Spring Nurseries

Spring Nurseries by Action for Children offer unmatched opportunities in positive learning environments for children aged 0-5. We have a flexible and modern approach to childcare, to support families across the UK and provide each and every child with the best start in life. Our award-winning nurseries are all rated Good or Outstanding by Ofsted (or equivalent inspectorate) and provide children with safe and exciting learning experiences. Our nurseries are bright, modern and engaging with professional and nurturing teams who inspire and enable children to discover their individuality and creativity, supporting to unleash their full potential.

We believe in building strong parent partnerships and ensure parents are part of their child’s learning and development journey every step of the way. We work in partnership with parents to provide them with the confidence that their child will flourish through educational play, healthy lifestyles and a deep understanding of the world around them. We ensure parents feel reassured and are part of their child’s day by communicating with each parent through our modern nursery app Famly, providing parents with observations, updates and photos daily.

Our Ethos

Children’s early years are the most important years of their lives, and we are passionate about being a springboard for healthy first steps. Our approach focusses on the individual needs and interests of every child which is reflected through the child-led learning and play offered at all our settings. We have a large focus on health and wellbeing to incorporate nutrition, physical activity and positive attitudes into the children’s experiences at Spring. Child and parent wellbeing is our key priority.

We follow the EYFS in England and Curriculum for Excellence in Scotland to ensure that children develop the knowledge and skills they need from early learning and childcare through school and beyond. You can read more about our approach to children’s learning here.

Our teams are always kept inspired and motivated through our highly competitive terms and conditions along with a career progression pathway and ongoing training opportunities to ensure they can always apply the most knowledge and best practice to every child’s nursery experience. Each Nursery Manager is Mental Health First Aid Trained and we have an Operations Manager that oversees every nursery too.  We have paediatric first aid trained staff at all our Spring settings. 

Children at Spring are offered fresh, nutritious and high-quality snack and meals made in the settings from our Eat Better Start Better menus. Where we are unable to cook meals in-house, we work in partnership with Apetito, who provide healthy, nutritious meals in line with Eat Better Start Better Guidelines. You can read more about our food offering here.

Each nursery has its own Facebook page updated regularly and we also have main Spring Nursery social media pages on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter that you can follow to stay updated with the latest news, offers and helpful information. 

We maintain high standards in care and safety and provide high quality early years education. We know that children greatly benefit from high quality care, this is demonstrated through our inspection reports, parents reviews and our internal quality assurance programme ‘Quality Matters’.  You can read more about the quality of our nurseries by reading learning and play, healthy lifestyles, Parent communications, our team, Forest schools

Nursery Rooms

Our nurseries follow a Spring structure for each room to ensure consistency across all of our settings for children to grow, develop and thrive. 

Explorers (0-30 months)

Young children and babies will experience a range of stimulating resources which are open-ended and relevant to their individual interests. There are ample opportunities for messy and sensory play so that young children and babies can use all their senses to ‘explore’ their environment.  Our indoor and outdoor areas are places where children can explore, build, move and engage in role play. We provide a welcoming secure environment that helps children and parents make attachments and friendships. 

Discoverers (18-30 months)

Young children will be given opportunities to ‘discover’ their indoor and outdoor environments.  Providing exciting play opportunities that support children to build-upon what they know and be willing to have a go.  We do this by encouraging children to initiate activities and seek new challenges in their play.  This supports active learning which helps them to build the skills they need to engage in new experiences and learn by trial and error. Children will become deeply involved in their play and start to notice what arouses their curiosity and imagination.  We support young children to become more connected and develop a sense of belonging in their environment. 

Navigators (24-36 months)

Children ‘navigate’ through their enriching indoor and outdoor environment supporting their learning with independence, exploration, and curiosity. Children are provided with a range of resources and props to enhance imaginative play.  As part of their active learning children will start to maintain their focus on activities of interest, which will extend their learning.  They will show high levels of energy, want to learn from each other and develop their own motivations for learning. We provide a stable, safe environment to enable children to cope with change and challenge. 

Inventors (30-48 months)

Children’s take risks and making choices to support them to plan their play in an environment that encourages autonomous learners. Children have the opportunity to ‘invent’ their own play, and find new ways of doing things, as they make sense of the world! Children start to become more aware of their goals, make their own plans and celebrate their success. Children start to demonstrate positive self-esteem and self-worth.  They will begin to show strong attachments to their peers and the wider community and demonstrate a sense of belonging in their environment.

Innovators (36 months +)

Children will experience life skills, solve problem and experiment by taking risks. They will work together to ‘innovate’ new ways to learn, using resources indoors and outdoors to shape their minds. Children start to make links in their learning, predict and test their ideas as they become increasingly independent, they will start to choose the way they want to do things which involves planning and reflecting on their ideas. Children will display strong emotional well-being as they begin to take responsibility for their learning. 

Out of School Club Rooms – Pioneers

Children are encouraged to take on new adventures and explore new territories ‘pioneering’ life skills and experiences giving them a diverse approach to learning and life. Children are active partners in their interactions, constructing knowledge, skills and attitudes.

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