Our Childcare
Guiding your child to a bright future.
Our Childcare
Guiding your child to a bright future.
Our ethos
At Little Feet Nursery, we believe children can achieve anything! We simply help them to make those small, but vital steps towards getting there. In doing so, we lay the foundations for a bright and ambitious future. Our dedicated and compassionate team empower children to become motivated and enthusiastic learners, with a hunger for new information, new skills and of course a love of playing! We guide children to develop a strong moral compass and empathy for others as they make those all-important first friendships.
Our food
We provide 3 nutritious meals and two healthy snacks during the day at Little Feet Nursery. We ensure children get a balanced diet, through meals that they truly enjoy eating. Our in-house chef, Patricia, is trained in allergy management and loves to think up new and exciting recipes for the children! We are proud to share that for two years running, we have obtained a 5-star food hygiene rating. Not only this, but all of our staff are trained in food hygiene and allergy management.
What our children say…
It's delicious!
Yummy!
I love the food!
A Day at Nursery
7:00-7:30 - Welcome and morning activities
7:30-8:30 - Breakfast
8:30-10:00 - Morning group time and free play
10:00-10:30 - Morning snack and story time
10:30-11:30 - Morning activities (inside and outside) and/or group time
11:30 - Lunch time
12:30 - Sleep times for younger rooms and outdoor play for older rooms
2:00 - Afternoon Snack
2:30-4:30 - Outdoor play and free play
4:30-5:30 - Teatime
5:00-6:00 - Free play and home time!
Curriculum
As an Ofsted Registered Provider, we follow the Early Years Foundation Statutory Framework, which outlines milestones children should be reaching at each stage of their development. As a nursery that continually strives to support children to push the boundaries of their learning, we have developed our own curriculum for our 4 age groups, comprising of both the prime and specific areas of development.
Alongside the EYFS and Development Matters, we have established our own outstanding curriculum, based on our understanding of the children we care for and their typical developmental patterns, as well as our high expectations for them. These create a wonderful basis for practitioner-to-practitioner handovers, as well as information for parents when children move rooms.
Each curriculum for our age groups comprises of 3 to 4 Milestones. These primarily focus on the Prime areas of development, with the specific areas also being added in the older age groups. Our curriculum not only provides a planning and monitoring tool for staff but allows communication with parents on developmental expectations.
Early Years Entitlement Funding
Little Feet is unique in our offer for funded hours. We know that whilst the funding if free for you to access, it also needs to work for you and your family. We do not stipulate the hours in which you can use your funded hours- we accept funded hours between 7am and 6pm and do not charge for hours in between- we believe this makes funding more flexible and affordable for families. We also have the option for children to ‘stretch’ their funding over the 51 weeks we are open, rather than just during term time. This is a great option for parents who don’t have leave over the school holidays.
We are awaiting guidance from the government for the April 2024 funding updates.
Settling In Sessions
We know and understand that your child’s first time at nursery can be daunting- especially for you as parents! Therefore, we give families two FREE OF CHARGE settling in sessions, to make your child’s transition into nursery as seamless as possible.
Our aim is for your child to begin to form attachments with our staff before you leave them with us for their first day. This will help to put your mind at rest so that you feel as reassured as possible. Typically, we conduct two, two-hour settling in sessions. If you feel that it would benefit your child to have any further settling in sessions, we can accommodate this - we respond to the individual needs and circumstances of all of our families. At the first settling in session, we invite you as parents to join us in the baby room for the first part of the session. It is during this time that you will complete a care plan with our staff, where you share the most up to date information about your child, such as nap times, weaning stages, milk consumption etc. Following this, when you feel comfortable, we invite you to slip out at a given opportunity, to allow your child time to get used to the room and staff in your absence. What should you bring to your settling in session? Whilst we provide nappies, wipes and snacks, it would be helpful if you could also provide a named water cup, any milk/ formula you wish your child to have and a change of clothes. If your child has a comforter or a preferred snack, please also feel free to add those to your bag too.
Extra-Curricular Activities
At Little Feet, we believe it is important to offer different experience outside that of typical nursery life, to enrich children’s understanding of the world.
Frith Wood
We love to get outside and enjoy some fresh air! Our pre-school children are so fortunate to frequently enjoy the nearby Frith woods on our woodland walks. We enjoy a plethora of fun activities and find that the children simply thrive being outdoors, learning in novel and engaging ways. This opens up a world of opportunities that can’t always be replicated indoors, including bug hunts, listening to the creatures of the forest and acting out our favourite stories, whilst using our imagination!
Care Home Visits
Our Community Liaison Officer, Amy, has developed a wonderful partnership with a local care home, The Green Care home, and our preschool children regularly visit the elderly people there. We sing songs, draw pictures, eat snacks together and really do have a ball! The children bring so much joy to the elderly people and we love to be able to give something back! Not only this, but the children learn valuable lessons about the experiences of others!
External Visitors
We relish the opportunity to welcome visitors from the community into Little Feet. The inquisitive children at Little Feet, love to ask questions and learn about occupations. We have had visits from: Dronfield firefighters, doctors, dentists and midwives. Please do get in contact with us if you would like to share your profession with our children!