SAND,SAND AND MORE SAND.

 

What an exciting week we have had with the arrival of our new sand. It was quite emotional as we have not been allowed to use sandpits since the beginning of the pandemic. With that in mind I was the first to jump in. The children have enjoyed this new experience and especially because the weather has been so good. We have created some new experiences for the children in the garden and we will be developing more over the next month. This environment supports the children with risk taking. Risk-taking like other skills, needs to be learned and practiced over time. By empowering children in their self-management, trusting them to make decisions around risk and allowing them to push themselves to that point of risk and danger, we are enabling them to learn and practice their risk assessment skills consistently giving them confidence in their own abilities.  

Growing up in a risk averse society, such as we currently have, means that children are not able to practice risk-assessment which enables them to match their skills with the demands of the environment in which they are growing up. A risk-taker, becomes and independent thinker, who develops into a confident learner who is willing to take that step into the unknown following their innate learning path. Empowering children by developing this independence, giving them the power over their choice of risky decisions will better prepare them to be autonomous individuals at a young age and acknowledges their right to be seen as individuals now, rather than an adult in waiting.

With all this in mind I would like to reassure you that we conduct daily risk assessments in the unit in accordance with the EYFS 2022 and the risks we are expecting the children to take are very simple eg holding onto a rope and swinging or balancing on a log. 

It may appear not too hot at the moment but as the unit is in a sheltered spot it does become very hot. Can you please bear this in mind and use sun protection on your child if you feel they need it. 

Finally I would like to ask you all to put names on your children clothing as we have 60 jumpers that are all the same in the unit. 3,4,and 5 year old's do not take responsibility for their clothing as much as we try and encourage this they do not always put their jumpers on their pegs. This often results in us spending lots of time searching for missing jumpers at the end of the day. We will be putting all the jumpers without names on the table outside at the end of the day so please look in the pile if your child is missing one.

Have a great weekend I think it may be a warm one wooooooooo.

Mrs Robinson:)