Footprints Home Nursery - The Footprints Curriculum

The Ethos of Footprints Nursery:

We aim to create a warm, nurturing, and purposeful learning environment where each child is treasured and able to flourish.

Our Curriculum vision statement-

The Woodland Room (our youngest room)-

The curriculum intent for children in Woodlands is to provide a calm, nurturing, and responsive environment where every child feels secure, cared for and able to thrive. We focus on building strong attachments, supporting early communication and encouraging curiosity through sensory-rich, engaging experiences tailored to their unique needs and interests.

The Forest Room-

The curriculum intent for children in Forest room is to ensure that every child develops the skills, knowledge, and attitudes they need to thrive while with us. We focus on building strong friendships, supporting communication, and providing purposeful learning experiences that nurture curiosity and a love of learning.

Teaching statement-

Our curriculum is delivered through a carefully considered balance of direct teaching and purposeful play within a rich, stimulating environment. Children build sequential knowledge and skills through both structured learning and hands-on exploration. High-quality adult interactions support and extend children's thinking, enabling them to make meaningful connections and develop cumulative understanding over time.

Footprints Golden Thread

Our Golden Threads are embedded throughout our curriculum to provide our children with the experiences, skills and knowledge they need to achieve their full potential at Footprints.

Community- We are in the very heart of Acomb and want children at Footprints to understand that they are part of a wider community so we try to incorporate it within our learning opportunities as much as possible. Through our community walks, Evergreen Explorers forest school sessions, visits to the local allotment and by making use of local places and resources to enhance our teaching and topic themes, children become curious, caring and active members of their community, laying the foundations for a lifelong sense of belonging and responsibility.

Language- Speaking and listening are essential skills for children to acquire as early as possible in order to access learning. Footprints Nursery gained 'Communication Friendly Status' in 2025, which means all staff are Elklan trained and therefore the teaching of language and vocabulary development as well as phonics is our particular specialism. We value interaction as the main way to model and teach new vocabulary.

Knowledge and skills- We deliver a curriculum that is bespoke to Footprints Children; It ensures progression of sequential knowledge and skills in each area and is based on the developmental needs of the children that are currently in our Nursery.

Regulation- At Footprints, we help children become aware of their emotions and teach them self-regulation strategies in a supportive and age-appropriate way. We use the Colour Monster to help children learn, identify and communicate their emotions with peers and adults. We offer a calming corner as a quiet space where children can go when they need time to reset or regulate. When challenges arise, our focus is on conflict resolution and restoring friendships. We use a tool we’ve created called the ‘Talk About It Wheel’. The wheel helps to break down the steps and gives strategies for how to put things right after an upset.

Values- We have 6 nursery values that were created by the Footprints team to ensure that we support the development of children’s social and emotional skills by helping them build empathy, compassion and by teaching them how to form positive relationships. These core values are at the heart of everything we do at Footprints. We embed them into daily life in a range of meaningful and age-appropriate ways and we hope that the children recognise these values in others and feel proud of living them out themselves.

Footprints Roadmap

As a team we have created The Footprint Roadmap. These are the key skills and knowledge that we want children to learn while they are with us, we have broken down into age groups.

it is used to ensure that all of our activity offers, group times and environment enhancements are linked to the developmental stage a child is at.

Achievement Statement

Each child flourishes and makes progress on The Footprints Roadmap from their unique starting points, developing into curious, creative and confident learners who feel willing to take on challenges. Their achievements are celebrated in Learning Journals and support a smooth transition to their next stage in education.