What Makes Us Different?
Our Learning Environment
Our Location
Our Staff
Our Learning Environment
Cosy inside space
We have sole use of spacious rooms at the rear of St Mark’s Community Centre. Our rooms are uncluttered, with neutral-tone walls and curtained areas that house many of our resources. We have a large main room, a smaller ‘quiet’ room for registration, story times and small group work, and a large home corner space with a den and open-ended resources for imaginative play.
Large outdoor space
The garden is split into two separate areas. Our playtime area has a hard standing for trikes and scooters, equipment for construction, a storytelling stage, a willow tunnel, a grassy area, and a large planting area for the children to grow their own food to harvest and cook in the summer term.
Forest School and outdoor classroom
The Forest School area offers children the opportunity to climb trees, swing on the rope swing, or sit at base camp for fires and singing. Children build self-confidence while exploring many outdoor activities such as woodwork, outdoor cooking, gardening or just enjoying looking up at the tall trees to spot wildlife.
Our Location
City and woodland on our doorstep
We are very fortunate to be close to the city as well as local woodland and parks. This enables us to take the children to explore their local environment regularly. We use the city as part of our learning environment such as visiting the Egg Theatre, the garden centre, the river, the local woodland, and exhibitions in the city. Children can learn from their community as well as feel a valued part of it.
Our Staff Team
High adult-to-child ratios
At Acorns we believe very strongly that a high adult-to-child ratio is essential in providing outstanding quality child-care, therefore we always have at least one member of staff to five children. This is higher than the average ratio operated elsewhere and the Ofsted recommended minimum level, which is 1:8 for three-year-old children.
Our experienced and long standing staff team
Our Managers are supported in Acorns by a very experienced team, most of whom have worked in Acorns for several years. We are lucky to have a very low turn-over of staff which provides a consistency of care toward our children. The team work extremely well together, with many different talents ensuring there is a wide range of activities for the children to choose from throughout the session. There is a consistency of care in Acorns throughout everything we do, children are always valued and respected by every member of the team.
