Little Acorns Wins the UK’s Best Individual Nursery Award

How Little Acorns Provides Excellent & High Quality Childcare

“Hi, I’m Sarah. I’m the manager nursery at Little Acorns Nursery and have been for the last 12 years. We provide high quality nursery education for our children, because of the people that work here. They’re a very, very special bunch of people. Every teacher here understands the responsibility and the importance they play in childhood education and setting the foundations that all children need to help them to thrive in the future.

Little Acorns always felt like a family feel and our parents notice this; one of the things that that our parents always say about us is it feels more like a family, which is something that we feel is so special. Not only do we have an amazing team of passionate practitioners, but each room is led by extremely enthusiastic, passionate and knowledgeable leaders who champion the ethos of Little Acorns every single day through their own outstanding practice.

As well as the leaders within the nursery, we also have strong collaborative leadership from our CEO, Dr Javid Sultan, and our Managing Director Jennie Taylor who’s had 25 years nursery experience. We champion the NHS values and these are used, and they are the inspiration behind our own ethos and mission statement and what we value also.”

Mission: To bring together the best team who are dedicated to providing a nurturing and friendly environment where children are thriving, happy, have fun and learn through play.

Vision: To be recognised as the best in the area, providing a high standard of care and education through curiosity and outdoor learning.

What we Value: Achievement. Teamwork. Knowledge. Creativity. Growth. Family.

Activities in Place to Encourage Learning & Play for Children

“Each day, we are led by our children. We follow their interests and, through play-based learning, we support, we encourage, we model, explain, demonstrate, facilitate; we set challenges. We know each individual child’s focus area and every member of staff is responsible for furthering that child’s learning. Through our individual areas of focus and cohort focuses, we then plan activities. Everything we do has purpose.”

The Biggest Challenges the Nursery has Faced & How it Overcame Them

“The biggest challenge that we’ve faced has been the most recent Covid-19 pandemic. It was a very difficult time for all of our children and families but we remained open for our families throughout the initial lockdown. And it’s something that we feel very strongly about continuing to do if ever there was another/second lockdown. We want to be able to provide that service still for our parents and families. It was a really difficult time, having our children at home and not having that consistency of seeing them here but we maintained contact; we stayed in touch with them via video link, we spoke to them regularly and they got to show us around their houses and have a chat to us about what they’ve been up to, which was really lovely for us to still see. And, for the children that were here, we gave lots more emotional support for our children and families and the parents when they needed it the most as well. And we overcame this because we work together as a team. And, because we have such passionate and enthusiastic practitioners that work here, we came together as a team and we we got through it all together.”

An Example of Exceptional Care that the Nursery is Particularly Proud of

“I believe that we provide exceptional care for our children and families, every single day. We recently did a charity fundraiser. All the staff came together and we wanted to raise money for a defibrillator for inside our nursery. So, we walked from Preston to Chorley Hospital and all of our parents sponsored us. We were able to raise enough money to buy a defibrillator for the nursery, which is something that we’re really, really proud of.

Everything that we do is for our children; they are at the centre of absolutely everything. We know the positive impact we had on all of our children and families during lockdown and we take great pride in knowing that we maintained an environment where children were happy, safe, loved and supported and where they learn and achieve. Children returning from lockdown came back to the same familiar place, with the same friendly faces and were welcomed back with open arms.

And, you know, the phrase “we’re all in this together” is something that we appreciate now more than ever and I feel very, very lucky to work in this environment with the teachers and practitioners that I work with — and to be part of Little Acorns. It’s an absolutely special place to be. Thank you.”