Effra Nursery School and Children’s Centre

Effra is an excellent high quality, caring learning environment; at the heart of the community, where all children and families are welcomed and supported to enjoy lifelong learning.

Our belief is that the early years of a child’s life are vital in shaping their future by encouraging positive attitudes to learning and providing opportunities to learn without limits.

During the first five years much of children’s learning takes place. This is the time when attitudes are shaped, first relationships formed, concepts developed and the foundations for later learning made. We therefore have a set of values that run as a golden thread through all the work we do at the centre.

These values are at the heart of everything we do at Effra. We believe that the provision we plan for the children will encourage them to develop their confidence, skills and knowledge and be able to reflect on how they fit into the wider community.

At Effra we work with children to encourage them to care for themselves, for each other and for the environment. We make regular visits to Effra Nature Garden and Brockwell Park for forest school and learning about the natural world. The children plant, grow, harvest and cook fruit and vegetables. We also hatch chicks and watch the life cycle of butterflies every year.

We aim to develop confidence by giving children the skills they need to be confident to voice their needs and opinions and to know they will be listened to and valued. We work with children who need support to ‘find their voice’, and develop their confidence to engage with small and larger groups of children. Our learning environment inside and outside is planned to be appropriately challenging so children can develop skills and confidence across all areas of learning and development.

We offer daily opportunities for children to work on all aspects of creativity from painting to role-play, and everything in between. In addition we provide a STEM curriculum (Science Technology Engineering Maths) to stimulate and support creativity, creative thinking and problem solving. Children are encouraged to express themselves in whatever way they feel confident. This could be through their painting, model making music and singing or through developing roles and personas in role-play.

We are a fully inclusive centre. All children and families are welcome and we work closely with parents and carers to reduce and remove barriers to learning for children. We aim to provide a curriculum that is appropriate to each child and meets their needs so they make progress during their time at Effra and reach their potential. We have recently launched our new nurture provision: a large sensory classroom to support children who may find a mainstream classroom difficult to manage. High experienced staff provide children with carefully planned interventions and support to ensure children make progress and work towards their potential.

Effra Nursery is part of the Lambeth Nursery Schools’ Federation