Stanley Burnside Foundation Stage Unit

At Burnside we want all children to be successful, regardless of their socio-economic background. We strive to provide rich environments to support learning. In the Early Years Unit we focus on learning through play, where the doing is as important as the outcome. We provide safe opportunities to succeed and fail and learn from both.

We are fortunate to have a large garden where children have time and freedom to extend their learning outdoors. A successful application will help us to improve our provision and be beneficial in that it will encourage our children to explore and experiment in a collaborative manner.

With simple resources such as planks, crates, cable drums, rods, tarpaulins and clips, the children can become early engineers, creating structures and dens, learning about building and design through trial and error.

 To increase exploration of the natural resources available in the garden, we would buy a potion kit so that children become mini-scientists, exploring herbs, flowers, creating potions and perfumes and observing changes in a fun way.

Children find ways to use very ordinary equipment in the most exciting and purposeful manner, whether making a castle from tyres, moving, stacking and lifting, or constructing a plank bridge over a muddy puddle. These novice engineers will be using and learning mathematical skills including special awareness, measuring, estimating and problem solving.

Our aim is to inspire our children to become intrinsically motivated learners with the confidence to be inventive, curious and resilient.