Our space
We have both indoor and outdoor learning environments for the children to play in and the children can move freely between these. These environments are set up each morning, allowing us to respond to the children’s interests, while keeping a familiar setting for those children settling in.
Indoors, we have a large open-plan space with a huge variety of activities and environments for the children to engage with. You may find the children painting in the arts and crafts corner, baking or helping to prepare the snack for the day by the kitchen, role-playing in the home corner or with the dressing-up box, whizzing around a cordoned-off area on bikes and trikes, working together to build dens, or ramps or marble runs, or perhaps exploring their voices through singing and rhyming, reading in the quiet corner or getting stuck into a sensory tray.
Outdoors, we have a safe dedicated area in dappled shade for the children to explore. You may find the children playing in the sandpit, washing some of the toys, creating magical concoctions in the mud kitchen, helping to plant and care for our flowers, jumping in puddles or creating extravagant water works using buckets, pipes and funnels.
Our play and learning
During the morning, children choose what they do and where they play within these two environments. This helps them to develop their imagination and understanding of the world around them. Our experienced practitioners facilitate this play as needed, providing the children with quality interactions and experiences in a safe and nurturing environment.
There are always opportunities for children to join more structured activities, such as yoga, music, baking and snack preparation, or activities linked to particular festivals or celebrations. These may be offered in response to a child’s interest, or as part of our celebration of world festivals and cultures.
Our approach to play and learning is guided by the established frameworks set out in the Scottish Curriculum for Excellence, Realising the Ambition, Getting it Right for Every Child and the Playwork Principles. Using these, we support and track children’s development and share this with their parents and carers.
SHANARRI Wellbeing Wheel
Our approach to settling in
Each child settles into a new environment at a different rate, and at Holy Corner we work closely with the child and their families to settle at the speed that is right for the child.
Parents and carers play an active role in this process, and we welcome them into the learning environment while their child familiarises themself with the space and builds a trusting and secure attachment with their practitioner.