What is Enhanced Provision?

We know that continuous provision refers to the resources that are there ‘all the time’ aka, ‘continuously.’ You choose them based on what is already familiar or similar to the children. This includes shelves, tray units etc. Resources in your continuous provision aren’t going to completely fill your shelves because you’re learning space for enhancements, things you’re adding based on new learning opportunities. But your continuous should form most of the resource bank provided.

Enhancements are resources you place out based on scheme (schema), topics/themes, interests or challenges. We’ll go into more depth with how to enhance for each of these in the next few pots. I’ll deal with challenges in a later post. I don’t recommend enhancing based on challenges very often, if at all. It’s a much more adult-led approach and only really works where you’ve got a strict approach to provision. But put that out of your mind for now, let’s unpick enhancements a little more.

Enhancements are resources placed out that help children to learning something new or extend their current learning. For example, you may choose a topic based around pets and place out a bird cage. This gives children the opportunity to learn about the dynamics of keeping birds in cages.

Another example would be a child interested in fairies suddenly finds a fairy door in the garden, opening a wide range of imaginative play opportunities.

The resources you provide may support one child or a group.

They may be short lives (for a half term, a week or a day.) but may become well used and loved and become part of the continuous provision.

It’s important to remember that enhancements are NEW resources and so children will need to pass through exploration with these new resources. This can be limiting as we discussed in a previous post. Therefore, I suggest you take a ‘small step’ in your enhancements where possible. More on that in the next post.