From the first day of opening our doors in September 2015, Smarties has gone from strength to strength and now offers 52 places set into three rooms – babies, toddlers and Pre-schoolers.
We pride ourselves on our high standards of teaching; our Manager and Deputy Manager both hold a BA honours Degree in Early Years and all our Practitioners are qualified to a minimum of Level 3 Childcare in Early Years Qualification or above, including a qualified teacher in our Pre-school section. We also provide opportunities for people to join our Apprenticeship Programme and currently support two students with their studies and hands on learning experiences.
We know how important it is that you feel your child is in safe hands and our full team of Practitioners are Paediatric First Aid Trained. This allowed us to gain Millie’s Mark accreditation which provides reassurance to our parents and acknowledges that children’s safety is at the forefront of our mind when we care for your child.
We have now achieved Steps One and Two of the ‘Steps to Quality’ quality assurance scheme which covers many areas including: play, care and inclusion, environment, management, training and development and relationships.
In January 2019 Ofsted undertook an inspection of the Nursery. We were recognised as being outstanding in all four areas. Comments included:
- Staff provide activities that are highly appealing and precisely meet the learning needs and preferences of individual children. Children enjoy continuous access to the outdoor area, and the free flow of play ensures children are provided with every opportunity to enrich their learning experiences.
- Staff have established highly effective partnerships with parents. From the very beginning, parents are encouraged to be involved in the assessment process and make significant contributions to children’s learning both in the nursery and at home. They speak very highly of the nursery and the staff.
- The managers work closely with local schools. The integrated approach offers children a wealth of learning opportunities. For example, children use the science department of the local high school to conduct exciting science experiments.
Our aim has always been to be outstanding and we are working hard to stay that way!
You can read more about Smarties on this website, however, if you have any questions you feel we have not answered, please do get in touch via our contact us page.