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Mougins School

The Learning Curve

Mougins School: Curiosity + Play = Fun + Learning
Patricia Moon

Our Early Years Learning Centre, also known as The Launchpad at Mougins School, has as its main objective to provide quality care and education for young children embarking on their educational journey. That's why we are delighted to have worked with the consultant Dawn Larking from England.

Training with Dawn Larking 

The LaunchPad staff were excited to be joined by Dawn Larkin, an Early Years consultant from the UK. Some Mougins parents may remember working with Dawn 3 years ago when we began to develop our outside learning area. A number of our PTA coordinated by Pia Jensen, worked hard alongside Dawn to create a mud kitchen, music wall and seating area for our young children. 

This time Dawn came to offer us support and training over two days as we arranged our continuous provision to maximise independent learning opportunities for our youngest children. It was also great for Dawn to see how we have continued to develop Early Years at Mougins School and to be a part of the inauguration of The LaunchPad. We are grateful for all her advice and knowledge and look forward to future opportunities to work together.

“It was a great pleasure to be invited back to Mougins School to support the LaunchPad team to implement their exciting plans. The team are passionate about providing the youngest children with a nurturing learning environment that will support all children to be independent, motivated and creative learners” - Dawn Clarkin.

Outdoor / Indoor Space

Continuous provision refers to the resources which are always available within our outdoor and indoor setting for the children to access. It includes such resources as a sand tray (with buckets, spades and small world animals), a water tray (with jugs and measuring cylinders) and a mark-making area (with crayons, pens and paper).

Continuous provision remains consistent for long periods of time. For example, a child choosing to access the water area will expect to see the same resources provided each time they play in this area. This enables them to revisit and build upon previous learning, as well as to explore new learning within a familiar environment. The resources are provided within an environment which is safe to explore and which encourages children to become active and independent learners, both indoors and outdoors.

To extend children’s learning and maintain interest, the continuous provision can be enhanced.


Enhancing the continuous provision allows us to  follow children’s interests, add challenges and link the provision to current topics and themes. We may add weighing scales in our sand tray to introduce the concept of balance, ice cubes to water trays to observe melting and make predictions and letter sound cards with pictures to the mark-making area to stimulate word building.

They say a  picture paints a thousand words. Please take a look at the following photographs to see how The LaunchPad has been organised in a way which enables children to access the resources independently. Our aim is to stimulate curiosity and engage the children in play. As we observe the children interacting with resources and having fun together, we make appropriate interventions to support and extend their learning as well as plan our small group targeted teacher led sessions.

Curiosity + Play = Fun + Learning
Curiosity + Play = Fun + Learning

As a non-mathematician, I am oddly turning to an equation to explain the purpose of why The LaunchPad looks the way it does:

Curiosity + Play = Fun + Learning

 

Patricia Moon
Head of Early Years, LaunchPad

  • Primary