Logo for Outdoor Nursery Wild Hearts, featuring a stylized tree with detailed leaves, set against a dark green background with circular design elements.

Welcome to Wildhearts Outdoor


A different kind of early years experience

At Wildhearts, children don’t just spend time outdoors — they grow, learn and thrive through full immersion in nature.

Our days are shaped by nature exploration, creativity, and meaningful relationships, supported by highly qualified staff who understand how children truly develop.

This is not simply childcare.
It is a carefully designed environment where confidence, resilience and wellbeing come first.

What makes us different?

More than a nursery. A specialist early years experience.

While many settings include outdoor play, at Wildhearts the outdoors is the classroom.

Every session is intentionally designed to support:

  • Emotional wellbeing

  • Communication and language

  • Confidence and independence

  • Physical development through real-world experiences

Children climb, build, create, cook, explore and problem-solve — developing skills that cannot be replicated indoors.

Our team

Highly qualified, deeply experienced staff

Your child is supported by a team with specialist training that goes far beyond standard requirements:

  • Qualified teachers

  • Forest School Level 3 practitioners

  • Thrive-trained staff (supporting emotional development)

  • Paediatric First Aid trained team

  • Approved Dingley’s Promise provider

We carefully match our provision to the needs of each cohort, bringing in specialist teaching where it makes the biggest impact.

Enriched experiences

What your child experiences each week

Our curriculum is enhanced through specialist-led sessions and real-life experiences:

  • Weekly fire cooking in our fire circle where stories are shared

  • Forest School activities led by qualified practitioners

  • Specialist teaching (e.g. music )

  • Weekly sign language sessions

  • Seasonal exploration and nature-based learning

These are not “extras” — they are part of what makes Wildhearts unique.

Why it matters

Preparing children for more than school

We focus on the foundations that matter most:

  • Confidence to try new things

  • Emotional security and resilience

  • Strong communication skills

  • A deep connection with the natural world

These are the skills that support children not just in school — but throughout life.

Children in rain boots standing on a muddy path in an outdoor setting.
Close-up of a ladybug on a green plant stem.

Our Services

Enquiry
A backyard garden with wooden planting beds on grass, a scarecrow dressed as a scarecrow, a wooden fence in the background, and small plants growing in the beds.

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.

wet weather clothes forest school outdoor nursery Hereford
Close-up of a dandelion seed head in sunlight with dew drops, standing on green grass.

 

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Sensory nature play is proven to support emotional regulation and bring calm and mindfulness to children.
We bring the community or group together, cooking food and sharing conversations around the campfire. Campfire safety is a priority for all, children are gently supported to follow the basic rules.
Campfire safety is a priority for all, children are gently supported to follow the basic rules.
We practice simple tool work like hammering nails and screwing screws into wood. Sawing is a teacher led activity.
Playing in the trees is proven to promote calm. Swings are hung throughout the area for children to use to regulate or just relax with friends.
We are an off grid, eco setting with a carbon deficit. We use compost toilets, harvest rainwater and heat our shelter with a wood burner. We actively promote a sustainable education by reusing preloved products in our play.