EYPP SPEND – 2021

Spring Term – January to April 2021

This term we have decided to spend EYPP funding helping the children that have come out of lockdown. As the past year has been so difficult for them with lockdown and the pandemic happening, we felt that the children would benefit from something that helps them to develop their personal social and emotional development. We have found that maths is an area that needs to be developed further, especially number names and numbers.

Our first focus is on the areas of being able to adapt behaviour to different event, social situations and routines, being aware of feelings of others and knowing that words and actions have consequences. Together with the families we decided that the best way to support the children was to help them learn in the outside environment where it is more Covid 19 safe.

We purchased a walk-in greenhouse, seeds, tools, vegetable seeds, fruit trees, herbs and fruit bushes, potatoes, strawberries, onion plants, broccoli and broad beans. By working with the children in this targeted approach the practitioners were able to model mathematical language ad they count, fill, water, size, watch growth and decay and eventually pick the crops. This will help with sharing, turn taking and give the children and understanding of being gentle, kind and nurturing whilst being independent and able to test theories about life cycles, growth, and decay.    

Summer Term – April to August 2021

This term we continued to look at the effects of Covid on the children, we felt it was extremely important to model family life and the importance of eating together, listening to the views and feelings of those important to them and being sociable.

The children all showed interest in the home corner as they had spent so much time at home watching parents performing everyday tasks such as ironing, cooking cleaning and washing.

Through the use of the home corner resources we are able to teach the children the importance of hygiene and their own hygiene needs. We are able to model through play how the children can resolve their own conflicts when working alongside others during play, developing the ability to extend play with their own ideas.

Practitioners are able to engage the children during group interactions, giving them options and showing them how to respect their own choices and opinions as well as those of others. 

Winter Term – September to December 2021

Looking at the interest of the children and talking with their families we realised how important family play had become as they had spent more time than normal together.  At the Day Nursery, we felt we could extend this into play with their peers, interaction and sharing. A large purchase of Orchard Games would enable this.

The games would support literacy, maths and Personal, social and emotional development, critical thinking, aid speech delay and communication, turn taking and hand eye coordination. The children would also have the added benefit of being able to borrow the games through our nursery lending library, this would be beneficial to families struggling financially, taking pressure off them to buy games.

Previous Years Spend