The Characteristics of Effective Learning are the way the children engage with people and the environment. They underpin learning and development across all areas of the curriculum and enable the children to become effective and motivated learners. We support the children to develop their characteristics of effective learning as we believe they play a central role in a child's learning and are essential in building an effective learner. We follow the children's interests to ensure they are engaged and motivated to enable them to develop their creative and critical thinking. The characteristics of effective learning run through and underpin all 7 areas of learning and development. They represent processes rather than outcomes.

The characteristics are:

Playing and exploring – children investigate and experience things and are willing to have a go.
Active learning – children concentrate and keep on trying when they encounter difficulties and enjoy their achievements.
Creating and thinking critically – children have and develop their own ideas, are able to make links between ideas and develop a range of strategies for doing things.