Latest News

Sarah Steel Wins Global Enterprise Award

Sarah Steel, Managing Director of The Old Station Nursery group based in Oxfordshire, will fly to Florida in March to receive a prestigious international Enterprising Women of the Year Award.   

Sarah, who has won an award in the Over $5 Million and up to $10 Million in Annual Revenue category, was one of only two UK winners out of 66 successful businesswomen worldwide.

Women entrepreneurs across the globe in countries including the UK, USA, India, Switzerland, China and Turkey have been recognised in the international awards.

Sarah was nominated for the award by her fellow business women in UnitedSucces, a worldwide network which connects women in business internationally. The group was asked to nominate candidates who were exceptional business owners.

The Enterprising Women of the Year Awards Gala Dinner takes place on 13th Marchin Fort Lauderdale, Florida. 

Sarah said: “It’s an honour to be named as a winner in the Enterprising Women Awards which are held in such high regard. I’d like to thank the ladies in UnitedSucces for nominating me and enabling me to be a part of this whole process.

“I’m absolutely over the moon to be in the company of such an impressive list of business women around the world."

Our charity of the year - Kajaido Centre in Kenya

One of our former UK nursery managers has recently moved to Kenya whilst her husband is serving there with the RAF. She approached us to ask whether we would consider supporting a local centre for children of Masai families, who have disabilities and need extra support. She was amazed by what a difference the Kajaido Centre made to the lives of these children and decided to try and help. We are delighted to be working with Kajaido, both to raise funds to support their work, but also to allow the children in our nurseries to understand how different the lives of children in other parts of the world can be. We hope this will be the beginning of a long relationship and will allow us to follow the progress of individual children and further understanding between both cultures. Many of our nurseries will be organising fundraising events; The Old Station Nursery at Benson held a really successful ‘Crazy Clothes’ day on 22nd October and made a great start to our fundraising. We’ll be updating this page and our Facebook page with the various activities, so do join in if you can.

You can find out more about our Kajiado project here (PDF).

Beginning with babies

Over the last month staff from our Lincoln, Gainsborough and Newark nurseries have been taking part in a 4 day training course run by Baby guru, Mary Barlow at her fabulous training centre, The Totem Pole, in Grantham. Mary is an advocate of high quality care in a homely environment for under-2s and runs truly inspirational sessions, encouraging baby room staff to re-think their approach to creating a special environment for the babies attending nursery.

As a result of this training we will be looking at how to improve the physical environment of our baby rooms – more domestic furniture, special black and white areas, a ‘bedroom’ rather than a ‘sleep room’ and so much more. Each baby room team seemed really enthused to go back to their own nursery and look at both the layout of the room, but also to look at their routines and how they interact with their key children, considering how to strengthen bonds and make the whole experience better for the babies – which in turn makes life for the carer so much easier.

The photos below show the staff undertaking some of the training and I hope you will see the changes in the baby rooms as they take place. If you would like further information about Mary’s training and philosophy, do visit www.totempole.co.uk.

OFSTED success at Benson and Waddington
We have recently had full inspections at both Benson and Waddington and have really positive feedback from the inspector in each instance. The reports are now available on the OFSTED website, so do have a look for yourselves at some of the comments made.

Zoo at Waddington nursery
On Monday 13th July the children at The Old Station Nursery, Waddington enjoyed a visit from a mobile zoo, who brought a selection of animals and insects for the children to hold and stroke.  All the children had a chance to visit the collection and the babies right through to pre-schoolers enjoyed the very ‘hands-on’ display. Buzz Long Ears (a very long eared rabbit) was the star of the show, but the children were much braver than the staff and some held a cockroach, a millipede and a snake.  In the afternoon we invited in other children from the local area to see the display and had an open afternoon, which was a great chance to show lots of parents and families around the nursery.

 

Garden Party celebrates new outdoor canopy

The Old Station Nursery, Faringdon held a very successful garden party on Friday 22 May, when they invited parents and friends of the nursery in to celebrate the installation of a new outdoor canopy.  Marion Evans, from Oxfordshire County Council, said she was delighted to see the canopy installed so quickly, following a grant from her department.  The canopy will allow children to play outside even in bad weather and has already been put to good use by the children. The event was also a chance to launch ‘All Aboard’, our new book full of fun and activities for children, taken from around the nurseries.