Our Approach

Play is a very powerful tool that promotes children’s development and learning. It allows children to make important connections about what they know, and this helps them to celebrate what they can do, building confidence and self-esteem.

At Yaxley & Mellis Pre-school our ‘View of the Child’ is that all children are competent and confident learners, and naturally inquisitive. We believe that children are fascinating to observe, have an unlimited potential and that they require the love of attentive, caring adults and a well thought out environment in order for them to reach their full potential. We see children as unique individuals who need to be listened to carefully to ensure we can meet their needs and passions for learning. We also believe that children achieve best, when they are enjoying themselves; therefore we value the importance of learning through play, initiated by the individual child.

Although we do pre-plan some activities for the children, based on observations of children’s interests and stages of development, we recognise that children will learn most from their free play and initiated games. Therefore we allocate the majority of the pre-school day for this and make thorough written records of the children’s play, and evaluate what learning is taking place, which will then influence our pre-planned activities and projects. The pre-planned activities and projects will not be forced upon any child, and may be replaced by another spontaneous activity or experience, if there is something more appropriate to the children’s interests on the day.

In our focused pre-planned topic activities, the children are able to come into contact with cultures, religious festivals and ideas from all over the world, with our aim being to provide them with the widest possible acceptance of racial and religious harmony. 

We all know how much easier it is to learn something, when it is something of particular interest  to us!