Little Acorns Nursery is holding an Open Day on Saturday, 1 November 2025. We’ll be opening our doors to Lancashire families, so they can see this wonderful childcare setting in person. There’s no need to book — you are welcome to come along at any time between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. What’s more, being on a Saturday, it should prove more convenient for working families. On the day, our team will be available for guided tours. We can show families the rooms, excellent facilities, and well-equipped outdoor areas, and answer any questions that you might have. Saturday is a non-working day at the nursery, so you’ll have our undivided attention. Why not bring your own child with you, so they can see the setting too — and get a feel for how well they would fit in? Come along — we’d love to meet you!
“A fabulous enabling environment, indoors and outdoors.”
Come Along — And Save!
If you sign up for a nursery place on the day, we’ll waive the registration fee!
Nursery Open Day: Saturday 1 November 2025, 10 am – 1 pm
Little Acorns is a wonderful childcare nursery at 34 Sheep Hill Lane, Clayton-le-Woods, Chorley, Lancashire, PR6 7JH. We are a convenient choice for families seeking high-quality childcare near Clayton Brook, Clayton Green, Chorley, Thorpe Green, Pippin Street, Buckshaw Village, Whittle-le-Woods, Farington, Bamber Bridge, Lostock Hall, Euxton, Leyland, and Penwortham. We operate virtually all year round, closing only for Bank Holidays and over Christmas/New Year. We support free/funded childcare places for eligible children aged from just 9 months— great for working families. Little Acorns Nursery is recognised by Ofsted as a Good Provider.
“Children are happy and settled at the nursery.” — Ofsted, September 2025.
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• ‘Good Provider’ status from Ofsted (September 2025 report). |
“Children demonstrate a positive attitude to their learning.” — Ofsted, September 2025.
We’d love to show you our fabulous nursery and preschool on the 1st of November, so please come along anytime from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. — we can’t wait to meet you!
In September this year (2025), free childcare for eligible working families expands to 30 hours per week for children as young as just 9 months. Little Acorns Nursery in Clayton-le-Woods is supporting the funding scheme too. Taken usually over 38 weeks* of the year, it means a generous 1140 hours of funded childcare will be available to eligible children in Central Lancashire over the course of a year. For the first time, the funding will cover eligible babies aged from only 9 months and children up to 2, the scheme having previously rolled out to eligible 3-and-4-year-olds last year. An urgent factor to be aware of, however, is that the funding application deadline is only weeks away for those wanting to start in the September 2025 term. So, whether you’re thinking of applying at Little Acorns Nursery or elsewhere, don’t delay your application any longer if you want to access the free funding from September. If your child is eligible and you do not apply by the deadline, your child will not be able to access the free funding for the entire September term. Read on to learn more about the new funding for eligible working families, the deadlines for applications, and the rules that apply.
Helping to make childcare more affordable for working families;
You can apply for funded childcare for eligible working families as soon as your child reaches the age of 23 weeks (that’s just over 5¼ months). If successful, they’ll be able to start using their free childcare hours the term after they reach the age of 9 months. Depending on when that occurs, they’ll be able to start accessing the funded childcare from either the 1st of September, the 1st of January, or the 1st of April, with application deadlines for each being the day before.
Today we look at the wonderful Ofsted report published recently for Little Acorns Nursery in Clayton-le-Woods, Chorley. Ofsted is The Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills. Their inspector visited this fabulous Lancashire childcare setting in late August and released its official report a month later on 25 September 2024. Our post today spotlights some of the many glowing comments made by the inspector therein, following her visit. It also highlights the reasoning for ‘good provider’ ratings across all areas of the Ofsted report. Take a look and you’ll see why babies, children under five, and those with special educational needs and/or disabilities absolutely thrive at Little Acorns.
Overall effectiveness: Good
Any good nursery or childcare provider will ensure that children understand right from wrong and are mindful of the effect their actions have on others, including peers. Nurturing good manners and appropriate behaviour amongst little ones benefits everyone including, of course, the children themselves. Ofsted’s latest report recognised that Little Acorns is very successful in this regard:
Children find messy play hugely rewarding as well as being immense fun. Messy play nurtures children’s imaginations, creativity, dexterity, and self-expression and benefits them in many other ways. It is therefore a crucial part of early years learning and development — and more important than it perhaps sounds. Ofsted picked up on the quality of messy play activities at Little Acorns Nursery within its report:
With September 2024 arriving, eligible children aged as young as 9 months can now access free childcare in England. The new childcare ‘hours’ are available where working families are eligible for the support and, in tandem, where local childcare providers are set up with appropriate staffing ratios and capacity. The good news, however, is that Little Acorns Nursery, in Clayton-le-Woods, supports the new scheme. It’s therefore with great pleasure that we’re now beginning to welcome children as young as just 9 months of age for free childcare hours at the Chorley setting.
From September 2024 (so already active), eligible children aged from 9 months to 3 years of age can access 570 hours and eligible children aged 3 and 4 can access 1140 hours of free childcare support per year. The free hours are usually taken over the course of 38 weeks (equating to 15 and 30 hours per week respectively). However, some childcare providers may allow the hours to be spread over more weeks of the year by reducing the number of hours per week. Speak directly to your specific childcare provider about the availability of this more flexible option.
Must not have an 
Little Acorns is a wonderful 
parents to return to the workplace sooner after the birth of their child if they so choose;
children aged 2 from eligible working families will be able to claim 570 hours of free childcare each year. This is typically taken as 15 hours of free childcare each week over 38 weeks, although exactly how it’s taken may be agreed otherwise between the family and the childcare provider.
Until now, 87% of those eligible to claim childcare support through Universal Credit were not doing so. One of the main reasons for this was that it’s geared towards low-income families yet required them to pay childcare fees in advance — and later claim them back. Paying in advance is not so easy when household income is low, as is typically the case for households that would otherwise be eligible. For this reason, another of the Chancellor’s initiatives announced in the Spring Budget 2023 is to roll out the following improvements:
The final childcare-related initiative in the Chancellor’s Spring Budget aims to fix another key problem for parents: how to juggle their own longer working hours with their child’s shorter school hours. When a child attends school, they often finish their school day several hours before their parent is finished at work, for example. There is therefore a childcare requirement to bridge the gap and this may be required both at the start and end of the child’s school day. In view of this, the Chancellor announced the piloting of a new Wraparound Pathfinder Scheme, which would fund childcare hours from 8 am until the start of the school morning and, later in the day, fund childcare for the mismatched afternoon hours up to 6 pm. The pilot will test the scheme to see how well it works. If successful, the Chancellor aims to roll it out to the whole of the UK from September 2024.
Are you are a parent or carer of a child under five? If so, you could learn a lot about childcare, parenting and early years learning and development by following Little Acorns Nursery on social media. We’re active across multiple social channels including Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram and share high quality content useful to parents of under-fives. That includes parents of children at Little Acorns although, actually, parents anywhere will find the content educational and useful. Our high quality content includes unusually informative ‘early years’ articles and information. For example, a whole range of guides, the findings from various studies, suggested activities for kids and overviews of things like childcare funding schemes with eligibility guidelines. Also, of course, the social media channels include posts relating to the exciting activities happening at the nursery in Clayton-le-Woods, Chorley.
Follow Little Acorns Nursery on Twitter. There, you’ll see links to some great topics that relate to early years education. You’ll also see regular tweets and posts showing the exciting play and activities that children are taking part in at the nursery.
On Facebook, we share our ‘bigger’ guides and articles from 
We love Pinterest! Its simple, pictorial approach makes it easy to just pick out something that interests you and save it to your own Pinterest pin board, so you can simply save it or share with others. We’ve got lots of pin ‘boards’ on our Pinterest profile, where we’ve pinned images and links to articles that interest us as early years practitioners. We think you’ll like them too. Board topics include nature activities, sensory activities for under-5s, early years parenting, Forest School, outdoor play, preschool, nursery school activities and, of course, Little Acorns Nursery itself.
If you’re on Instagram, check out our photo gallery on our own Instagram profile. It shows images of the children playing and learning at the nursery as well as featured images that link to our highly interesting blog posts.
Little Acorns Nursery is @LittleAcornsNurseryChorley on Google and;
If you have used our childcare service and were pleased, please 
We’re active here on our Little Acorns blog too. Here, you’ll find larger articles that tend to cover the ‘bigger’ topics that parents and carers of children under five will find useful. These are well-researched, detailed and often very educational articles that will keep parents well-informed. For example, we cover topics like 
Today, we look at how early years childcare providers like Little Acorns Nursery can help children under five if they have special educational needs and disabilities. This is often referred to as ‘SEND’ or in longer forms like ‘SEN and disabilities’. Let’s explore the topic to get an overview of some of the help available.
Actually identifying an area of special need or disability is, of course, the first, crucial step in being able to help a child. If an area of special need is suspected, early years providers can work with parents and sometimes other professionals, for example health visitors, speech and language therapists, paediatricians and so on. Involving such professionals will help with any diagnosis.
This is important. Early years providers can create an inclusive environment that welcomes and supports children of all abilities. Encouraging the inclusion of children in social groups and in the making of friends, for example, is of huge benefit to children’s well-being. Childcare settings can also provide special equipment or adapt the environment to make it more accessible for children with specific physical needs.
Early years providers like Little Acorns Nursery adapt the individual learning and development plans and activities to suit each child. In this way, they’re custom-designed to meet the needs of every child individually, including those with special needs. This is done as a matter of course as part of 
Later, each child will similarly have an ‘EYFS profile’ completed during the final term of reception year. However, as we’re focusing this article on children under five, we’ll not go into detail about that here.
It may be useful for parents and carers to note that local authorities have a duty to publish what’s known as a ‘Local Offer’. This outlines the help available in the area for children with SEND, including how to access that support.
One of the first challenges when considering childcare for your little one is how to fund it. If you’re an affluent family, then great. However, if childcare costs will be a more significant hurdle to overcome, the good news is that there are lots of options available. Either way, it will help to be well-informed about the various childcare funding schemes on offer from the Government. There are quite a few of them and some are extremely generous and surprisingly easy to obtain. Today’s Quick Guide to Childcare Funding Options in England will give you an at-a-glance overview of what’s available, the key eligibility criteria and how to apply. Note, though, that they generally fund in-person childcare only from approved providers (like Little Acorns). Take a look at the many options …
You’ve no doubt heard of, or read about, childcare ‘vouchers’. They sound great, but what are they and how do you get them?
Tax-Free Childcare is a great scheme which, in contrast to childcare vouchers, is widely available to working families — even for those with relatively high earnings.
Certain 2-year-olds are eligible for 15 hours of free childcare each week, through another Government scheme. This one is to help primarily those families on benefits.
3 and 4-year-olds in England are very well catered for when it comes to free childcare funding. This is aimed to help them receive that all-important early years education and to help those parents wishing to return to the workplace.
Tax Credits specifically for childcare are only available to existing claimants under the scheme, through ‘Working Tax Credits’. New claimants should instead refer to the ‘Childcare Funding through Universal Credit’ section below.
For those who are eligible, this is quite a generous scheme that allows them to reclaim* as much as 85% of their childcare costs. The maximum available, however, is £646.35* each month for one child, or it’s £1108.04* for more than one.
This is a grant that does not need to be repaid and is in addition to any undergraduate Student Finance.
Learner Support is a type of financial support designed for students who are suffering financial hardship. It can be used to fund childcare for eligible students who are also parents.
Care to Learn may suit if you are a parent who is not yet 20 and are studying on a publicly-funded course, although see caveats below.
As promised in our recent 
Microgreens, also known as micro leaves, are the young shoots of growing plants that are edible. Examples include the seedlings of herbs like basil and coriander, red cabbage micro leaves and the shoots from root vegetables like beetroot. When growing, the seedlings form a thick and rich ‘carpet’ of shoots that, when ready, can be snipped off en masse and used in meals as salads or garnishes. What’s more, they’re delicious, highly nutritious and make meals look amazing. The entire activity can also be accomplished indoors in any home. You do not need to have a garden because a well-lit windowsill or counter top will more than suffice.
Microgreen seeds. These are available inexpensively online or at places like garden centres and even some supermarkets. You can buy microgreen mixed seeds or choose seeds for rocket, beetroot, spinach, red cabbage, fennel, broccoli, radish or mustard. Each has a distinctive look, when growing, and flavour, when eaten. Read the packets for more detail or just have fun and experiment!
Different microgreen seeds grow at different rates but usually a dense carpet of growing shoots and tiny leaves will cover the trays or pots within one or two weeks. Generally speaking, when you can see small, immature leaves at the top of shoots about 1 to 1¼ inches tall, they are about ready to be harvested. For young children in particular, snipping them off is best done by parents, to avoid injury. The carpet of microgreens can be snipped off, using scissors, low down near where the shoots begin. It’s best to snip them off rather than to pull them up by the roots because then they have the chance to regrow and give you/your child a second crop later on. The microgreens can then be washed in a fine colander, under a cold tap, to remove any remnants of soil.
Your child can then continue the fun by helping with meal preparation (with adult supervision for safety). Microgreens make wonderful garnishes, are lovely in salads and sandwiches and can also be added to things like soup, risotto, pasta, baked potatoes and burgers. They are incredibly attractive to look at, jazzing up any meal and also giving children extra nutrients to consume. They are also a great way to encourage children to try new tastes and food textures.
