Our learning environments are set up to support play and develop child centred learning. 

This means:

🔴 We create environments that make children curious and want to investigate and interact. We provide opportunities to take part in sensory exploration - touching, feeling, smelling and responding. We use a wide range of provocations or invitations to explore which engage the children in many deep-level learning situations and make learning irresistible.

🔴 Children can choose to work with a teacher to focus in more depth, which enables 'Sustained, Shared, Thinking' to extend the learning experiences.

🔴 All around the nursery there are 'loose parts' or 'open-ended' materials which, by definition do not have a pre-determined use, so can be included in all types of play or investigation. These materials allow children to make choices and express their creativity. Playing with these materials fuels the imagination, engages the senses and differentiates to meet every child's needs.

This way of working allows us to up-cycle and recycle many materials from our households and in school. We talk to the children about this as being important for our local and global environment.  We want to teach young people to make realistic but dynamic choices that have a positive impact on our planet.

St Thomas Centre Nursery School


Bell Barn Road,

Lee Bank,

Birmingham.

B15 2AF


Contact Information


Tel: 0121 464 0003

Email: enquiry@stcn.bham.sch.uk






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