Between around 12 and 16 months your child will make the transition into our Older Squirrels group. Older Squirrels runs in much the same way as our very youngest group. There is still the strong focus on nurture and care as is required by the very young age of the children. Our staff working in Older Squirrels have received ‘Blossoming Babies’ training. The EYFS forms the basis of the curriculum within this age group and the focus, at this early age, still lies with the three Prime Areas (Personal, Social & Emotional Development, Physical Development and Communication & Language). Daily activities are planned to target these key areas of development; staff will observe the children and ensure that the activities reflect their interests and abilities closely.

In Older Squirrels we appreciate that most of our children have now found their feet and just want to be up, about and moving! Therefore, we ensure that we provide plenty of opportunities for movement both indoors and out. We also nurture our young children’s natural curiosity and have lots of sensory and heuristic activities available for the children to explore. This is also the age where the children are mimicking words and simple phrases and chatter really comes to the fore; therefore we work our hardest to capture and encourage this through lots of talk, rhyme, song and modelling of language through play. It is a lively and busy group with such active and enthusiastic children but there is always lots of fun, excitement and learning to be had!