Our core values are unique and make the difference between Blue Willow being a good setting and a great setting. Each nursery has their own ideas about how best to care for children, and make sure they happy and safe. And of course, how they will deliver the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework! Our vision for Blue Willow has always been to bridge the gap between childminding settings and nurseries. We aim to be a safe and nurturing environment that focuses on happy, healthy, and independent children.
A warm, welcome, and homely environment.
Our priority is making sure children feel safe, secure, and happy as they would in their own homes. We are more than a just a childcare setting. We are an extension of home, with plants, comfy sofas, lamps, rugs and even a record player the children can hear when they arrive. The nursery is open plan, with designated cozy areas. We’ve use
d warm, natural colours to provide a calm and tranquil environment.
Children are greeted individually as soon as they arrive. They choose their welcome stone and take it to their key worker. This makes sure children feel safe, secure, and make good attachments. It provides the opportunity for key workers to check all is ok and well. It sets them up for their session. A happy child is a child ready to learn!
Children are encouraged to get involved in daily tasks, like they might in their own homes. Children will help practitioners water the plants, rake the leaves, help empty the bins, sweep the floors, and wipe down the tables for lunch. The list is endless, and they really enjoy it. The task is the activity, just like home!
Curious resources that inspire inquisitive minds
We have spent many hours in antique stores and car boots looking for curious items that will inspire curiosity and open-ended play. We are a toy free setting (typically plastic) A plastic telephone that lights and up and rings will entertain a child. But it is limited to do one thing and used for one purpose. However, if you replaced the phone with a stick for example…they are provided with endless opportunities to play imaginatively.
Mixed Aged Socialising
Blue Willow has 2 age groups of children, Yellow Beeches is 0-3 years, and Green Elms is 3-5 years. Yellow Beech group have designated Baby Beech strategies to support the very youngest children in the group with high care and supervision needs.
We operate this way because we have seen the benefits of children in mixed aged socializing environments, from childminding! It’s also how siblings interact at home and it’s important for their development. The older children learn how to be caring and tolerant towards younger children, and younger children copy and learn from the older children.
Outdoor Play
Our garden at Blue Willow has lots of wonderful, outdoor learning opportunities that the natural environment can offer. No two days are the same with the changing weather and seasons. Children can be physically active and free to learn and explore in which ever ways they like. We have always promoted outdoor learning, and Green Elms especially being older and more active are based outside for most of the day, in all weather conditions! The weather should not be a deterrent to outdoor play. We like to say, ‘it’s not bad weather, just the wrong clothing.’ We like to look at ways to still promote outdoor learning, even in the darker winter months, During the winter months when it dark for example, we love the idea of children taking torches out into the garden to become night-time explorers.
Independent and Confident Children
How and what we teach the children is a common question. We are often asked when children will learn their ABC’s and 1,2,3’s. Although literacy and mathematics form a part of the Early Years curriculum, and they certainly have a place in children’s learning, they don’t appear anywhere within the prime areas.
Although mathematics and literacy should be introduced and taught through play as often as possible, we primarily promote the fundamental building blocks that create happy, confident and capable individuals that are equipped to learn math’s and literacy when they start school. We want children to make secure attachments, be confident around adults and children and to make friends. To be able to share and do things independently. When children start school, they will be equipped and ready to learn.
Come and have a look, and see how we do things the Blue Willow Way!
Blue Willow Holmer Green provides childcare for the community and is accessible to the wider surrounding areas of Hazlemere, Wider End, Little Kingshill, Great Kingshill, Little Missenden, Beaconsfield and High Wycombe.
For more information call us on 01494 490230
Blue Willow Bath Road in Slough provides childcare in the heart of Slough and is accessible to the wider surrounding areas of Stoke Poges, Langley, Windsor, Burnham and Cippenham.
For more information call us on 01753 517505
