Pedagogy

Pedagogy is something we have always been well known for at Atelier. But what does it mean?

Pedagogy at Atelier is ‘leading to learn’ it’s our way of helping children, families and staff experience learning that is both engaging and builds success for lifelong learning.

So what makes our pedagogy special at Atelier?

At Atelier Nursery, we have a range of elements to our pedagogy. Each one is just as important as the others and together they underpin our philosophy and support us as a team to provide engaging and captivating learning experiences.

Our pedagogy has been developed through experience, research, and theory and continue to evolve as our practice deepens. They also encompass the principles of the EYFS.

Each of the elements of our Pedagogy are designed to strengthen children’s educational success. They are:

Key family Approach
We value and celebrate the relationships held by and with the child with recognition that relationships are central to a child’s wellbeing. We will encourage tolerance and respect through our key person role and ensure children receive genuine and warm interactions.

Mixed Age Approach
We offer positive and constructive affirmation to each child. We encourage the development of self-esteem, confidence and independence. Children build a network of social relationships at Atelier and expand their cultural horizons. So, just by attending Atelier, children build social capital through the friendships and relationships they make with other children from different ages, stages and backgrounds.

Enabling Environments
As a staff team we support children to take personal risks and will extend our boundaries as appropriate to offer challenge to their learning and encouraging children to develop their self-knowledge, self-esteem, and increase their confidence in their own abilities within our free-flow approach.

We encourage children to become autonomous learners, making independent choices and decisions. We respect the decisions that children make and encourage them to work collaboratively with each other, sharing in their thoughts, ideas and enquiries.

Personalised Learning
We seek to hold a deep knowledge of the child, their development, interests, home and family lives. We observe children’s interests and plan for these, using our professional knowledge to link back to the areas of learning and development in the EYFS. Cultural capital is expanded through a rich language and literacy approach as well as trips to the theatre, museums, parks and libraries.

Provocations
As adults we research alongside children, participating within sustained shared thinking, facilitating and encouraging the formation of hypothesis, encouraging investigation, and the construction of new knowledge by drawing together shared interests of children or sparks to new knowledge through the use of provocations.

Home Learning
We recognise and promote the home learning environments of our children, by involving and engaging parents in our approach and their child’s learning and development. This could be something as simple as sharing a book to read at home, inviting parents in to cook with us or holding the family festival.

Leading a Learning Community and Culture of Excellence
We will seek to reflect on our practice, developing our own awareness and knowledge examining our attitudes and values, developing recognition of how these affect children’s learning.

We will attend CPD opportunities and actively participate in research to deepen our personal and professional knowledge and identify the impact these have on our practice and the children in our care.

Do you want to know more about the pedagogy undertaken at Atelier, perhaps there is one element you want to explore more.

We are aware that sometimes our approach to learning can be so subtle that it can make parents question what learning is actually taking place amongst all the play. That’s why we will be delivering a range of parental information sessions focusing on how children learn at Atelier, and how our pedagogy ensures children are ready for there next stage of learning without a worksheet in sight.

In addition to the parent information sessions we will be sharing in a regular hot topics to hold professional pedagogical conversations between staff and families.

Watch this space for confirmation of session dates.