The Reggio Emilia Approach is an innovative and inspiring approach to early childhood education. It values the child as strong, capable, resilient, and rich with wonder. In Reggio, every child brings with them a deep curiosity and potential which drives their interest to understand the world and their place within it.
Reggio Emilia is a prosperous town in the hills of northern Italy. However, during World War II the area of Reggio Emelia was destroyed. The people were left to rebuild their lives from the wreckage. The women of this time were an influential force behind the development of early childhood services and the Reggio approach originated from their desire for a new form of education. These women sold a tank, three trucks and some horses, left after the war, which provided funds to begin their school. The land was contributed by a local farmer and building materials were used from bombed-out buildings.
Having experienced growing up under Fascist rule, Loris Malaguzzi, a local primary school teacher, was determined to help build a better future for the children and families of Reggio Emilia. Inspired to learn more about very young children, Loris Malaguzzi trained as a psychologist and became a leader in the parent cooperative movement and founder of the Reggio Emilia Approach.
Across all nurseries, our staff are a mixture of early years teachers, QTS (Qualified Teacher Status), Forest School Practitioners, and Senco trained staff.
We believe key workers are essential to building relationships with both children and parents. As such, we allow the children to settle and create bonds with their new teachers before making that decision.
In the Reggio Room, we learn through different projects; Rainforest, Under the Sea, Arctic, Space and Science. We incorporate your child’s interests along with their next steps to ensure they are school ready by the time they leave us. Your child will have the opportunity to use our provocation table which focuses on the use of loose parts. Loose parts play promotes problem solving and reasoning skills, planning and investigation all whilst embedding maths, literacy and communication. They will have the chance to create and design in our Art Room whilst developing their ‘moving and handling’ and ‘expressive arts’ skills They will also continue to access the Nurture Nook to embed the mindfulness techniques learnt in preschool through the mini minds matter approach.
Your child will also have the opportunity to access Forest School sessions on a weekly basis. These sessions take place off-site (Eagley Brook or Dunscar Woods) or at our onsite Forest School Area. When off-site we work in smaller groups due to our outdoor ratios.
As well as engaging in the Reggio projects, your child will begin to take part in our Eco Phonic Warriors sessions. During these sessions they will meet new characters and begin to hear and recognise initial sounds, rhyme and alliteration and even start to blend and segment simple words.
‘Loose parts play’ is a type of play that supports invention, critical thinking, problem solving and offers a sense of wonder to children. It involves using materials with no specific set of directions that can be used alone or combined with other materials. They can be moved, carried, combined, redesigned, lined up, and taken apart and put back together in multiple ways.
Children do not live – as many still believe – in a mythical and pre-intellectual dimension, but they are capable of constructing thoughts and reflections because knowledge is with them, right from birth, in the heart of life itself. Children, above all when together with other children, are inventors, “safecrackers”, and re-builders of theories and behaviours that elude any presumptuousness or predictability of methods. Children do not wait for our permission to think. Indeed, children are bursting with ideas that are always impatient to escape through language (and we say a hundred languages) to connect and communicate with the things of the world.”
Loris Malaguzzi
It is important for our children to be given time, space and freedom to explore the unknown, reinvent, create and make meaning in the world around them. Loose parts are both complex and simple and provide children with a way of communicating that lends itself to advanced problem solving, dramatic play, storytelling, fantasy, engineering, and mathematics, just to name a few.
This type of play launches children into learning environments that builds a repertoire of how things come to be – how a sky scraper stays up, how a bridge can expand across lakes, how patterns and sequences are made. Imagination is bought to life, theories and meanings can be explained and worlds are re-imagined.
In the Reggio Room we have a responsibility to be open to the possibilities of different realities, to create environments as places of wonder and multiple learning where children can undertake their own research. We offer loose parts play every week in our provocation area to encourage children to think deeper about our current project.
We are continuing to sell nursery uniform which consists of a polo shirt and a jumper as part of our school readiness programme. Children must wear a uniform to ensure they are identifiable on trips such as Forest School. Please ask a member of staff for more details.