At each Nelly's, children are cared for in age appropriate rooms. All rooms are equipped with high quality furniture and equipment. Activities are planned to meet the needs of each child and children are encouraged to make choices and develop at their own pace.
Our aim is to provide care in a calm and relaxing space in a home from home environment with sofas or rocking chairs and soft furnishings to help children with the transition from home to nursery. In our baby rooms, each child's personal routine is followed by a key person who works in close partnership with the child's parents/carers. Activities are provided to stimulate children's increasing curiosity and to meet their fast changing physical and emotional needs as they progress through toddlerhood.
As children progress to our main room, they are offered as much support as they need to begin to develop more independence. Within a safe and comfortable environment, we encourage children to make choices about what they do. Equipment is placed at child height for self-selection. Our free-flow system supports children in these choices and allows them to learn through the play of their choice. The children have free access all day to ICT facilities, make believe and construction areas, messy and mark making activities and to the outdoor area.
Children from the main room are offered the choice of playing outdoors or indoors throughout the day. Babies use the garden every day. Our gardens reflect that the outdoors offers different experiences to indoors, with opportunities to explore the natural environment, grow vegetables, dig in the sand as well as to run, climb, ride and jump. We run regular local outings for children to get to know the local environment, whether it is to visit the local fire station, park, library or greengrocers. We provide buggies so that the youngest children can also enjoy these outings.
At Nelly's we believe that children learn best through their play. A child will also gain the most from activities that relate to their current interests. By being child-led in our focus, we ensure that we are providing activities that will engage the children and therefore give them the best opportunities to learn and develop.
We plan our activities with reference to the latest government curriculum documents, providing a firm foundation that will prepare children for the more formal environment of school.
We provide all meals, snacks, drinks and milks for your child during their day at Nelly's. Our menu is varied and nutritious. We pride ourselves on offering good food for the children, prepared with care, on site, each day. Lunch is always a hot main course followed by a dessert. Tea is a lighter meal but substantial and is generally accompanied by fresh fruit. For our babies, purees and bottles of milk are prepared on site. We can adapt our menus for children with allergies or other dietary needs.
Snacks are offered to the children twice every day. In the baby room, drinks are offered regularly. Children in the main room can choose a piece of fruit from the fruit bowl and pour themselves a drink of water throughout the day.
All Nelly's Nurseries exceed the minimum required ratios of adults to children. Staff turnover at Nelly's is low and many practitioners have been with the nurseries since they opened. We consider this high ratio and continuity of care to be fundamental to the provision of high quality childcare.
We are extremely proud of our committed, caring, enthusiastic, well educated and fun staff teams and know that they are our key to providing children with the high level of love and support that they deserve. Our practitioners are very well supported and are offered regular training, development and career progression. In addition to NVQs in Childcare, we have practitioners with Early Years Professional Status and others who have achieved or who are studying for Degrees in Early Childhood or Masters Degrees in Early Education.