Little Lancing

As we draw near to the end of our third year of Little Lancing, there’s much to report!

In April, our co-partnership arrangement with Tops Day Nurseries came to its planned end and Little Lancing is now reregistered with Ofsted. We have become very well established and places are highly sought after in our local community, with the nursery becoming ever busier and waiting lists being created for future starters. We continue to add high quality staff to our nursery team and are delighted that our first apprentices are nearing the end of their studies and will soon be fully fledged Level 3 practitioners with us.

We have celebrated the formal opening of our Forest School learning space by Dr Sally Godward, the Lancing College Governor who is now registered with Ofsted on behalf of Buxbrass Limited, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the College. It was a lovely occasion and well supported by our families who also took the opportunity to view their child’s room after so many months where we have not been able to welcome them into the nursery building. It also coincided with some of our celebrations to mark the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee in early June.

The children simply love their outdoor sessions in Forest School and our second phase of training starts over this summer. The nursery garden has undergone some improvements, with more plans ahead to enhance the children’s learning. We have begun the process to gain a Curiosity Approach accreditation for Little Lancing, which will come on stream as we move into our fourth year of operation.

We have welcomed more babies than ever before into our Explorers Room this year with some 20 under 2s attending midweek, which has made full use of our Nest extension! Some of our older Explorers who were ready to do so, have now moved up to Investigators as the next part of their nursery journey. The Investigators have eagerly awaited the arrival of a brand new six-seater ‘turtle bus’ which will enable them to get out and about a little further afield than has been possible so far.

The Pre-School children have thrived and enjoyed their school readiness activities, as well as spending as much time out of doors as we can, with Gardening Club and marvelling over our project to look after and observe the life cycles of caterpillars as they move through the various stages until they emerge as beautiful butterflies. The older children will be leaving us to start Reception classes in September, some of whom have been with us from the very start of Little Lancing.

We will be just a little sad to say goodbye to them at our Leavers’ Tea Party in August but we are delighted to have seen them grow up so confidently in our care.

As parents, it was great to come into the nursery again after so long to see “ all the amazing activities and how well the children are cared for. It reminded us exactly why we picked Little Lancing to look after our child! You really do go that extra mile to give the children everything they need.