Why an Outdoor Nursery and not a traditional one?

It all started with a group of children, a fabulous team and a small, wild, wooded area in a preschool nursery.

Whilst teaching at a local preschool I noticed that behaviour of the youngest children in this Hereford city school was remarkably calm, they were enthusiastic and energetic and curious. I had been teaching for nearly a decade at this point and had never seen or experienced learning like these children demonstrated. Teaching was built on from the children’s interests and abilities ‘in the moment’, capturing their interest in the here and now - the children’s capacity to learn was accelerated as they pushed their own learning forward, facilitated by skilled practitioners. The best bit was the majority of the day was spent outdoors! The freedom and space the children experienced allowed them to learn without restraint - they could scream, laugh, climb and run to their hearts content. Their bodies could move in all the ways they needed, allowing energy to be released in positive ways. The resources they used were natural and sensory. The rules outdoors are very different to those indoors - just what early years children need.

As a natural next step I then became a forest school leader along with teaching early years and my love of educating outdoors grew. I began to mentally plan my own nursery, building on my now 20 years teaching experience both in the UK and abroad and after a 6 year search finally found land suitable and the rest, as they say, is history.

I hope your children love the experience and learning our nursery brings and race to join us in the mornings. Our aim for the children we guide is for them to be happy, to grow in as many ways as they can and to feel like they belong. If we get that bit right then the learning will follow as fast and as organically as the wildflowers growing in our areas.