Abbeydale Cottage Nursery

Our Nursery

We have 4 classrooms at ACN:

Yellow Room - 6 weeks - 15 months

Here we welcome babies and young toddlers from 6 weeks until approximately 15 months. Our experienced staff will work with you to support your baby’s routine and development, sharing information via our Famly app so you can feel connected to your baby throughout their time at nursery. Your baby will be allocated a key worker who will spend time building a nurturing relationship with your little one.

We provide a wide range of activities to stimulate and support babies and young toddler’s development; particularly focusing on sensory exploration as they learn to use all their senses to understand the world around them and strengthen communication and language through songs and rhymes.

This room has its own feeding area and a quiet sleep area where your baby can sleep peacefully, away from the noise of other children playing.

Red Classroom -15 months - 2 years

Your child will move from the yellow room to the red room at approximately 15 months old until they are around 2 years old. This room is set out with different areas, such as role play/home corner, story area, messy play area (including sand, water, and paint), construction, and mark making. Our children are free to choose where they would like to play both indoors and outdoors, following their own interests and facinations.

In red room, we focus on children’s speech and language, physical and emotional development through talking, singing, creative activities and physically active play. Children are encouraged to join in with a fun, interactive group time in the morning and to participate in calming “yoga” style exercises in the afternoon to aid their physical development and promote concentration. These activities will support your child’s development; laying a solid foundation for life-long learning.

We will follow your child’s sleep routine wherever possible, although most children sleep after lunch, we have a cosy corner for them to snuggle up in at anytime during the day.

Orange Classroom - 2 - 3 years

Your child will move from the red room to the orange room at approximately 2 years of age until they are approximately 3 years old. Here children will learn by playing and exploring, being physically active and through creative and critical thinking both inside and outside. A strong emphasis is placed on developing key communication and language skills, physical dexterity, and emotional regulation. We follow children’s interests and provide more experiences in the wider community to help children learn about the world around them.

We encourage children to become more independent and focus on their self-help skills such as making choices, potty training, toileting, and following simple instructions. Some children are naturally ready to give up their afternoon nap as they approach 3 years, and our staff use this opportunity to work in small groups to provide activities for all our active children.

3 years + (preschool)

Children will move to the blue room at approximately 3 years. Here, we continue to build on your child’s independence, self-help skills, self-confidence, and natural curiosity to experiment, explore, test ideas, and solve problems.

In addition to the learning your child chooses for themselves we provide activities which extend language and literacy, mathematical and physical skills and focus on their next steps for development.

The focus in our pre-school room is on developing strong social skills, independence, and emotional literacy to support the next phase of learning. We also strongly encourage the sharing of experiences from home to nursery and from nursery to home, to reinforce links in your child’s learning.

Some children will still require a sleep after lunch and will join Orange room when they finish eating for an afternoon nap.

When the time arrives for your child to leave us and go on to school, they will be confident, happy, and ready to take this next step.

What to expect at ACN

Our experienced and well qualified staff will care for and nurture your child, supporting their learning and development across all areas of the Early Years Foundation Stage in partnership with you, as parents and carers. We will provide appropriate age-related activities which are designed to encourage your child’s social, emotional, and physical skills, creativity, and all-important communication and listening skills. Of course, your child will just see all this as different ways of playing.

Some of the activities your child will take part in include: playing with sand and water, painting, drawing, gluing, and sticking, creating with construction blocks and play dough, moving and dancing to music, listening to stories and reading, doing jigsaws and puzzles, cooking and baking, singing songs and nursery rhymes.

Our two-storey soft play facility has a corkscrew slide, ball pool and lots of squishy shapes to roll around on or create exciting and imaginative worlds of play.

We also have an enclosed outdoor courtyard with climbing equipment, slides and bikes with access to a large onsite playing field for running, jumping and rolling around. We also go for walks in the local area and visit places such as Ecclesall Woods, Dore Station to watch the trains and Totley shops to post letters or buy fruit for snack.  

We will keep you updated throughout the day on feeding, sleeping and activities your little one has been doing via our app.

Our Values

• Play, fun and creativity in childhood is fundamental to a child’s development as it at the heart of provision
• Children have a voice and deserve to be listened to & heard
• Value parents as their child’s first teacher and as partners in the care and education of their children
• Encourage wider participation of children and families in nursery life
• Promote diversity and an understanding of similarities and difference within society, developing strong community ties to promote understanding of the world around us and support personal growth

• Actively promote inclusion by working with parents and all other relevant agencies to support learning and development
• Identify and provide additional support to meet every child’s individual needs
• Early intervention to support children’s needs
• Strive for excellence and evidence-based innovation within provision
• Provide effective stewardship and governance
• Develop a professional, committed and recognised workforce who actively engage in continuous professional development
• Valuing all our staff and their commitment