In St Martin’s Nursery School our aim is to provide a curriculum that promotes the development of the whole child.

Children learn by first-hand experience i.e. doing, touching and seeing for themselves through play. Their intellectual, social, emotional, creative and physical development will be catered for by offering a wide range of challenging, exciting and purposeful play activities.

The ‘Curricular Guidance for Pre-School Education’ (2018 NI) outlines the six areas of learning through which will guide our planning to create a broad and balanced curriculum for the children.

These Areas are:

• Personal, Social and Emotional Development

• Language Development

• Physical Development and Movement

• The Arts

• Early Mathematical Experiences

• The World Around Us

The guidance states that most young children come to pre-school as active, experienced and enthusiastic learners. To build on the learning that has taken place in the home and its immediate environment, we in St Martin’s Nursery School aim to provide children with a rich variety of challenging play activities and other experiences in a stimulating environment.

The focus should be on enabling children to learn at their own pace, to have a breadth of learning experiences and gain a positive image of themselves as resilient learners able to cope with uncertainty, and to learn through trial and error.