Baby Sharks - 3-Year-Old Provision
Baby Sharks 2025
At Uplands Infant School we offer a pre nursery class (F0) called Baby Sharks.
Baby Sharks is designed to offer a nurturing and welcoming space, allowing children to explore and learn confidently within a school based environment. We prioritise creating safe, secure and healthy environments where children can thrive.
We celebrate the individuality of each child. We are committed to fostering an inclusive environment that respects each child. Our practices are designed to ensure that all children, regardless of their background or abilities, feel valued and safe.
We believe that children learn most effectively when they are active participants in their own learning journey. By following the Early Years Foundation Stage framework, we ensure that children develop across all areas of learning, with particular focus on the three prime areas: Personal, Social and Emotional Development, Communication and Language and Physical Development. This ensures a strong foundation is built for lifelong learning. Our child-led, play-based learning activities are carefully planned to encourage discovery, creativity and engagement.
In Baby Sharks, we place a strong emphasis on outdoor learning and risk-taking, recognising its significant benefits to a child’s development. Our approach is designed to foster resilience, confidence and a deep connection with the outdoors. Our outdoor area enhances children’s stamina and core strength, contributing to children’s physical development and gross motor skills.
Our children are at a great advantage of being in a school environment. They get familiar with the school staff, routines and environment. By wearing the school uniform, attending assemblies and often playing alongside the older children it creates a head start for the children when they start our nursery.
We began this term by settling into our new environment. For many of our children this was their first ever experience being away from their parents. We had a gradual settling in process which was tailored to each child and parent ensuring they felt comfortable, safe and happy.
Throughout the term we have been heavily focussing on the three prime areas. This has all been done through play and children’s interests. It has been amazing to see our children develop so much in such a short while. The development if their confidence, resilience and independence has been an absolute pleasure to see. We are so proud of everything they have achieved so far!
Personal, Social and Emotional Development: During our first term we have been encouraging children to engage and play alongside other children. We have been talking about our emotions through stories. We have been encouraging our children to make decisions within their play to develop independence and confidence. The children have been following our school rules such as ‘wonderful walking’ and ‘lovely lines’.
Communication & Language: We have been encouraging rich language experiences through storytelling, rhymes, and interactive conversations. We ensure we comment on children’s play as much as possible so children are hearing new language all the time; supporting their speech and vocabulary development. The language and communication that has been happening in Baby Sharks has been a real pleasure to see, the children are inventing new games, turn taking and just chatting to each other which has really developed their language skills.
Physical Development: We have been providing indoor and outdoor opportunities to develop our children’s fine and gross motor skills. We have really been concentrating on developing our children’s core strength as we believe that this lays the foundation for activities like running and even tasks that require more precise movements like writing. We have been doing this through big moves such as pushing tyres, sweeping and using the balancing and climbing equipment.
