Our nursery environment and facilities enable your child to explore, develop and learn. Our Baby, Toddler and Preschool spaces are specially designed and equipped especially with them in mind. You’ll see many familiar homely items such as bookcases, tables, chairs, and sofas just much smaller than you are used to!
At Monkey Puzzle Chadwell Heath, we consider the spaces around your child to be like their third teacher, joining you as parents and us as educators in guiding them through their learning. And you’ll notice how we use our garden area as an outdoor classroom too, full of features to support their play and learning. Our Baby, Toddler and Preschool spaces are perfect for the ages of children that spend their time in them.
We keep many aspects of our nursery environments consistent as we know your child will benefit greatly from this. With core resources, enriching toys, games and creative materials, that are always at hand for your child to play with. However, it is not unusual for parts of our nurseries to become unique adventure places where your child’s imagination can run free!
Babies Environment
Our mobile and non-mobile babies benefit from the large, bright, open plan day room, well equipped with the latest in sensory equipment to test their senses and encourage development. As babies spend a lot of time sleeping at this early age, we have our newly renovated sleep room. We constantly monitor the temperature to ensure the babies are comfortable and the integrated glass wall allows us to monitor the children at all times. As a golden rule, there will never be more than three babies to any one member of staff so you can be assured that your little one will get the essential attention they need at this stage in their life. Your child’s key person will take care of all your child’s personal needs whenever possible. We have a dedicated space in our garden with soft artificial grass for the babies to crawl and stumble to their hearts content.
Toddler and Preschool Environment
In the main hall we have split the space into 2 dedicated areas for the toddlers and preschoolers. Their day is structured around their changing interests. The room is very well appointed with outstanding levels of equipment, allowing your child to discover at their individual level of understanding. The room focuses on the primary area’s of the ‘Early Years Foundation Stage’ framework and encourages learning through play. The specific areas offer different activities:- The ‘Story Corner’ where children can sit in a group and listen to stories, a home corner, a construction area to develop coordination and a messy play area for painting and generally getting rather messy. The children benefit from a staffing ratio of one member of staff looking after no more than three children. As this is the time when the majority of children start ‘toilet training’, the toddlers have access to brightly decorated children’s toilets, encouraging independence.
Preschool children also follow the ‘Early Years Foundation Stage’. We support them and prepare them for their eventual move to school. This is a more settled routine, with children working in small groups. Through our observations of children learning through play, we are able to introduce adult led activities that follow the interest of individual children, linking them to the seven areas of learning:
- communication and language
- physical development
- personal social and emotional development
- literacy
- mathematics
- understanding of the world
- expressive arts and design
Outdoor Spaces and Trips
The children have open access to the garden every day and complete a lot of their daily activities outside. The garden features carefully selected outdoor equipment combined with super absorbent safety surfacing for all those trips and falls.
All our children get the opportunity to go on local educational trips, and whether it be to the local shops or places of interest we always risk assess our outings and ensure that ratios are adhered to. We also invite the local emergency services to come in and talk to the children about safety awareness and how to use the phone in an emergency.
