Three Little Birds
Welcome to Clerkenwell Mount nursery. Our nursery is located in a charming, Grade II listed building formed by converting two adjoining town houses in the heart of Clerkenwell. The nursery has been established since 2014.
Our basement studio enhances children’s learning, providing opportunities for yoga, drama and dance for all ages.
Skilled practitioners use a heuristic approach to actively involve children in their learning, identifying their interest and build upon these in their everyday experiences.
We are fortunate to have a diverse team who speak a variety of languages, creating a home from home feel and exposing children to the many worlds around us.
We are open from 7.30am to 6.30pm Monday to Friday, 51 weeks of the year. We close for the week between Christmas and New Year and bank holidays.
We are located in a charming, Grade II listed building formed by converting two adjoining town houses in the heart of Clerkenwell. We are a short seven minutes walk from Angel station, 13 minutes from Kings Cross and 15 minutes from Farringdon. We are also close to all bus stops.
Our mission is to provide high-quality childcare and education for all children - appropriate for their age and individual needs. We believe that loving and secure relationships help children to thrive. Our embedded key-person approach means we can react gently and compassionately to children’s feelings and behaviours, while meeting their overall emotional needs.
Our skilled staff like to work in partnership with families to enrich the well being, contentment and happiness of every child at our nursery, and this is also reflected in our curriculum which stems from our children, staff and families. We nurture children giving them the ability to learn for themselves and opportunity for experimentation and decision making. We have a holistic stance towards learning and children have time to explore and discover. This allows our experienced nursery practitioners to structure learning through an individual child’s strengths and interests, and scaffold development through the seven areas of the Early Years Foundation Stage. We creatively establish and support their journey as lifelong learners.
My name is Magdalena and I have been working in Clerkenwell Mount Nursery for almost five years. I started working with children 10 years ago and gained experience across all age groups and in variety of sectors.
Throughout my journey I have studied BA and MA in Early Childhood Studies at London Metropolitan University which has enabled me to reflect on the theories of Early pioneers and Educators and use it in my practice allowing me to understand children’s development on much deeper level.
I am very passionate about working with children and seeing them reaching their full potential through all the fun, challenging and carefully planned activities our experienced staff provide.
The nursery accommodates children from 3 months to 5 years of age and consists of two floors with a Baby Room, Toddler Room, Nursery Room and Pre-school Rooms.
Our Baby Room accommodates 15 children from 3 months to 18 months of age. The children have ongoing access to sensory and holistic play and resources and are continuously engaging in messy play to develop their gross motor movements and sensory skills.
We have natural materials which we collect seasonally, for example leaves, conkers, large stones, pine cones etc for the children to explore as well as wooden resources such as blocks, stacking mirrors and sorting tubes as a part of continuous provision. We have a vast variety of books to support the children’s communication and language as well as sense of touch. The room also includes a wooden baby slide with small steps which is great in encouraging the babies to start moving independently.
The staff in our Baby Room are very caring and know their children’s routines and needs as well as likes and dislikes very well. We highly value parent partnership and through our strong key-person approach we work alongside parents to ensure the best continuous care for our babies through positive relationships.
Our Toddler Room is equipped for children from 19 months to 26 months and holds up to 13 children. The children are encouraged to be independent through small steps such as drinking from a cup without a lid, using small chairs with no straps to sit on and washing and drying their hands before meals, after being outdoors and after a nappy change.
The main focus of the Toddler Room is to support the children’s emotions by using their words to communicate their needs and wants and build on their social skills. To achieve this, the children take part in small group activities where they are encouraged to take turns and share resources. There is a large home corner area for the children to act out their experiences and support their imaginative play, this is supported through small world materials which the children enjoy playing with.
Physical development is also very much encouraged and the children have the opportunity to use one handed tools, threading resources, and a variety of building blocks. Among many sensory and messy play activities, there is a sand and water tray available to the children on daily basis.
Children between 26 months and 36 months attend our Nursery Room which is set to accommodate 12 children. The children have easy access to seven areas of learning, including free flow into the garden. Because of their age, the children are beginning to show more interest in Mathematics and for that reason a variety of activities including numbers, shapes, colours, weighing and measuring are included in their daily learning.
A variety of books are available to every child in each age group but it is the Nursery Room where the contents start changing as the children are listening and joining in with stories and poems and are beginning to be aware of the way stories are structured. For that reason, both reading and writing aspects of Literacy are encouraged within this room.
Our nursery children are very inquisitive and our carefully planned activities are set up in a fun and challenging way, scaffolding on their knowledge and understanding, and extending their abilities to feed their interests, plus support their needs and development.
Our Pre-school Room is for children from 3 – 5 years of age and holds up to 16 children. It is divided into two small rooms with a private corridor in between with easy access to the bathroom as well as a free flow to the garden. This set up allows the children to explore freely between both rooms and take part in the different activities that have been set up based on their interests and to support their development in all 7 areas of learning as well as their cultural capital.
Walking through one of the two rooms, the children start learning about phonics, sounding out letters. Their fine motor movements are more controlled at this age and they are able to hold a pencil and trace letters and for this reason we have a specially designed Maths and literacy area allowing for more focused learning in readiness for school.
Although our pre-schoolers are skilled in reading short sentences by sounding out each letter, writing their name and short labels, adding and subtracting through a variety of activities set up in a fun and encouraging way, our main priority is to ensure that our children leave for school confident to build new relationships, confident to ask for help and let their feelings known and be resilient enough to face the new challenges and obstacles that being at school brings.
At the rear of our building is a small garden fitted with decking and astro turf which enables the children to build on their physical skills through fun, active and challenging activities in fresh air.
Our settling-in sessions are designed to ensure your child feels safe, welcomed and loved in our nursery environment. They offer an opportunity for your child to meet and bond with their assigned key-person and for us to understand your child’s interests and individual needs.
Our sessions are tailor-made and flexible to allow for a gradual transition into nursery.
Please view our Settling in Policy to see our settle session procedure throughout the current lockdown period.
We also accept nursery fees via direct debit, the government Tax Free Childcare scheme and childcare vouchers. You can talk to your Nursery Manager to find out more or visit www.gov.uk/tax-free-childcare to see if you can benefit from the scheme.
We are pleased to be able offer the 15 hour Funded Early Education Entitlement for all children from the term after they turn 3 years old. In addition, we offer the 2 year old and 30 hour Funded Early Education Entitlement for families that qualify. Please speak with your Nursery Manager to find out if you are eligible and for more information.
View our fee sheet here
Our nutritious menus are balanced, diverse and include a variety of fruit and vegetables, starchy foods, dairy and non-dairy protein to give children the vital vitamins they need to develop and grow. We keep sugars and salt to a minimum.
We cater for all dietary requirements and children with allergies or preferences are offered meals as similar as possible to those on the menu. Our staff have received training in food hygiene.
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Clerkenwell Mount Day Nursery