Field House Day Care Nursery is situated in the West End area of Stoke, just off London Road.
The nursery building was constructed in approximately 1885 as the home of the Fleet family. They remained as residents until the early 1940’s, when Stoke-on-Trent City Council purchased the property and it became ‘Field House Nursery School’. It stayed as a statutory nursery school for children aged 3+ until 2002, when it closed as part of a programme whereby the Local Authority amalgamated small nursery schools with the larger schools in the locality.
The building remained unoccupied until it was purchased in November 2005 by the current owners. The building was then refurbished and modernised in time to re-open in June 2006. The vision was to retain the traditional feel and character of the building but to modernise where necessary to make it the exclusive day care provision it is today.
The Nursery Manager, Nikkii, was appointed in November 2005 and has substantially contributed to the success of the nursery over the past 11 years. Nikkii has a Foundation Degree in Early Years and has worked within the child care sector for 25 years. She leads a team of over 20 practitioners that strive to provide the best environment possible for the well-being and development of every child that attends our nursery. Graded OUTSTANDING at our most recent inspection, Ofsted described the leadership as ‘inspirational’ and stated ‘there is meticulous focus on self-evaluation in the pursuit of excellence’.
Our aim is to provide a secure and caring environment where children can experience a wide variety of activities and facilitate social interaction with peers and adults. We work within each child’s developmental stage and capabilities and always positively support children’s learning in all areas of development to enable them to become independent, confident, school ready individuals.
Outdoor Play
Field House has a huge emphasis on outdoor play, ensuring that children are actively involved in physical activities. We believe this benefits children by enabling them to become healthier, happier and more physically competent when playing outdoors.
Outdoor play considers the provision of opportunities for children to connect to different skills, ideas, knowledge and materials that promotes social learning, creativity and problem-solving skills. We thrive on providing movement as it is child’s most natural form of expression and should be an essential part of their everyday experience.
Children access outdoor play as they wish and this is built into their day with us. The opportunity to play outside, throughout the year in all different kinds of weather, is as important as playing inside. Incorporating children’s interests and using the EYFS and Characteristic of Effective Learning, all children thoroughly enjoy outdoor play – and so do we!
Meeting Children’s Needs
Our nursery has been created with little people’s well-being and emotional security at its heart. Our key person system is strong to ensure the care we provide is holistic and built on a caring, supportive relationship with our children and their families. The key person will co-ordinate little people’s experiences and learning journey and ensure that every child’s care is tailored to meet their individual needs. This also includes detailed dietary and medical requirement needs and effective information sharing
Quality Monitoring
The nursery has very strong procedures in place to assist in raising standards through reflective practice, effective auditing and good communication by staff throughout the nursery. The staff receive substantial ongoing Continuous Professional Development and regularly attend training sessions to ensure they remain fully informed of current Best Practice.
Ages of Children:
We are registered with Ofsted to care for children aged 0-8 years.
Following the construction of our Courtyard Room extension in 2017, we now have capacity for a maximum of 85 children at any one time.
Opening Times:
We are open from 7.30am until 6pm, Monday to Friday.
AM session – 7.30am-1pm and PM session – 1pm-5.45pm.
Funded sessions are 7.50am-12.50pm, 1pm-5.45pm.
Staff:
All senior staff have a minimum level 3 childcare qualification and all trainees will be working towards a minimum level 2 childcare qualification.
All staff receive an enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service check and any voluntary staff and trainees are always supervised.
Fees:
The fee schedule is available from the Information Pack dropdown on the website or else from the nursery manager. Our all-inclusive fees are competitively priced and provide excellent value for money, especially in light of our Ofsted Outstanding status.
The fee structure is transparent, contains no hidden extras and we offer sibling discount.
We provide Early Years Free Entitlement (EYFE) sessions for 2, 3 and 4 year olds and accept childcare vouchers.