Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural Development

At Hart Hill Nursery School, we place pupil's spiritual, moral, social and cultural development at the heart of our work and it underpins all learning.

Explicit opportunities to develop SMSC are found in our PSED curriculum, RE, UW curriculum.  It is also embedded in all that we do including getting to know the children and their families so that we can make the classrooms and the children's learning opportunities relevant to them.

How do we support SMSC development?

Spiritual Development

• RE Medium Term Plans focussed of celebrations from the cohort
• Parents invited in to support sharing information
• Zones of regulation to support PSED
• Sensory experiences to enhance learning
• Signs for feelings
• Children's birthdays are celebrated and displayed in the classroom
• Stimulating and interesting learning environment
• Natural resources, interesting artefacts used to promote curiosity
• Role play areas linked to children's learning
• Creative areas including exploring art work from different cultures
• Looking at photographs and exploring

Moral Development

• Clear expectations for the children throughout the nursery sessions
• Positive reinforcement is used to focus attention to wanted behaviour
• Classrooms arranged to support children's independence and promote respect for belongings
• Signs for feelings and zones of regulation to support emotions and how actions can impact others
• Picture news explores ethical and moral issues linked to news articles in an age appropriate way
• Children vote on every day activities, to being to teach children about democracy
• Stories and role play are used to support children to understand a different viewpoint
• Visual schedules help children to understand routine

Social Development

• Working in whole class to support working together and to give confidence
• Focus on having quality interactions with children in ChiL
• Turn taking is taught explicitly through highly structured turn taking activities and games
• Adults model play to extend play skills and to teach turn taking and sharing
• Children are taught social acceptable behaviours, such as boundaries for certain activities, eg apron before painting
• Visual and communication aids are used to ensure all voices are heard
• Opportunities to go on local walks and outings in the local community to explore different social context and important life skills

Cultural Development

• Knowledge of the cohort of children and focus on religious festivals from different cultures through RE medium term plan
• Discussions linked to topical issues eg King's Coronation
• Displays of artefacts from around the world to promote discussion
• Explicit teaching of history and showing children things that are the same and different
• Medium term plans that including cultural diversity and heritage from the children in the school
• Information from parents is gathered to support the curriculum and environment, eg music at home; musical instruments reflect the cultural differences in school
• Home areas reflect children's homes, eg utensils, clothing for dressing up, familiar foods and logos 
• Books are chosen to include key festivals, cultures celebrations at the correct time

What are we still working on?

Staff continue to think of new and creative ways to engage parents, asking for support with developing cultural opportunities, eg through cooking.

Resources tosupport SMSC continue to be gathered and updated eg books which reflect different languages, resources from different cultures and clothing to reflect traditional dress.