Published on August 7, 2023
Children who attend a supportive nursery usually find it easier to adjust to big school thanks to the skills and behaviours learned from their environment and their peers. With earlier exposure to playing and learning with other children, they tend to find it easier to adapt and socialise in a new setting - a life skill which can be applied for many years to come.
Here at My Ohana, we don’t believe in forcing development through specific and formalised education, but rather through experimentation and self-interest. We recognise that creative solutions and activities are often the best received and the most engaging for young people, and that as a nursery it’s our job to keep children safe while supporting their early years’ development.
How do we achieve this? Through a holistic approach to child development, which sees us connect not only with the child but with their parents through effective communication, ensuring that the skills and interests we nurture during their time at nursery are also reflected in how they behave and spend their time at home.
And in this blog, we’re sharing a little more about why we believe this level of cohesion is so important.
A holistic approach means that we refer to the different components of a child’s development in relation to the whole. That is, how does a child’s time at nursery contribute towards their overall development, and how is their time at nursery enhancing the development of their interests and skills at home.
To offer a holistic approach to development means that we need to build strong relationships and practice effective communication with parents – an ideology which underpins every corner of our vision here at My Ohana. Staying connected with parents is the cog which keeps our nursery running, as we combine access to the ParentZone app with regular key worker check-ins and daily discussions at drop-off and pick-up.
Once we establish this connection with parents, we are better able to provide children with the kind of care that they need, allowing them to thrive and flourish while building confidence and resilience.
For us, holistic development is built around the idea that children can and should be free to demonstrate their individual personalities and character traits from the earliest stages of their personal development. Even before they enter school for the more formal stages of learning, who they are as people is factored into the experience that we can provide – creating a safe space for emotional and intellectual growth at their own pace and in their own direction.
What’s more, a cohesive and holistic approach to childcare also empowers the parents of our children to feel more confident in the partnership. They can leave their child in the morning, safe in the knowledge that they are being well cared for and that everything they are doing at nursery is contributing towards their development at home and in the big wide world.
So, how do we combine holistic development with the provision of a safe daycare nursery setting?
First thing’s first, everything that we do is led by the children that we care for. By that we mean that rather than a strictly structured and rigorous timetable of activities, certain choices are left in the hands of the children. This allows them to explore their interests and to start to identify the value in communication, negotiation, and discussion with their peers.
We love seeing the different personalities of our little ones grow and develop as the children in our care learn through creativity and self-expression. Everyone in the My Ohana family, whether that is our Childcare Extraordinaires or our Central Support team, truly believes that when we foster good relationships with the parents, the children are free to explore the full potential of their time at nursery!
If this is something you want to learn more about for your child, or you want to discuss availability at one of our My Ohana nurseries, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. We’d love to hear from you!
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