Nursery

Sancton Wood Nursery is housed in its own beautiful Victorian building which is perfect for nurturing and fostering relationships with our children and families. Sancton Wood Nursery aims to inspire each child to be the best that they can be within a nurturing, safe, happy and stimulating environment.

ISI rated ‘Outstanding’

Qualified teachers

Close to Cambridge train station

Large garden

Forest school

Specialist catering

At the Nursery, and indeed all through the school, we are proud to offer small classes to offer a bespoke learning experience with highly qualified and experienced staff to support the children in their first steps of their educational journey. Our pastoral approach helps guide the children to become independent and resilient young learners. Our Nursery aims to inspire each child to be the best that they can be within a nurturing, safe, happy and stimulating environment, by providing an education of the highest quality.

At Sancton Wood we believe children learn best through play and first-hand experience. Children are encouraged to take part in a varied and interesting programme of activities introduced by staff but uniquely planned taking a child-led approach. Individual needs are met in an environment that ensures every child feels safe, happy and content. Children should be able to take risks and learn from their mistakes; here they are able to make choices, think about their actions and learn from their results. Children are taught skills with praise and encouragement from qualified members of staff; they ensure children reach their full potential in all areas of their learning.

Freedom to explore the outdoors

Our large, walled back garden is the perfect place for your child’s imagination to take flight with the space to discover a more natural, cooperative way of playing. Our outdoor play equipment is the perfect stage for performances, den building, discovering dinosaur bones in the sand, keeping an eye on the residents of our bug hotel and taking off to far away places whether it be pirates on boats or astronauts in spacecraft.

Our Forest School is home to many an invention and creation. It gives children the opportunity to explore and understand the outdoors using natural resources. It is an approach that takes a long term sustained approach to outdoor learning. Forest school seeks to encourage, motivate, engage and inspire children through positive outdoor experiences and we offer this as part of their overall education.

Our avid bird watchers encourage birds with their feeders, budding chefs cook up mud pies, musicians fashion wooden violins and bongos from tree stumps and those with green fingers tend to their peas.

Our youngest children have plenty to explore on their own exclusive, extensive decking area.

Early Years Expertise

Sancton Wood is part of the Dukes Education group with a specific Early Years group (Little Dukes) and we are proud to state our children receive “a first class education” where they are “welcomed into a second family, with the love and care you expect”.  Little Dukes are the only organisation in the world to be offering Early Years specific conferences drawing in inspiring speakers from across the country to enhance staff performance and thus outcomes for pupils. This is something we are particularly proud of and is reflected in our great end of Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) results.

Communication

We use Tapestry to communicate the children’s progress with our families and this is really well used by our families as well to share learning from home. It’s a great tool for sharing the daily activities of your child.

Family room

On the top floor, we have a beautiful family room, this is a space for families to use whilst their children are settling into nursery, a quiet space for breastfeeding and indeed enjoy a cup of coffee.

The Independent Schools’ Inspectorate Report (2018) sums us up this way:
'The overall effectiveness of the early years provision is OUTSTANDING.'
'The effectiveness of leadership and management is OUTSTANDING.'
'The quality of teaching, learning and assessment is OUTSTANDING.'
'The outcomes for children are OUTSTANDING.'
'The EYFS is outstanding.'
'From EYFS upwards, the pupils at Sancton Wood are highly successful in their learning and development. Their achievement is excellent.'