Who’s nature and nurture for?
We are open to all, including home educating and SEN families. We accept government funding and childcare subsidies for our childminding service and are looking for additional funding to make our offerings even more accessible.
How do I register interest in your childcare service?
Send us an email and we will get back to you to arrange a visit to our setting. After this we will send registration forms, policies, and any other necessary paperwork should you decide to enrol your child.
How can I find out if I’m eligible for childcare funding?
Most parents are eligible for some support with childcare costs, whether it’s free spaces for 9 months – 4 years or discounted spaces for older children. You can check what support is available using this government webpage.
What are our intentions?
- To deepen each child’s connection to nature and understanding of their place within it.
- To learn more about the seasons, cycles, animal and plant kingdoms.
- To provide opportunities for each child to discover their innate interests and follow them.
- To help foster confidence and resilience through play and creativity.
- To encourage our children to be nature guardians to help take care of our environment.
- To provide self-sufficiency skills that they can use for a lifetime.
- To help encourage problem solving and critical thinking.
- To help support physical, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing of our families.
- To help create magical childhoods and regulated nervous systems for our children.
- To connect with other learning communities and share insights and resources.
Who are we?
We’re run by two nature-loving homeschooling mummas, Sian and Suzie.
Suzie grew up on a farm roaming the fields, riding horses, writing stories, painting, and building treehouses. This cultivated a love for the natural world and a deep understanding of how important a childhood filled with freedom to explore nature and follow our passions can be.
Sian grew up in Devon, spending her days in a beautiful garden making flower potions and fairy houses. During motherhood she found herself rekindling a deep connection to the plants, animals, birds, trees, and flowers who live alongside us. She wants to support this connection with nature in her own children as well as others in our care.
During meetings to co-create a curriculum for our children, a vision of Nature and Nurture was born. This setting is the ideal solution for our families and we hope it will be the same for others looking interested in alternative, nature-filled education.
What qualifications do we have?
We both hold post graduate level education and consider ourselves life-long learners who are always reading and studying new things in our own time.
Sian has worked as a primary school teacher for the past 7 years. She has a 1st class BA Hons in Early Childhood Studies and PGCE with a specialism in Early Years and KS1 from Cambridge University. Her husband is also an accomplished teacher and current assistant head. Their family is passionate about teaching and inspiring future generations.
Suzie holds a foundation degree in Art & Design, a 1st class BA Hons in History of Art, and a distinction masters degree in Buddhist Art and Conservation. She has worked in museums education for well-known institutions such as the Tate, and has successfully run eco-minded businesses for the past 8 years. Her skills lie in creative arts, writing, foraging and cooking. Her partner is a permaculture market gardener and willow weaving teacher.
We also aim to work with other professionals who will provide workshops for the children on gardening, woodwork, traditional skills, herbalism, arts, yoga and mindfulness.
We have both completed the necessary paediatric first aid, H&S, fire, risk assessment, infant feeding support, nutrition, food hygiene, and childcare courses required by Ofsted. We’ve also taken courses in embodiment, nervous system regulation, and various wellbeing modalities.
Why nature-based?
We believe modern childhood often lacks free play in nature, and because of that much of the magic of childhood can be lost. Schools are now highly scheduled, academically-focused and screen-time heavy. From our research and experience we believe that children need more outdoor time to play, move, and explore to thrive!
The research shows that play in outdoor environments is hugely beneficial for children’s wellbeing and development. Children who more spend time outdoors exhibit improved attention spans and reduced symptoms of ADHD. Whilst natural environments have been shown to provide restorative experiences that enhance cognitive functioning and sharpen focus. Dirt strengthens immunity and exposure to soil and its diverse microbes helps train children’s immune systems, potentially reducing allergens and autoimmune diseases. Outdoor play can improve balance and posture, contributing to better motor skills development. It has also been shown to reduces stress, anxiety, and symptoms of depression in children. Interacting with nature and animals can also nurture empathy in children, leading to more compassionate and socially aware individuals.
How do we handle discipline?
We believe respecting children and focusing on connection rather than punishment are fundamental to positive discipline. We don’t believe in ‘bad kids’. We won’t use the word ‘naughty’ when talking about children or their behaviour. If an incident has occured or boundary is crossed, we work with each individual child, or group of children to discuss the behaviour and resolve any conflicts. We will also redirect children’s behaviour to avoid the behaviour repeating or support them to calm down and regulate. In our setting, we value kindness, fairness, autonomy, and as taking responsibility for our actions. We believe that teaching repair and co-regulation is a much more effective life-skill than imbuing shame.
How do we nurture individuals?
We aren’t interested in fitting children into boxes and believe each child comes to us with unique strengths to offer. We keep our ratios of children to adults low to allow us to support individual needs. We understand that each child’s interests and ways of learning are unique so aim to provide a wide range of resources to cultivate this. For example, we use our local library to provide additional books on things the children have shown fascination with. We regularly introduce a variety of subjects through stories, reading, and activities to provide a wide range of topics for kids to become interested in.
Are we screen-free?
Yes, our setting is screen-free. We will only use a work phone for communication with parents and recording activities. Although we recognise that technology can be an important tool for learning, because children only attend Nature and Nurture for 2 days or less per week, we want to prioritise nature-based play, creativity, exploration, and interpersonal connection. We believe that most children already have access to enriching technology outside of our setting. This helps us to provide a slower paced, restorative environment.
How do we support parents?
We understand that parenting in our fast-paced late stage capitalist culture can be challenging. That’s a big reason we created Nature & Nurture: to provide a childcare option for families who would like to provide nature-based home-education for their children but also need to work a few hours to pay the bills (or just to take some time for yourself, we’re not going to judge if you just need a nap!).
We understand that your children are the most important thing to you and absolutely encourage parents of those under our care to be involved in their child’s settling in and ongoing learning experience. We aim to keep channels of good communication open for discussing any concerns and additional needs, as well as (securely) sharing regular updates from your child’s learning journey with us.
For parents who’s children don’t attend our childcare setting, we still want to support you! We have created a parent’s sharing circle as part of our stay-and-play sessions. This idea has been born from conversations with other parents who can feel isolated and overburdened, especially if home-educating. Therefore we provide a space to have a cup of tea and a chat (and perhaps a laugh and a cry!) whilst the kids play in a safe, natural, and enclosed environment.
We are also trained in breastfeeding, infant feeding, and weaning support and offer this for free during our Thursday sessions.
We are currently looking for funding to provide a co-working space that would allow parents to work on-site close to their children if desired.
Why non-profit?
We are a non-profit community interest company because we feel that safe spaces to play in nature should be available to all regardless of personal circumstances. Any surplus income is reinvested in improving our site to benefit our community.