What Makes Our Nursery & Preschool Different?
Opening 7am to 7pm, 7 days-a-week, with resources and activities second-to-none.
Open For Longer
Parents need flexible childcare that is available when they need it; we open 7am to 7pm to help
Every Day, All Year
We open all year round, including weekends, except Bank Holidays (which we don't charge for)
Outstanding Team
Our highly qualified professionals provide outstanding care, education, and child development
🏆 Ofsted Outstanding Childcare
We're proud to be rated Outstanding by Ofsted - the highest possible rating for childcare providers in England!
Overall effectiveness
The quality of education
Behaviour and attitudes
Personal development
Leadership and management
Read Our Ofsted Outstanding Report
3D Virtual Tour
Take a look inside our beautiful early years childcare nursery & preschool with our 3D Virtual Tour! Explore our baby room and toddler & preschool room — beautifully designed spaces for learning through play and exploration.
Feel free to explore every corner in your own time. You can look around the Baby Room, the Toddler & Preschool Room, and you can even look around our kitchen!
Click on the info-bubbles to learn more about each individual area, why it is important to your child's development, and the resources we use. You'll see the intelligence and effort that goes into planning such an enabling environment for children to feel loved, supported and encouraged to learn through play.
Healthy Meals & Snacks
We provide healthy breakfasts, fresh home-cooked meals and healthy snacks throughout every day to promote healthy eating while ensuring our children are receiving a nutritionally balanced diet.
Safe Home-from-Home
Our nursery is a safe and beautiful home-from-home experience where children can play, learn and blossom, with dedicated and loving practitioners helping all children to achieve the best outcomes possible through rich and varied learning experiences.
Age-Appropriate Spaces
We create carefully planned environments for 0-4 year-olds, with designated spaces for different age groups - our Baby Room looks after 0-2 year-olds, with 2-4 year-olds in our Toddler & Preschool Room. The Baby Room children have access to both their own garden and the main garden, while the older children use only the main garden.
Free-Flow Outdoor Play
We actively encourage free-flow play, allowing all children the opportunity to access the outdoor area throughout each session. This provides a holistic approach to learning and allows children to experience seasonal change and the natural world, while getting physical exercise and developing their gross motor skills.
Children Before Profits
We believe in putting children before profits, and providing childcare that is available when you need us. That's why we spend thousands of pounds each year to keep our setting interesting and engaging for the children, while opening from 7am to 7pm, every day of the week. It is also why we invest heavily in our team, providing training, development and qualification opportunities so the people looking after your child are highly-skilled, knowledgeable practitioners.
Parent Partnerships
We build strong relationships with our Parents and Carers, and aim to develop continuity of learning and development between home and nursery. We use online learning journeys to record each child's progress, learning and achievements, with daily updates for our Parents and Carers. Parents are given unique logins to access their child's online learning journey where they can add to their story from home while seeing what their child has been enjoying in the setting. This way, you are always kept up-to-date and involved in your child's journey with us.
Indoor & Outdoor Free-flow Play
Our early years childcare setting is designed to meet the needs of children from 8 weeks to 4 years, in line with the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS). Our location on the former RAF West Raynham, near Fakenham, provides generous outdoor play and a beautiful detached building in which we have made a nurturing home-from-home environment.
The Great Outdoors
Outdoor spaces are an invaluable part of your child's learning, and we use ours daily whatever the weather! Children benefit from free-flow indoor-outdoor play, and our environment is set-up to be interesting, engaging, challenging and fun for all ages.
Blossoms Childcare is set within a landscaped environment with trees and fresh air in abundance. Children get to explore all seasons and weather to teach them about changes, growth and life-cycles throughout the year. Our outdoor space is an extension of our learning environment with lots of opportunities to develop language, turn-taking, mark-making, numbers, counting and forming relationships.
From our mud kitchen - where children can let their imagination run wild making mud pies, work with others to create and develop their own ideas - to learning how to grow vegetables and care for plants and living things, we ensure all of our children are positively challenged while learning through play outdoors.
We have a large enclosed garden area which is primarily artificial-grass with some muddy areas for exploring and digging. Children can enjoy the sand-pits connected by a pulley system for transporting between them, the water-features to explore flowing water, barked and woodland areas for children to experience nature, wildlife and mini beasts, a bird-watching hut with children's binoculars, some balance beams and climbing frames to develop strength and balance, a growing patch for flowers and vegetables, various role-play areas for imaginative play, and the good old-fashioned mud kitchen.
Physical exercise, health and well-being are promoted within our daily routines with opportunities to take part in physical play developing gross motor skills and encouraging healthy living. There is also a large park with physical play equipment located within 5 minutes' walking distance. We take regular trips within our local environment for children to learn about the local community and help develop their sense of identity and self within the wider world.
Garden Features
Sand-pits connected by pulley system for transporting
Water-features to explore flowing water
Barked and woodland areas for nature experience
Bird-watching hut with children's binoculars
Balance beams and climbing frames
Growing patch for flowers and vegetables
Various role-play areas for imaginative play
Good old-fashioned mud kitchen
Physical Development
Physical exercise, health and well-being are promoted within our daily routines with opportunities to take part in physical play developing gross motor skills and encouraging healthy living.
There is also a large park with physical play equipment located within 5 minutes' walking distance.
We take regular trips within our local environment for children to learn about the local community and help develop their sense of identity and self within the wider world.
Indoor Learning Environment
Our early years childcare setting is designed to meet the needs of children from 8 weeks to 4 years, in line with the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS)! Our beautiful detached building provides a nurturing home-from-home environment.
An Indoor Wonderland
Our environments are carefully planned to enable all children to develop at their own unique pace. We adapt our learning environments weekly to aid children's emerging interests and offer new and exciting challenges to help them on their journey.
Children need to be challenged and childcare providers should constantly update their activities and resources to keep children engaged while following their ever-evolving interests. At Blossoms Childcare, we excel in providing the encouragement to learn through play in an environment where no expense is spared to provide the perfect environment in which children can learn and develop through play.
We have role-play in the home-corner, vets-corner and shop-corner, ever-rotating craft activity tables to help children develop their fine-motor skills, maths areas, a reading library with soft rugs and cushions, construction zones and even a quiet area - all designed to keep children energised and interested while helping them to grow, develop and learn through play.
Learning Through Play
Children are born with an immediate desire to explore and play, and they don't need any encouragement or rewards from their peers or adults to do so. However, skilled practitioners at Blossoms Childcare will take this innate drive and strengthen children's development.
Animal babies play to hone their skills, like puppies and kittens play-hunting to master skills they will need when they are older, and like animals, baby humans also play to develop their understanding of the world around them and learn how to utilise their body's movement in play.
Children find play enjoyable and pleasurable, and it is something they do for its own sake. From a very early age it helps them to learn through investigation and experimentation; helps them to practise existing skills and develop new ones; allows them to act out scenarios; helps them to understand and explain events; helps them to develop social skills; helps them to experience feelings such as frustration and disappointment, and satisfaction and joy; and helps them to make sense of the world around them.
Play supports development across physical, cognitive, language, emotional and social development
Our Typical Routines
Within our Baby Room we aim to follow children's individual routines as much as possible, which you can tell us about upon registration and welcome sessions. This helps us to remain consistent with the routine you have set at home, and follow each child's individual needs around sleeping and eating patterns.
A typical day in our Baby Room
| 07:00 - 08:45 | Breakfast |
| 07:00 - 10:00 | Free-flow Play (access to outdoor area) / Child Initiated Play |
| 10:00 - 10:30 | Snack |
| 10:30 - 11:45 | Free-flow Play / Adult Focus Activities (Messy / Sensory Play) |
| 11:45 - 12:00 | Stories & Singing |
| 12:00 - 12:30 | Lunch |
| 12:30 - 15:00 | Free-flow Play (access to outdoor area) / Child Initiated Play |
| 15:00 - 15:30 | Snack |
| 15:30 - 16:15 | Free-flow Play / Adult-led Activities (Cooking, Mark-making, Heuristic Play) |
| 16:15 - 16:30 | Stories & Singing |
| 16:30 - 17:00 | Tea |
| 17:00 - 19:00 | Free-flow Play (access to outdoor area) / Child Initiated Play |
We strongly believe that children learn best through stimulating environments which are planned to suit their current interests and learning styles. In our Toddler & Preschool Room we carefully plan our weekly activities and resources to foster learning and allow children to explore their environment through play.
We offer opportunities throughout the day for children to develop their own free play guided by the support of our childcare practitioners to open up learning opportunities and help children blossom through their own initiated play.
A typical day in our Toddler & Preschool Room
| 07:00 - 08:45 | Breakfast |
| 07:00 - 09:00 | Free-flow Play (access to outdoor area) / Child Initiated Play / Adult-led Activities (Cooking, Mark-making, Heuristic Play) |
| 09:00 - 09:30 | Welcome-time, Small Group / Key Group Time |
| 09:30 - 10:30 | Rolling Snack |
| 09:30 - 11:45 | Free-flow Play / Adult-led Activities |
| 11:45 - 12:00 | Stories & Singing |
| 12:00 - 13:00 | Lunch, followed by Quiet Group Activities |
| 13:00 - 13:30 | Welcome-time, Small Group / Key Group Time |
| 14:30 - 15:30 | Rolling Snack |
| 13:30 - 16:15 | Free-flow Play (access to outdoor area) / Child Initiated Play / Adult-led Activities (Cooking, Mark-making, Heuristic Play) |
| 16:15 - 16:30 | Stories & Singing |
| 16:30 - 17:00 | Tea |
| 17:00 - 19:00 | Free-flow Play (access to outdoor area) / Child Initiated Play / Adult-led Activities (Cooking, Mark-making, Heuristic Play) |
Frequently Asked Questions
Got questions about childcare options? We've got answers
What is the Difference Between a Children's Nursery, a Preschool, and a Childminder?
There are three different types of childcare settings: Children's Nurseries, Preschools and Childminders
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Childminders work from their home, caring for up-to 6 children under the age of 8 years old, of which up-to 3 may be under 5 years old, and only one child can be under 1 year old.
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Preschools are based on non-domestic premises, and generally offer childcare for 2-4 year-olds, on a similar clock to Schools, opening term-time only between 9am and 3-to-4pm.
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Children's Nurseries are also based on non-domestic premises, but offer childcare from shortly after birth, all the way through to School age (0-4 year-olds), opening earlier and staying open later in the day than a Preschool to help working parents, also staying open throughout the entire year instead of closing during half-terms and summer holidays. This is full Daycare.
Blossoms Childcare combines the best of all types. While parents benefit from the greater availability of a Children's Nursery & Preschool like Blossoms, children's development benefits enormously from our home-from-home environment, our curriculum, and spending more of their formative years Learning Through Play guided by dedicated childcare practitioners, with more time developing social skills around their peers.
What are the Different Types of Childcare Philosophies?
You've probably heard of Montessori & Forest Schools, and perhaps Steiner too.
While we follow the Early Years Foundation Stage, Blossoms Childcare is a combination of all these, plus the philosophies of people you've probably never heard of, like Froebel, Bruce, Moyles and McMillan. We take lessons from history's childcare pioneers and practice modern childcare that follows the EYFS.
Let's explore these pioneers and their philosophies to find out what goes into the ingredients that make Blossoms so successful nurturing children's personalities and development.
We're all very familiar with the term 'learning through play' in a childcare setting like a nursery, but this isn't something that has always been around. Why is learning through play 'our thing' these days? What has influenced this method of rearing children in society?
Below, we'll explore these important influences:
Childcare Philosophers
Explore the influential thinkers who shaped modern childcare and learning through play
Friedrich Froebel (1782-1852)
It can be argued that the first structured childcare (and something far beyond the typical workhouse for children of the time), where children were given the freedom to express themselves, play and learn in a healthy environment, was Froebel's Play and Activity Institute – later more aptly named the Kindergarten ('Child' 'Garden'), formed in 1837.
Friedrich Froebel was the first to create a playful childcare setting, and was the focus and inspiration of many others who have shaped childcare philosophy with their theories over the last century.
His creation had three essential ingredients: creative play, which he called gifts and occupations, singing and dancing for healthy activity and observing and nurturing plants in a garden for stimulating awareness of the natural world.
Froebel said of his 'gifts' and 'occupations':
"The gifts are intended to give the child from time to time new universal aspects of the external world, suited to a child's development. The occupations, on the other hand, furnish material for practice in certain phases of the skill.
"Nothing but the First Gift can so effectively arouse in the child's mind the feeling and consciousness of a world of individual things; but there are numberless occupations that will enable the child to become skilful in the manipulation of surfaces.
"The gift leads to discovery; the occupation to invention. The gift gives insight; the occupation, power.
"The occupations are one-sided; the gifts, many-sided, universal. The occupations touch only certain phases of being; the gifts enlist the whole being of the child."
Froebel Summary:
It is easy to see how modern nurseries are influenced by his Kindergarten, but people have taken this further and added to the ingredients and shaped how childcare provisions deliver their learning through play today. Today we focus on a much more holistic approach to early years, where the child is at the heart of everything we do. We shape our environments to enhance children’s learning through their individual interests whether this is indoors or outdoors, singing and dancing or exploring minibeasts.
Modern-day Childcare
The Common Thread
In general, what all of these theorists have in common is putting the child at the centre of learning, with play-based learning in a natural and free-flowing environment, while encouraging their development at the pace of the individual child.
Child-led Learning
They all promote the innate curiosity and thirst for learning that children exhibit and foster a sense of child-led learning with adults (parents & teachers) scaffolding the children's learning journeys in ways that allow for children to learn from their own experiences and from their own mistakes.
Scientific Explorers
Adults without the environment are simply caregivers; an environment without adults is a playground; an environment with adults facilitates learning through play. As Piaget suggested: children are scientific investigators and need a world to explore.
Learning Through Play
Children learn best from themselves, not from structured lessons, and adults (parents & teachers) should observe more than they direct, only getting involved when they can expand on a child's learning without stopping their play; adults should provide the resources and the environment to enrich learning through play.
Stimulating Curiosity
They all suggest that children benefit from a healthy surrounding as much as they do from a positive role-model, and learn best when allowed to follow their own curiosity, while being cared for in a safe and stimulating setting.
Enabling Free-flow Play
While good educators and caregivers can make a big difference, nothing can replace the impact of a well laid out and resourced environment that allows children to have a choice of imaginative and free-flowing play.
Outdoor Connection
Outdoor, free-flow play is also paramount. The outdoors provides a connection to nature alongside a wealth of opportunities for exploration and imaginative play, all with the benefit that fresh air brings.
"Children are scientific investigators and need a world to explore."
- Jean Piaget
Nursery Location
Visit Blossoms Childcare on the former RAF West Raynham airbase in Norfolk
Blossoms Childcare Nursery & Preschool
Fakenham, Norfolk NR21 7PA