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Stepping Stones

About Stepping Stones

Our Mission Statement

Stepping Stones at Northbourne:

  • Working in partnership with Parents and Carers
  • Sharing the love and care of Jesus Christ
  • To build a firm foundation both educationally and spiritually for each child

What is Stepping Stones at Northbourne

Stepping Stones Pre-school moved from its home as part of Didcot Baptist Church in September 2006, bringing with it the good name and reputation of the past 21 years. Together with the existing Foundation provision at the School we make up at partnership which can offer you and your child continuity of care and education throughout the Early Years Foundation Stage.

Our Aims

At Stepping Stones our aims are

  • To provide high quality care and education for children primarily below statutory school age
  • To offer children and their parents a service that promotes equality and values diversity
  • To provide the children with a happy, enjoyable and stimulating session.
  • To provide activities that will encourage sharing and taking turns.
  • To help children gain independence and confidence.
  • To help children learn self-discipline and consideration for others
  • To give children a chance to make friends with other children of their own age.
  • To enable them to relate to new adults.
  • To work in partnership with parents to help children to learn and develop
  • To add to the life and well-being of the local community;

Personal, Social and Emotional development

This area of children's development covers:

Dispositions and attitudes

Having a positive approach to learning and finding out about the world around them;

Self-confidence and Self-esteem

Having confidence in themselves and their ability to do things, and valuing their own achievements;

Making Relationships

Being able to get on, work and make friendships with other people, both children and adults;

Communication, Language and Literacy

This area of children's development covers:

Language for communication

· being able to use conversation with one other person, in small groups and in large groups to talk with and listen to others;

Language for thinking

Problem solving, reasoning and numeracy

This area of children's development covers:

Numbers as Labels and for Counting

Starting to understand that numbers help us to answer questions about how many, how much, how far and how big;

Calculating

Building up ideas about how to use counting to find out how many, how far how big

Being introduced to finding the result of adding more or taking away from the amount we already have

Physical Development

This area of children's development covers:

Movement and Space

Gaining control over the large movements that they can make with their arms, legs and bodies, so that they can run, jump, hop, skip, roll, climb, balance and lift;

Health and Bodily Awareness

Learning about the importance of - and how to look after - their bodies and

Using Equipment and Materials

Gaining control over the small movements they can make with their arms, wrists and hands, so that they can pick up and use objects, tools and materials;

Creative Development

This area of children's development covers:

Being Creative - Responding to Experiences, Expressing and Communicating Ideas

· beginning to make representations of what they see around them using painting drawing and crafts

· talking about the things they are making and answer questions about their intentions

· Exploring Media and Materials

· trying out different ways of making and creating using a variety of colours and textures.

Knowledge and Understanding of the World

This area of children's development covers:

Exploration and Investigation

· finding out about the natural world and how it works;

· finding out about the made world and how it works;

How parents and carers can take part in the setting

We recognise parents as the first and most important educators of their children. All of the staff see themselves as partners with you in providing care and education for your child. We believe parents have the right to be:

- valued and respected;

- kept informed and consulted,

The Staff Team

All members of the staff team are police cleared and registered with OFSTED.

Our staff team have a range of Early Years Childcare qualifications and experience and we strive to update staff training on an on-going basis. Students working within the group are supervised at all times and are working towards a child-care qualification either at school or college.