The Nursery of Narnia in Swindon offers high quality childcare to ALL children, it is the ethos of the Nursery to ensure the equality of access and opportunity for our children to learn, share, laugh and grow in a safe, fun and inspiring environment. Every child deserves the best possible start in life and the support to fulfil their potential and we commit to do all we can to help you and your little ones achieve this.
Our aim is to offer an environment designed for young children where they can learn to become a member of a community irrespective of their medical or personal profile, under the guidance of a team of professionals, along with the family, we encourage the enjoyment of experience which provides a strong a foundation for future living and learning.
A child’s experience in the early years has a major impact on their future. A secure, safe and happy childhood is important and when parents or carers choose a nursery or pre-school they want the assurance that they will keep their children safe and support them to develop. The environment and daily activity programme at The Nursery of Narnia will help develop confident, independent and creative children.
Our Commitment to you and our children
• We provide a developmentally appropriate environment so designed to meet the emotional, social, cognitive, physical and creative needs of our children and ensure they have every opportunity to access the opportunities to grow and develop therein.
• We work with our families and care /support agencies to provide a unique, creative, innovative and supportive program to help the children develop in these vital years meeting their individual learning needs.
•We aim to equip our children with a positive self-image, a love for learning so they can observe, question and appreciate their world – allowing them to explore their creative potential, this will be born from a balanced curriculum of structured/child-led time which incorporates learning goals of play, social, emotional, physical and academic content.
• The Partners in our Nursery have a co –joined focus to bridge the gap currently felt by the children and families that have Special Educational Needs or Disabilities (SEND) whilst also catering for mainstream children, we are committed to creating an environment that encourages inclusion and understanding of diversity within our community and as a business we strongly promote equality at the very centre of our provision, which is emphasised by our first come first served approach towards all who come to us for a place, we don’t have a separate list for funded children or fee paying children we believe and demonstrate through this that every child has an equal right to access education.
• The Nursery of Narnia was designed with a specific focus to have the capability to receive mainstream children as well as those with special educational needs or disabilities (SEND), the design has ensured the ability to receive all children in all areas of the facility and we will continue to ensure we do all we can to remove any hurdles to a child’s development based on their individual needs as they arise, we are here to support your family by offering your children the best educational start to their life and that includes supporting you in removing any barriers to achieving this.
We are lucky to have a Light, airy and spacious setting, The nursery is a bright, stimulating and inviting environment where children can thrive and access learning and development opportunity with ease it is a home from home setting so our children and families are able to feel comfortable and welcome when they are with us.
Located in a convenient location for the, community of Swindon, it easily accessible from the A419, and situated on the primary travel routes to the largest industrial areas in the town surrounded by trees, gardens a playground and play park we have a beautiful quiet setting away from the chaos of everyday life where our children can be safe and feel secure.
Ages: 0 to 12 years (with SEND allowance up to 19 years) Capacity: 76 children.
Open: 5 days per week and our team is here to support the needs of the family and the children, we are open 51 weeks a year (however should your family have additional needs we will happily discuss this with you to ensure your needs are met wherever possible) Furthermore we recognise that as a supplier of a service such as this we need to recognise the needs of those families who work shifts or miss out on valuable overtime opportunities or second income jobs because of the lack of childcare provision.. this is no longer a problem with us.
Please contact the team to discuss your needs and how we can support you.
The Nursery of Narnia has a fully interactive classroom kitchen and dining space where the children will be able to not only eat their meals but also learn about their food developing their understanding about healthy eating and getting involved in making simple things to eat, we also use this space in the evenings for heathy eating groups and cookery sessions for our parents and the local community to get involved in as well as utilising the facility to build and dispatch emergency food packages out to all in our local community should the need arise. Our kitchen offers a valuable place for our children to explore their 7 areas of learning further in a space that is different to the usual nursery space, this is a fantastic opportunity for them to learn to understand and recognise each other’s preferences and needs further underpinning the nursery ethos of ensuring our children grow and develop with an understanding and respect of the diverse culture in which they live in while enhancing their sense of community and relationship development.
Outdoor play and what the Early Years Foundation Stage has to say…
The Nursery of Narnia is steadfastly committed to getting our children outside in the fresh air and into their natural surroundings, our garden, woodland area and playground are very important spaces and a very unique feature of our nursery. It is a place of great fun, excitement and learning for our children as they develop their physical, social and imaginative skills while enjoying the outside for all it has to offer. We will have an area of garden seeded with wild flowers and where children can investigate a natural environment. There will be a bug hotel, specific shrubs e.g. lavender, buddleia to attract insects and butterflies, wildflowers/grasses, logs, a mud kitchen, digging area, bird tables etc.
This ‘natural’ garden and wooded area contrasts with the more cultivated garden, with flowerbeds and vegetable plot in our ‘taste garden’ which the children have the opportunity to help plant and care for as part of the activities that they will get involved in with us along the way.
Our sensory garden is enjoyed by children and adults alike, it has a variety of plants to smell and touch. There will be lots of interesting and exotic smells from the chocolate plants and curry plants as well as the lavender, jasmine and sweet peas as well as calming sounds such as listening to the bamboo and long grasses swaying and the birds singing
The children get to learn to grow their own fruit and vegetables in the taste garden which they pick and cook and have for their lunch or snacks where possible. The children also plant a variety of bulbs and seedlings throughout the garden and enjoy a range of beautiful colours in the spring and summer.
Our babies are very much a part of the nursery and we have a special space in the garden for our babies where they can play and crawl and watch the older children, in a safe and secure environment
We have a hard play area for bikes, cars and trikes and a soft surface area for other play equipment, we have also been able to secure an agreement with the council to be allowed to fit a gated access to the secure local community playground right behind our Nursery.
There are lots of areas for children to explore at The Nursery of Narnia, whether your child prefers a visit to our bug hotel or racing around our playground on a tractor or if they would prefer a quiet space we can cater for all needs.
The team at our Nursery will endeavour to ensure All of our children play outside at least once a day unless the weather’s really extreme – but don’t worry we have plenty of wet weather gear to keep them warm and dry .
The Nursery of Narnia is so committed to ensuring our children have every opportunity to develop in an enjoyable space that the directors have incorporated an outdoor provision as well as having forest school trained staff to allow the children to experience this form of education as well as regular nursery based education and this is to a larger extent thanks to our neighbours Sandalwood Court NHS who donated the use of the grassed and wooded area between our two sites allowing us to really expand our provision.
We have an outdoor classroom which is a Mongolian Yurt, we allow the outside to be natural but inside the children’s imaginations lit up with colour and vibrancy rivalled by no other.
As a result of this The Nursery of Narnia has been able to secure the services of a trained forest school trainer to lead our little ones on a journey of learning unlike any other, activities such as leaf printing, twig weaving, fairyland building, bug counting and building a shelter to name but a few of the great activities in store for them and this also allows us to encourage the children to explore in ways they may never have done before.
Forest school will help our children develop the following confidence, social skills, communication, motivation, physical skills & knowledge and an understanding of their environment.
Our Sensory Room is a specially designed room which combines a range of stimuli to help individuals develop and engage their senses. These include lights, colours, sounds, and sensory soft play objects all within a safe environment that allows the little one using it to explore and interact without risk.
The Nursery of Narnia is designed to support the development needs of all and as such we installed a TV into our sensory room to be used when required to offer children the escape they need when they need it, we spoke to many parents of children with a huge variety of conditions and the common theme is that most children have a favourite cartoon (Mr Tumble for example) our approach is non-prescriptive and as such we match our methods to your child’s individual bespoke needs and in doing so we are then able to develop that sense of security through the familiar while not having to call our parents or carers out unnecessarily if little one is having a challenging 5 minutes.
Our sensory room benefits from a whole range of sensory equipment such as bubble tubes, sensory ball pond, padded mirrors, soft illuminated shapes, soft music and light show projector, floor imaging equipment, sensory drawing boards, infinity tunnels or a fibre optic sensory harness to name but a few of the fantastic options we have available to us.
The Nursery of Narnia benefits from a suite of technology which is deployed throughout the nursery which incorporates equipment such as a large interactive smartboard, IPADS, remote control toys, Bee-Bots with interactive learning mats, torches, radios, cameras, tape recorders, construction kits the list goes on as does the learning journey available to our children.
So to start with we have the EYFS (Early Year Foundation Stage) this is a UK government document which sets the standards for learning, development and care for children from birth to five, The Nursery of Narnia is committed to ensuring our setting meets all of these requirements to secure the quality of learning and development our children need and deserve.
It details all the legal requirements, the principles that practitioners need to put into their practice and information on supporting children’s progression through the seven areas of learning and development which we will come on to later.
Our children are encouraged to learn holistically through play. Through play children can develop social and cognitive skills, mature emotionally, and gain the self-confidence required to engage in new experiences and environments.
The importance of self-initiated play, particularly for young children means that we need to give them open-ended activity toys, like blocks, sensory materials and real-life objects (experiential play) to create their own learning experiences.
Enabling Environments– This recognises the key role a child’s environment plays in supporting and extending their development and learning.
Learning and Development– This is based on the knowledge that children develop and learn in different ways and that all areas of learning are interconnected and equally important.
We are committed to ensuring the quality of our children’s learning and development as such it is structured against the EYFS guidance to safeguard this commitment.
The prime areas are Personal, Social and Emotional Development, Physical Development and Communication and Language. These are fundamental because they work together to support development in the other areas. Development and Communication and Language.
These are fundamental because they work together to support development in the other areas. The developmental statements in these areas help practitioners to identify and plan for the children’s individual interests and abilities. These areas of learning are accompanied by the specific areas of learning which are Literacy, Mathematics, Understanding the World and Expressive Arts & Design.
Sports Club – The Nursery has the benefit of a small sports pitch and as such we offer a range of after school and weekend sports clubs to offer children the opportunity to join in… the team at our nursery recognise that there is a gap in family life where parents and carers coming home from work are often unable to play a sport with their child due to lighting or excessive court hire costs…as such The Nursery of Narnia offers its space to our children to enable more quality family time for you and your children.
For Enquiries call 01793 293 812
Get Directions
