News | Little Birds Forest Nursery

New Site!

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We are incredibly excited to announce a new site for Little Birds, from early 2021, we are opening at a very special site on the grounds of Amberley Museum!

We are leasing a wonderful space, which is tucked away from the main exhibits and nestled at the foot of the chalk quarry.

Although on Museum grounds, it is entirely private and separate to the museum, yet we are allowed to be able to access the exhibits and visit the different learning experiences on site at the museum when appropriate and invited to do so.

Our base is an incredible location, we have a large detached space, which offers us lots of scope to increase all the wonderful activities we can offer and the space will include an atelier, boot room, space for small group work and to extend our outdoor learning, exhibition space and much more.

We of course are an outdoor nursery, and the outdoors had to be incredible special!

We have a forest garden directly behind our new space, which will have a covered outdoor fire and cooking area, play area with mud kitchen, loose parts, and outdoor atelier all our lovely play resources, a specific area for Under 2s and a covered decked terrace, which will be a lovely restful spot for outdoor sleeping, with rocking chairs, hammocks and a dedicated sleep area.

Connection to our local natural environments is such a huge part of what we do, and we have been invited by the museum to use their on site forest school areas, and we are also discussing access to woodland and field directly by our new base.

We will continue our daily trips to the river, beach and woodland, and actually have so much more scope to operate independently.

We are so lucky to be able to have such a wonderful learning space for the children, and are very much looking forward to working in partnership with Amberley Museum.

(image - Amberley Museum Sculpture Trail - Cypress Tree by Simon Probyn)

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Nursery in Residence at Pallant House Gallery

At the start of 2020, we were thrilled to be invited by Pallant House Art Gallery to be the first Nursery school In Residence.

We begun a programme of small group visits to begin to study the art work with the children, just prior to the first national lockdown.

We are very much looking forward to rekindling this exciting partnership, which will enable children to experience authentic culturally enriching learning, and to enable children to help develop their language of interpretation, emotion, graphic language and communication in 2021.

(image Eric Ravilious Gilbert White - Drawn to Nature exhibition @ Pallant House 2020)

NEW SITE!

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GOOD NEWS!

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NURSERY IN RESIDENCE

LOCKDOWN PARENTS MEETS

Lockdown friendly online parents meetings are coming up, please watch your emails

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Finalist for Rural Business Awards!

We are thrilled to share with you that we have been shortlisted as a finalist for the Rural Business Awards in the best Start Up category!

The Rural Business Awards 2020/21, in partnership with Amazon, will mark the Awards’ sixth year of celebrating the success of businesses across the UK’s rural economy. The Awards are organised by rural business for rural business with the aim of celebrating the achievements of rural businesses and developing a strong network for rural business owners.

Speaking after being shortlisted for an award, Sam Lovegrove from Little Birds said:

After a tumultuous year for our children, families and staff, we could not be more delighted to be shortlisted to be one of 6 finalists from rural start-up businesses across the country.

Our children are inspirational, and we are honored to be a part of such a special community of children, families and teachers.

Our commitment to ensuring exceptional early years care and education whilst connecting children and families to the heart of our community – our incredible, diverse natural world, has allowed us all sanctuary in these uncertain times. Learning and playing outdoors in all weathers has meant our nursery and our children are thriving, and the health, well-being and cognitive benefits of spending as much time as we can is more important now than ever before.

Allowing children to develop, grow and experience the slow unhurried childhood that they so need and deserve, whilst learning to become stakeholders of our natural world is at the heart of what we do. Becoming a finalist is the cherry on the cake!

Director and Co-Founder of The Rural Business Awards, Jemma Clifford, said: “This year has been an unprecedented challenge for businesses across the country but we have still had a fantastic amount of entries from rural businesses, showing the true determination of people working in the rural economy. Here at the Rural Business Awards we remain committed to our vision of showcasing the fantastic work of rural businesses and believe that it has never been more important than now. On behalf of the RBA team, we want to say well done to Little Birds Forest Nursery and all the shortlisted businesses, and wish them luck ahead of the national final.”