At Kents Hill School and Nursery, we aim to provide a happy, secure, friendly and stimulating environment where children learn and have fun together, supported by an enthusiastic and professional staff team. Your children will arrive at Nursery as experienced learners, bringing from home a great deal of knowledge about themselves and their world.  We hope to be able to work together to build on, and extend their developing interests, skills and experiences.

In Nursery, we provide a broad, balanced and rich nursery education through a range of activities within both the indoor and outdoor learning environments. The environment itself is carefully planned so that provision in each area helps develops skills and supports the learning of all children in the setting. Each area is enhanced with resources that focus on the children’s interests and promote curiosity and exploration. 

The 7 areas of learning for Early Years children in which the learning and experiences are planned towards are:

• Speaking & Listening
• Moving & Handling
• Personal, Social & Emotional
• Literacy
• Maths
• The World
• Expressive Arts & Design

Alongside this, we also respond to the seasons and the calendar, giving a ‘shape’ to the children’s year in Nursery. This provides special, one-off opportunities for exploration and learning such as festivals that are celebrated by groups of people emphasising togetherness and participation with one another e.g. Easter, Eid ul Adha, Mother’s Day, Chinese New Year, St George’s Day.

Creativity runs through the whole curriculum, with each experience offering opportunities for children to make choices, think through solutions to problems and find unique ways of expressing their ideas through talking, drawing, painting, creating models, making music, singing, dancing and moving, enabling them to become confident and independent learners.

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Lenny Lion’s Learning Zoo

We teach our children the skills that they need to be good learners, by using the Lenny Lion’s Learning Zoo. Each animal in the zoo links to a specific skill that will help the children understand the many different learning behaviours that we all use. 

• Go For It Gorilla – I will have a go
• Persevering Parrot – I keep trying.
• Slinky Linky Snake – I can make links.
• Proud Peacock – I am proud of what I do.
• Creative Chameleon – I have my own ideas.
• Exploring Elephant – I am an explorer.
• Concentrating Crocodile – I join in and concentrate. 
• I Know Rhino – I play with what I know.
• Choosing Chimp – I choose ways to do things.