From 9 months, young children can join The Barnes Village Nursery in the Raspberry Room. The teachers in this room are not just Early Years Educators. They ensure that each child is loved and cared for in a small, homely, and cosy environment. We adapt according to the babies’ needs throughout the day. Resources, activities, and toys will provide them with learning through play, connecting to the Nursery’s core curriculum with topic work. Our gentle introduction to a Nursery curriculum will each day include small world play, story times, music, adventure bags, sensory play, interactive toys and exploration of all aspects of learning. Furthermore, each day, the Raspberries will investigate the Common and surrounding areas of natural beauty, learning from the nature on our doorstep.

Our Blueberry children are aged approximately 22 months to 38 months. This classroom has ample space to explore resources and activities from mark-making, construction, sensory messy play, reading, technology, role play and small world. Topic work is blended into independent learning and shared engaged activities. The teachers encourage the children’s growing communication and socialisation skills through shared activities, circle time and plenty of one-to-one time with experienced adults. The children grow in confidence by practicing both fine and gross motor skills as well as becoming more independent in their self care. The Blueberries is a home from home playroom with low level resources set out to inspire and learn through play.

Gooseberry children are aged 3 and above. This cosy classroom gently encourages more structured discovery through play, working with our friends on projects, topic work and consolidating our learning with expanded vocabulary, shared ideas and stories. The children explore mark-making and creative arts through a huge variety of mediums, study different fictional books and characters, and role-play to their hearts’ content from Astronauts to Zebra-keepers. We spend a lot of time engaged in lateral learning, not solely following a traditionally linear path of numeracy and literacy, but also using our wonderous imagination to forge new paths of discovery and learning. There is a focus in this classroom on creating firm friendships and developing the skills to share and take turns that are so crucial as we learn to engage effectively with those around us.

The Rainbow Classroom is for our pre-school children where they continue to develop in a loving home-from-home environment. This classroom is spacious, warm and inviting with areas for messy & sensory play, mark-making, literacy, numeracy, construction and role-play as well as many open-ended activities where the children’s own imagination is the only limit. Our daily circle time fosters discussion, decision making and engagement in classroom activities. A gentle routine is established to help the children with transitioning into a school environment. Guided by knowledgeable teachers, they develop vocabulary, manners and essential school-readiness skills, embodying our aims of creating confident, independent and highly social small people, ready for their next step.