self-confidence Archives | Little Acorns Nursery School https://www.littleacornsnursery.school/tag/self-confidence/ Mon, 12 Jan 2026 12:46:33 +0000 en-GB hourly 1 Glowing Ofsted Feedback for Little Acorns Nursery https://www.littleacornsnursery.school/good-ofsted-feedback-for-little-acorns-nursery/ Fri, 15 Nov 2024 14:28:26 +0000 http://s351775982.websitehome.co.uk/Dev-Updates/?p=6725 Our post today spotlights some of the many glowing comments made by the Ofsted inspector following her recent visit.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.]]> Tips for Potty Training Tots https://www.littleacornsnursery.school/tips-for-potty-training-tots/ Mon, 15 Apr 2024 14:07:25 +0000 https://www.littleacornsnursery.school/?p=6330 Achieving potty training success will improve the quality of life for the child, the parent, and other guardians involved in the child's care.One of the key tasks all tots must face, in tandem with parents, is potty training. It's something we all had to master as toddlers and therefore we know it's 100% achievable — despite it sometimes seeming to be rather a challenge. Achieving success, though, will improve the quality of life for the child, the parent, and other guardians involved in the child's care. Learning to master the use of the potty and later the toilet will also be a major boost to self-confidence and independence when the child is at nursery, preschool, and later school. With that in mind, today's guide outlines our top tips for successful potty training.]]> Encouraging Learning Through Play at Home https://www.littleacornsnursery.school/encouraging-learning-through-play-at-home/ Thu, 14 Dec 2023 18:01:24 +0000 https://www.littleacornsnursery.school/?p=6048 Parents play a crucial role in fostering an environment that supports exploration, curiosity, and growth through home-based play.As we discussed in our recent post The Power of Learning Through Play in Early Childhood, play helps babies and children to improve cognitive skills, social skills, motor skills and emotional growth. It feeds the imagination, boosts creativity and fosters a love of learning. Language skills benefit, problem-solving abilities are enhanced, and children naturally pick up maths concepts and even elements of science through play. With that in mind, today's post follows up with the topic of Encouraging Learning Through Play at Home.

How to Encourage Learning Through Play at Home

Play-based learning doesn't stop when children leave childcare nurseries; it continues at home, where parents and caregivers play a crucial role in fostering an environment that supports exploration, curiosity, and growth through play. Through the suggestions outlined below, parents can help children more optimally benefit from everything that learning through play provides — while at home.]]> Why Nature is So Important to Children https://www.littleacornsnursery.school/importance-of-nature-to-children/ Fri, 12 Nov 2021 08:30:43 +0000 https://www.littleacornsnursery.school/?p=3906 We explore the immense benefits of nature to childrenToday we'll look at the immense benefits of nature to children. While the long-term benefits of nature are reasonably well-known, it turns out short-term exposure to the natural environment also has1 clear benefits for people of any age. The benefits are even more beneficial, though, for young people during their early years, at school and in higher education. The greatest benefits come when children and young adults are able to spend time actually in the outdoors, surrounded by natural things like trees, flowers, grass and wildlife. Even a short break spent in such an environment will help to restore attention, cognitive function and mental resilience — and this is backed up by many studies. Incredibly, some3 have demonstrated that there are cognitive and performance benefits even when there is just a view of the natural environment, for example sight of green grass and trees through an open window in the classroom. That's remarkable when you think about it.

The Benefits of Nature to Children

A girl takes a closer look at growing leaves.One of the wonderful things about nature is that immersing oneself in it need not cost a penny. With so many proven benefits, it just goes to show that the old adage that 'the best things in life are free' really is true when it comes to nature. Exposure to the natural environment and green surroundings has been shown to have clear benefits ...

Attention Restoration

Nature is a great healer; time spent in the natural environment helps to counteract the depletion of mental resources, particularly after periods of perhaps intense mental work, for example following a series of lessons or tasks. The fascinating quality of nature is also key to this as it requires a kind of 'softer' attention, with the brain working on an almost involuntary basis. This is part of what's known as Attention Restoration Theory ('ART'). It is thought to work in such a way as to allow cognitive function to ...]]> Healthy Eating for Toddlers & Preschoolers https://www.littleacornsnursery.school/healthy-eating-under-five/ Thu, 15 Jul 2021 07:15:26 +0000 https://www.littleacornsnursery.school/?p=3764 Eating a healthy, balanced diet is incredibly important for under-fives as they're still growing & developing.Eating a healthy, balanced diet is important at any age. However, during their formative years when they're still growing, it's even more important for under-fives. Their young bodies and brains are still developing, so getting the right balance of food types, vitamins and nutrients is essential in order to maintain optimum health, cognitive function and even sufficient energy levels. (Regular exercise is also essential, of course – however, we'll cover that separately in a future post).

The Benefits of a Healthy Diet

The benefits of maintaining a healthy eating regime are far-reaching and important, especially for young children. At this age, it's important for them to get into good eating habits rather than bad ones. So, setting them on the right path at an early age is essential. As well as feeding their bodies and brains with everything they need to properly develop, some of the significant benefits of healthy eating include:
  • Improved cognitive function and attention, with all the leaning benefits that these will bring;
  • Sufficient energy levels to undertake all their daily tasks;
  • A greater chance of avoiding certain diseases in later life, potentially including high blood pressure, diabetes, heart problems and even cancer;
  • Maintaining more even moods;
  • Maintaining a more healthy body weight and, through so doing, avoiding potential obesity. Avoiding becoming obese also leaves them less prone to bullying;
  • A greater sense of self-image and self-esteem, leading to greater self-confidence;
  • Overall, improved mental and physical wellbeing.
That's a huge and important list of benefits. Advice from Public Health England also suggests that ]]> Our EYFS Nursery Curriculum https://www.littleacornsnursery.school/eyfs-nursery-curriculum/ Wed, 19 May 2021 15:22:20 +0000 https://www.littleacornsnursery.school/?p=3667 The curriculum at our Clayton-le-Woods nursery adheres to what's known as the Early Years Foundation Stage (‘EYFS’) framework. This educational framework is specified by the UK Government and its implementation is overseen and appraised by Ofsted. It's down to individual nurseries like Little Acorns to implement the framework and we strive to do so in the optimum way. This is all achieved in a stress-free, relaxed way, almost entirely through active play. This approach makes learning natural — and immense fun!
“Children learn by leading their own play, and by taking part in play which is guided by adults.” (Department for Education).
The EYFS curriculum covers all the critically important areas of learning and development for babies (from birth) up to children aged 5. As such, it's a perfect fit for children at Little Acorns Nursery.

The 3 Prime Areas of the Curriculum

There are 7 key areas within the early years curriculum. These include 3 ‘prime’ areas which, in turn, interconnect and enhance the remaining four — each helping to improve the other.
  • Communication & Language is the first of the three prime areas of our EYFS-based curriculumCommunication & Language is the first of the three prime areas of our EYFS-based curriculum. Without good communication and language skills, all other areas of learning could suffer, so these are critically important skills for children to master in their early years. Staff at the nursery therefore encourage rich communications between staff and children — and from peer to peer — from the very first day they join the nursery. Language and communication skills grow naturally to children through engaging, fun activities like role-play, story-telling and question-and-answer games. High quality books and other rich reading materials are also employed by staff to read with children in an interactive way. Using these kind of approaches helps children to learn new vocabulary and grammar, to improve reading and comprehension and to almost effortlessly broaden their language and communication skills as they grow.
  • Physical Development is the second of the prime areas of the nursery's EYFS-based curriculum. At this formative age, the ...]]> Why *Every Parent* Should Be Involved in Their Child’s Education https://www.littleacornsnursery.school/parents-involvement-in-childrens-education/ Thu, 15 Apr 2021 10:12:20 +0000 https://www.littleacornsnursery.school/?p=3632 Compelling evidence shows that there are enormous benefits for children when parents are closely and proactively involved in their education. Research shows that parents are the key to children's successIndeed, parents can be thought of as key to their children's success, if they support children's education in the right ways. We'll go through exactly what that means, along with some of the many benefits, in this article.
    During the earliest years of schooling ... students with active parents are almost twice as likely to succeed. (Pinantoan)
    Additional research also concluded that children are statistically far more successful in school when their parents “invest time and place value on their children’s education.”

    So, How Can Parents Help?

    Children will benefit in a multitude of ways when parents involve themselves in the child's education. That involvement can take many forms ... ]]>         Ultimate Guide To Forest School https://www.littleacornsnursery.school/forest-school-ultimate-guide/ Tue, 09 Mar 2021 17:32:12 +0000 https://www.littleacornsnursery.school/?p=3599 Little Acorns Nursery runs Forest School sessions in Clayton-le-Woods, Chorley, LancashireLittle Acorns Nursery offers Forest School sessions and, indeed, was the first childcare setting in the Chorley area to offer them. Many parents understand that ‘Forest School’ offers children outdoor discovery sessions where they can explore nature and all that the Great Outdoors has to offer. However, what's it really about? What is the ethos behind it? How did it come about and what is its history? Perhaps most importantly, what are its benefits to children? Here we'll answer all those questions and more, in our Ultimate Guide to Forest School.]]> Ofsted Report: “Outstanding Childcare Provision” from Little Acorns Nursery https://www.littleacornsnursery.school/outstanding-ofsted-report-little-acorns-nursery/ Fri, 05 Feb 2021 12:45:35 +0000 https://www.littleacornsnursery.school/?p=3539

    An outstanding childcare provider in Clayton-le-Woods, Chorley, Central Lancashire

    Last month we reported on Little Acorns Nursery winning best ‘Individual Nursery’ award at the National NMT Nursery Awards. When you consider that the nursery was selected from all the other possible nurseries from across the entire UK, that's an incredible feat! It should now come as no surprise, then, to learn that Ofsted's most recent report also scored the nursery as 'Outstanding' — in every category. In this post, we'll go through Ofsted's report to see what they said about the nursery and why they were so impressed during their inspection. [av_promobox button='no' label='Click me' link='manually,http://' link_target='' color='theme-color' custom_bg='#444444' custom_font='#ffffff' size='large' label_display='' icon_select='no' icon='ue800' font='entypo-fontello' box_color='' box_custom_font='#ffffff' box_custom_bg='#444444' box_custom_border='#333333' av_uid='av-94fpv' admin_preview_bg='']

    Ofsted Report for Little Acorns Nursery, ChorleyThe Ofsted Report Concludes that Little Acorns Nursery Provides ...

    So, “Outstanding” — right across the board! Click the report image to download/view it in full (Acrobat PDF format) or read the highlights below.[/av_promobox] We'll cover each of those areas in more detail below. First, though, we'll highlight some general comments received in the Ofsted Report. Every one of them is extremely positive; indeed Ofsted had literally nothing negative to say about this outstanding Chorley nursery anywhere in their report ...

    Continuous Improvement “to the Highest Possible Levels”

    In the Ofsted Report, the inspector recognised the culture of continuous improvement at the nursery, saying ...]]>         Our Autumn 2020 Newsletter https://www.littleacornsnursery.school/our-autumn-2020-newsletter/ Tue, 01 Sep 2020 16:20:55 +0000 https://www.littleacornsnursery.school/?p=3377