves and others and among families, faiths, communities, cultures and traditions and share and discuss practices, celebrations and experiences.
• We encourage children to share and respect each other’s opinions.
• We promote diverse attitudes and challenge stereotypes, for example, sharing stories that reflect and value the diversity of children’s experiences and providing resources and activities that challenge gender, cultural and racial stereotyping.

Individual Liberty – Freedom for All (PSED)

• Children are encouraged to develop a positive sense of themselves.
• Opportunities are given for children to develop their self-knowledge, raise their self-esteem and increase their confidence in their own abilities, for example through allowing children to take risks on an obstacle course, mixing colours, talking about their experiences and learning
• Children can choose when they want to have snack and what they would like to eat from a selection.
• We celebrate children’s individual interests and incorporate them in to planning.
• We offer and encourage a range of experiences that allow children to explore the language of feelings and responsibility, reflect on their differences and understand we are free to have different opinions

The Rule of Law- Understanding rules matter (PSED)

• We expect all children to follow our simple nursery rules e.g kind hands and are encouraged to understand their own and others’ behaviour and consequences, and learn to distinguish right from wrong.
• We explain to children and help them understand why we need to have simple rules, through role modelling and discussion e.g. to keep us safe and make things fair.
• Our policies and procedures make sure we are consistent and have clear expectations that all staff and parents are aware of. If you have any further questions or would like to discuss this please contact the manager.