Alistair Bryce-Clegg’s ABC Approach/Reggio Emilia

At Fireflies Nursery we place a strong emphasis on ensuring that all aspects Early Years Foundation Stage are being met. Our planning is based around Alistair Bryce-Clegg's ABC approach. We believe that this approach will enhance children's knowledge through a skill-based learning. At our nursery we provide a variety of opportunities for children to develop their full potential. We value each child as strong, capable and resilient children; this allows our nursery to adapt this philosophy to create the best environment for the children to learn and develop in.

At Fireflies Nursery we aim to support all areas of children’s learning and development. We incorporate aspects of ‘Reggio Emilia approach’ and ‘Alistair Bryce-Clegg’s ABC approach’.  We took inspiration from such thinkers as Vygotsky, Dewey, Piaget, and Bruner and Dewey. Bruner and Vygotsky’s recognised the importance of scaffolding children’s learning while challenging them to develop and master new skills, building on a child’s natural problem-solving capacities, and of the role of culture in developing the mind.

Reggio Emilia provides opportunities for staff to apply ‘third teacher’ planning, this is being able to bring a child’s learning into all aspects of their play, through the environment that we create. Alistair Bryce-Clegg’s approach enable us to develop the aspects of ‘Continuous Provision’ into our planning and environment. We observe closely what each child is showing an interest in and enhance that activity to challenge and provide opportunities for children to learn new skill, new language and through activities that challenge their thinking, encourage them to discover and explore new experiences (through a variety of different art and craft activities - junk modelling, baking, mud kitchen, music, dance and role play). Providing these opportunities allows every child to use their imagination, creativity and express themselves in different ways. Every child is unique and at Fireflies Nursery we believe this approach ensures every child can develop to their potential in a way that interests them.

We deliver activities through both indoor and outdoor environment that have been adapted to meet the children’s needs. Our practitioners operate a Key Worker system, they observe our children holistically to gain an overall picture of every child’s individual needs and development. This information is then used to support out weekly planning, to create next steps and support the environment we create each day for our children. Our planning is based around stories as we find children engage more with something that is more concrete than abstract. Stories are also used to support children’s language and communication skills. We have recently taken part in a project ‘Early Talk Boost’ that has also been built around stories to introduce children to different concepts and has been shown to improve children’s concentration.