Welcome to Early Years

I am delighted to be able to welcome you to our Early Years Page. With over 15 years of experience working in childcare, across a range of childhood vocations. My passion lies with younger children in the Early Years. I completed a BA Hons in Childhood Studies, specialising in Early years and Special Educational Needs. I am a qualified Teacher and have taught in the Early Years for 10 years. I am invested in making sure our setting is the best it can be.

Our nursery stands out from others, and this is something I am incredibly proud of, with an Excellent ISA rating achieved in November 2022. We offer educationally focused childcare, which supports your child in preparing for school, by providing opportunities and experiences in a fun and inspiring environment. Play is an integral part to a child’s development as it allows them to immerse themselves into their learning and live through real life experiences. We also provide focused teaching for all our age groups and support them in the fundamental skills they need to learn, starting with listening, and building focus, supporting all children with a range of abilities, ensuring they all reach their full potential. All of our classes are led by qualified teachers, who are very passionate about early years and are supported by our wonderful and caring practitioners.

As a parent, Essendene Lodge School is the perfect place for my children to learn, grow and develop, with a caring and nurturing environment with staff that truly care for the children in the setting and their families, I believe this is a setting that will suit any family.

I look forward to meeting you soon.

Mrs Sophie Miles,
Head of Early Years

Our Approach To Early Years

Essendene Lodge Nursery offers a unique, caring, nurturing and stimulating environment for 2-5 year-olds. Our aim is to support children to become confident, independent and well rounded by offering them opportunities, experiences and support to become happy and inquisitive individuals. If you are looking for more than just a daycare then we are the setting for you. We provide routine and stimulating activities to challenge your child and get them actively learning through play.

Teaching and Learning

Our children receive direct teaching and opportunities to explore independent learning covering the 7 areas of the EYFS. Following an adult directed carpet input, the children then have the opportunity to show their understanding with an adult led task linked to the learning they have just received.

Our Environment

Freeflow is offered throughout the day to our recently renovated outside space, accessible from all Early Years classrooms. What makes us so unique is the opportunity for the children to freeflow throughout all the classrooms, allowing our children a chance to play together. This is a huge benefit for the 2 year-olds in supporting their language and communication and social development. It also benefits our 5 year-olds, as it gives them as sense of responsibility in looking after, including and supporting the little ones in their play, our siblings in the unit love this.

Our early years children are very much included as part of the Prep School and join with the rest of the school for specialist weeks, including, wellbeing, science, book, maths, eco, careers, and friendship weeks. The children begin transitioning activities from as early as Acorn Class, by joining weekly assemblies and buddying up with children in the upper parts of the school. This all helps in transitioning to Reception.

We hope you are as excited as we are to join the Essendene Lodge family. Be assured all our children are valued and we work in partnership with parents and families to give them the best start to their learning journey. Please use the enquiry form below to get in touch.

Enquiry Form

Early Years Information

Opening Hours

Our nursery opening hours support busy families in Caterham by opening at 8am through till 6pm offering a variety of sessions within this time. We are happy to offer Full time care (51 weeks) or term time care to suit you and your families needs. Children can participate in full days, school days (8:30-3:15) or morning / afternoon sessions.

Please contact the school office for availability.

Parental and Family Involvement

Parent meetings – We offer termly meetings with all parents to check in on your child’s development and their targets. We also have an open-door policy so all parents can arrange meetings or have a quick catch up at drop off and pick up.

Reports – You will receive two reports each academic year to show your child’s progress. A short report on your child’s development half-way through the academic year and a full report at the end of the academic year.

Famly – We use a communication system called famly to keep you up to date with how your child is getting on at school. You will see regular photos and observations made by our highly trained staff. You will also receive updates on your child’s toileting, sleeping and eating each day.

Social Events – Parental involvement is very important in your child’s education, so we ensure we include the family as much as we can. Once a year we hold separate events for Grandparents Day, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, as well as a Christmas sing-a-long performed by the children. We also invite families in as much as we can to support in specialist weeks running throughout the school year.

Workshops – Specialist workshops are regularly provided for parents to support you in helping your child at home. These include phonics workshops and potty training events.

Admissions to Early Years

Children are quick to settle, aided and encouraged by our caring team and the exciting learning opportunities we have to offer. These are designed to be challenging and fun.

Settling in is tailored to you and your child as we know how difficult leaving them can be, so we work with you to make this as seamless as possible.

Your initial settling in visit starts with a parent interview, to help us get to know your little one, while they get to play, explore and get to know us. We then build on your settling in sessions from this initial visit if needed.

Fees

Uniform

Extra Curricular for Early Years

In keeping with the rest of the school we also offer our full-time children extra-curricular activities which can be joined by our school day children by booking into additional sessions. The activities we offered after school from 3:30-4:30 are:

Arts and Crafts

STEAM

Cooking

Mindfulness

Multi-skills Sports

In addition to this all the children in early years participate in weekly French, music and PE lessons, with specialist teachers.

Explore Early Years

Saplings Class

2 - 3 years

Acorns Class

3 - 4 years

Oak Class

4 - 5 years