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Guest blog-Diversity in Early Years – A Male working in a female-dominated industry

Mon, 21 Jul 2025 09:00:00 GMT

Charlie in a recent Unifrog workshop talking about his work in Early Years

Author, Charlie Walsh, is a long term staff member at Annie and Co. As this edition's guest blog contributor he walks us through why chooses to work in Early years as a male Senior team member and why a male contribution to early years settings is so important.

In a sector traditionally dominated by women, choosing a career in early years education as a male

practitioner is unconventional, but rewarding. Throughout this blog, you will gain a personal account

of my journey into Early Years. I will reveal some of the doubts I had after recognising the significant

gender gap in the industry and how work settings can help to create a more inviting work

environment for male practitioners.

When I was 16, I took my first step toward this journey by volunteering in an early years primary

school setting. It was here that I discovered the unique challenges and rewards of working with

young children. The experience solidified my desire to understand how children grow and learn, and

it inspired me to dedicate my gap year to working at Annie’s House. That year was transformative.

Immersing myself in the vibrant and dynamic nursery environment allowed me to connect with

children on a personal level, nurture their development, and witness the profound impact that

positive early experiences can have on their growth and development.

During this time, I was struggling with personal doubts about whether I should continue my path in

early years. I felt that there was a massive stigma about my gender and I wasn’t sure how far I

could go within this career. I also had heard about a few negative experiences attached to the

career path from friends, family and teachers. This left me feeling quite anxious about taking the

next step. There was a voice in my head saying, “ This isn’t a job for a man”, “The parents won’t

respect you because what do you know about children”, or “You won't get far in this field, so you

should look somewhere else”. This heavily clouded my judgment on where I wanted to be, so I chose

an option which I thought was the “easiest” way out, and I applied to university to study Biomedical

science, following the same path as my friends, because I felt embarrassed about carrying on

something that I quite enjoyed, but not knowing the extent of how far this path can take me.

Studying biomedical science was completely incomparable to the experience I had at Annie's. For

me, there was still a strong personal attachment to the setting as I would return during every

reading week or holiday, when I was meant to be studying or revising. I'd rather spend my time with

the children, baking my heart's desire, or supporting them in various areas of development, and

working with a great team to create an environment that helps build children’s resilience,

confidence, and independence. These visits reaffirmed my love for the field, as I found myself more

at home in the nursery than in the university lecture halls or laboratories. This led me to make a

difficult decision: do I continue studying a course that I don’t enjoy, or do I pursue a career that I

know is right for me?

I decided that my path in early years hasn’t finished, and I need to pursue a career that is right for

me. I left university and returned to the unique setting that I knew would help me get back on track

in becoming a male early years educator. However, I still needed to confront my doubts about this

path and address all the concerns I had before attending university. All those feelings of self-doubt

about my gender or my role in early years had to be faced one by one.

Recognising the significant gender gap in the early years, in 2023, the majority of the early years

workforce was female, with 98% of staff at schools and group-based providers being female. This

gap solidified my doubts about being a male educator, as I doubted my knowledge and ability to

provide a quality service that the amazing women could match in this sector. Therefore, I needed to

make my mark and prove to myself that I have what it takes to be an early years educator, which led

me to study level 3 childcare. It was within this course that I was taught how to enhance my practice,

knowledge and understanding of children aged 0-7. This enriched my experience in the industry,

linking different theorists to child development and how to harness my skills and apply them within

the setting This became the catalyst to my thirst for early years knowledge and set me on an

academic pathway to study early years whilst remaining in role. My goal is now to use the

apprenticeship route to achieve a degree in Early Years and Education. Completing my level 3 and

working alongside a terrific mentor has helped me overcome the doubts of being a male

practitioner. Children do not care about who you are,they don’t care about your gender, race, or

religion; they care about how you nurture, respect, and help them through the foundation of their

lives. This reassured me that the essential skills of a practitioner do not correlate with my gender.

The only personal problem I still face is whether the parents in my setting respect my opinion as a

young male practitioner.

Working alongside Annie, who has over 35 years of experience in childcare, I've learnt how to liaise

with parents, assert myself with my knowledge and practice, and also not be afraid to ask for

support. All children's journeys are unique, and in early years, every child faces different obstacles

and hurdles along the way. It is okay to ask for help, especially from mentors who have more

experience in the field, because once you can recognise the pattern, you can then apply that within

your own set of skills. Knowing this, my confidence has grown, I am knowledgeable and can express

my concerns to parents. Again, gender isn’t the problem; I have now realised it’s the importance of

the skills that you obtain that allows you to shine within your setting.

My experience in early years has been a rollercoaster, to say the least; however, we in the industry

still need to close this huge gender gap. How can we as an industry make early years more appealing

to the eyes of a male who has no experience working with children? I believe that we can close this

gap in diversity within early years if nurseries start offering more outdoor experiences for young

children. Outdoor experiences provide a range of skills that can be applied in practice, thereby

attracting a broader demographic. Working in an accredited forest school nursery has opened my

eyes to the diverse range of skills taught to children. One of the forest school principles is that the

provider must offer learners the opportunity to take supported risks.

In a setting like mine, where we provide forest-based sessions using tools, weekly Wednesday

campfires, and create enduring obstacle challenges that support physical development, we might

see a rise in interest among male educators wanting to start their path into early years education, as

they can harness their skills within practice to help educate and enrich the experiences of the next

generation.

Having male practitioners within an early years setting is crucial in creating an enriching and

inclusive environment. Male Early Years educators, who serve as positive role models, particularly

for children who lack male figures in their lives, or do not see men in caregiving and educational

roles. This helps challenge traditional gender roles and normalise diversity in professions for young

children. For myself, working in the early years has helped me drastically boost my confidence and

understand crucial life skills that not many people can say they have acquired by my age. People

often underestimate the complexity of my role and lack an understanding of what it takes to have a

positive impact on a child’s early development. It’s a huge responsibility for educators to support

and nurture children through the most critical years of their lives, where their learning foundations

are built. This is something I have come to understand much better and am honoured to be a part of.

In conclusion, being a male early years educator in a female-dominated industry can be challenging;

however, it is essential to overcome these doubts. I believe that if I had a strong role model or a

male educator who defied the gender stereotype and had a robust practice, I would be a lot further

along in my early years career. I hope my blog has influenced or inspired you to consider a career in

early years education from a male perspective, and understand that regardless of your gender,

children must be nurtured and valued. This done correctly creates bold, resilient, kind young people

that are equipped to go out and do good in the world. My contribution to making this happen is all I

need to work for and something I cherish now you can too.

Guest Blog - Why Children Should Grow Their Own Food in Early Years Settings

Thu, 10 Jul 2025 12:27:50 GMT

Author, Tracey Deale, is the Director of Horizons Training our Early years training partner. As this editions guest blog contributor she walks us through why growing food and learning about healthy food is crucial in Early Years. She's also provided loads of useful tips and resources of where to find out more!

EYFS – Growing food, healthy eating

Introducing food-growing activities into Early Years settings is more than a fun outdoor pastime—it’s an enriching, educational, and developmental experience that aligns closely with the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) curriculum. Giving children the opportunity to grow their own food supports their overall development and nurtures essential skills around health, sustainability, and responsibility.

Supporting the EYFS Framework

The EYFS 2024 statutory framework sets out seven areas of learning and development—and food growing has the potential to enhance them all:

1. Personal, Social and Emotional Development (PSED)

Gardening helps children work cooperatively, take turns, and share tasks. Activities like watering plants or picking vegetables teach patience, care, and empathy. Children develop a sense of pride as they watch their plants grow—aligning with EYFS goals to build self-esteem, relationships, and respect for others.

2. Communication and Language

Growing food creates plenty of opportunities for rich language development. Children can describe textures, talk about plant parts, and sequence the stages of growth. These interactions, whether led by adults or peers, foster speaking and listening skills in a natural, engaging way.

3. Physical Development

From digging and sowing to watering and harvesting, gardening promotes both fine and gross motor skills. Handling tools and moving between tasks builds coordination and control, reinforcing the EYFS emphasis on physical activity and healthy choices.

4. Understanding the World

Watching a seed turn into a plant fuels curiosity. Children begin to understand life cycles, seasons, and how to care for living things. Gardening opens up conversations around sustainability and environmental care—key aspects of the EYFS goals in this area.

5. Literacy and Mathematics

Labeling plants, keeping gardening journals, counting seeds or measuring growth are all ways to integrate literacy and numeracy. These hands-on, meaningful activities help build core skills while keeping learning playful and fun.

6. Expressive Arts and Design

Gardening sparks creativity—whether it’s drawing plants, painting vegetables, or role-playing as gardeners. These activities provide rich sensory experiences, encouraging children to express themselves through different artistic mediums.

7. Literacy for Health and Self-Care (within PSED and Physical Development)

Children who grow their own food are more likely to try it! This direct connection between growing and eating helps instil healthy eating habits and supports wellbeing. EYFS encourages understanding the importance of health, exercise, and a balanced diet—and gardening is a powerful way to bring these ideas to life.

Key Benefits of Food Growing in Early Years

1. Encourages Healthy Eating Habits

Research shows children are more likely to enjoy fruits and vegetables they've grown themselves. This experience builds a lasting foundation for healthy food choices.

2. Builds Responsibility and Independence

Tending to plants gives children daily routines and a real sense of responsibility. It builds confidence and nurtures resilience.

3. Supports Mental Health and Wellbeing

Time spent outdoors, immersed in nature, has calming and mood-boosting effects—even for very young children. Gardening offers mindfulness and emotional regulation in a gentle, accessible way.

4. Promotes Environmental Awareness

Through composting, watering, and harvesting, children naturally learn about sustainability, food waste, and respecting the planet.

5. Offers Opportunities for Inclusive Learning

Gardening is sensory-rich and adaptable, making it accessible for children with additional needs or those who are non-verbal. It also supports cultural inclusion by growing foods from diverse cuisines.

Practical Tips for Early Years Food Growing

-Start small: Try using containers, windowsills, or grow bags if outdoor space is limited.
-Choose quick and sensory-friendly plants: Radishes, salad leaves, peas, and strawberries are ideal.
-Link activities directly to EYFS learning goals.

-Involve children in every stage—from preparing soil to tasting the harvest.

-Work with parents or local gardening groups to extend the learning beyond your setting.

-Enhance literacy links using storybooks like Oliver’s Vegetables or Jasper’s Beanstalk.

EYFS Compliance and Ofsted

The EYFS 2024 statutory framework encourages meaningful, real-world experiences, and food growing does exactly that. It reflects key characteristics of effective learning:

Playing and exploring – engaging with natural materials

Active learning – caring for plants, celebrating success

Creating and thinking critically – problem-solving (e.g., fixing droopy plants or dealing with pests)

Food growing also supports the Development Matters (2021) guidance:

“Begin to understand the need to respect and care for the natural environment”

“Develop an understanding of healthy choices and physical wellbeing”

Supporting Climate Action in Early Years Settings

All settings are now expected to have a climate action plan. Gardening is a perfect component—helping children (and practitioners) take practical steps toward sustainability.

Guidance on writing your action plan:

https://www.foundationyears.org.uk/2024/12/sustainability-within-early-childhood-education/

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/sustainability-and-climate-change-strategy/sustainability-and-climate-change-a-strategy-for-the-education-and-childrens-services-systems

Sensory Food Education

Sensory food education involves using all five senses to explore food. It helps children understand their preferences, reduce food anxiety, and enjoy healthier diets.

TastEd: Free resources and training

https://help-for-early-years-providers.education.gov.uk/health-and-wellbeing/sensory-food-education

https://www.tasteeducation.com/

EYFS Nutrition Guidance – Changes from September 2025

From September 2025, new nutrition guidance will replace the current 'Example Menus' document.

Full details:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-years-foundation-stage-nutrition

Free Themed Activity Packs (Ages 3–5)

Looking for food-themed activities that link directly to the EYFS?

Six Early Years Packs from Food – a fact of life:

https://www.foodafactoflife.org.uk/3-5-years/activity-packs-3-5-years/six-early-years-activity-packs/

-Amazing Allotments

-Awesome Activity

-Beautiful Bread

-Delicious Dairy

-Marvellous Meals

-Perfect Picnic

More inspiration:

https://ndna.org.uk/blog/early-years-activity-smoothie-sensation/

https://ndna.org.uk/blog/lets-get-growing-early-years-gardening-activity/

https://www.firststepsnutrition.org/news#SoilAssociation

Nutrition and Inequality: What Needs to Change?

�� Recent reports reveal widening health inequalities among children under five.

�� Listen to the podcast: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4Dfnxxw9QQAA5cDDyDDQAA

�� Report: https://foodfoundation.org.uk/publication/boosting-early-years-nutrition-support-healthy-childhood

�� Policy insights: https://lnkd.in/eksy-w79

Baby Food Industry: A Call for Change

⚠️ Commercial baby food is often high in sugar and low in nutrition.

More info: https://obesityhealthalliance.org.uk/2025/05/01/babyfood/

Final Thoughts

Growing food in Early Years settings offers a powerful, holistic learning opportunity. It supports every EYFS learning area, encourages healthy choices, boosts wellbeing, and promotes sustainability. With the right planning, it can become a cornerstone of early education that benefits children for a lifetime.

Let’s get planting—and growing futures, too. ��

Useful Resources and Further Reading

EYFS Statutory Framework (2024)

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-years-foundation-stage-framework--2

Development Matters (2021)

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/development-matters--2

Soil Association – Food for Life Early Years

https://www.foodforlife.org.uk/early-years

RHS Campaign for School Gardening

https://schoolgardening.rhs.org.uk

Sustain: Early Years Resources

https://www.sustainweb.org/childrensfood/early_years/

Newsletter 2025

Wed, 07 May 2025 13:01:07 GMT

Summer 2025

Hi folks! Hope you are all well and had a fantastic Easter holiday. There was some excellent weather and we have been hearing lots of fun stories since we’ve been back from the forest gang letting us know what they’ve been up to.

Summer term plans

We have lots of fun activities planned for the term and lots of things to get into the calendar!

The children will be doing lots of learning around the VE day celebrations. Gabi will be sharing some lovely letters written by her mum as a child during war times, talking about the war from a child’s perspective. We also have a session planned talking about war animals and how even animals featured in the war efforts from war horses to racing and messenger pigeons!

As with all spring/summer schedules the children have been working hard in our green house looking after the seedlings ready for the seasons planting out. This year we have installed some raised beds that we are excited to get planted and we have peas, tomatoes, cauliflower and sweet peas all ready to go. The children will be learning how to look after, harvest, cook and of course eat all the lovely produce that comes out of the vegetable patch this year. It’s all very exciting for those with little green thumbs!

In other planting news the willow arbour that we planted last year is coming back to life this season and with a little extra watering and love we are hoping that this can become a perfect reading circle spot for the forest gang over the summer. Of course they are learning how to look after a living structure and what kinds of things it needs to be healthy and strong. We also planted some lovely sunflowers which we are measuring regularly with yard sticks to see how big they get. They are already as tall as some of your little ones!

The rest of the term we will be having lots of nature walks looking for baby animals and birds that come out this time of year as well as what flowers and trees we can see coming back to life. There are some very keen bird watchers in the gang that are getting very good at recognising different birds and their bird songs. We are especially fans of the resident Blue Tit that likes to join us at our mud kitchen!

As always with every summer term we will all be looking forward to lots of water play too.

News and updates

As some of you were aware we spent a lot of last term preparing for ofsted to come back from another visit. This happened just before term and we are delighted to say that the report has been officially released. The nursery has received an overall rating of good. For the parents and staff that sent in testimonials and spoke to the inspector we would like to say a huge thank you. We received fantastic support from everyone and the community really shone through in the inspection report. To read the complete report you can access it here .

Along with the excellent news of the ofsted report we would like to shout out a couple of staff members who have completed their qualifications in the run up to the ofsted prep. Anna has now officially completed her level 3 apprenticeship which is fantastic news. She came to us with the sole determination to get her level 3 and whilst it wasn’t an easy road along the way she has come out with her certificate. When you next see her please feel free to give her a well done!

Additionally Charlie has also completed his level 3 in Early Years education and just like that is already started straight onto his level 5 Diploma!

Similarly Rachel is nearing completion of her level 3 in Early Years education and Giulia is tasks away from completing her level 3 Forest school too! All the staff’s commitment to learning especially in the run up to our inspection has been second to none and a fantastic example to our children that a commitment to learning is life long and always brings fruit no matter how old the learner! We hope you can share in congratulating their educational wins with us!

We are working on some plans to have a big end of term party this term as usual with parents and alumni all invited as usual, hopefully with some new faces from next year's cohort. We will let you know the dates as soon as they are in the calendar but will probably be the last week of term. We will also try and do a smaller parent gathering as we approach half term. We will let everyone know about that too!

Housekeeping

Thanks to all the parents who have been helping us by labelling your child’s things. Please make sure to continue labelling as much as possible as it helps us keep track of everyone's belongings.

We are continuing with the sign in and sign out sheet which is working well.

We recently had an issue with a Tick found on a child so we are asking parents to make sure to remember to send their little ones in long sleeves and trousers when they join us for forest days. Whilst it is tempting to send them in shorts and t-shirts, it’s best to make sure you’re little people have their arms and legs covered when spending all day out in the woods. On hotter days we just ask layers to be nice and thin.

Just to note all childcare costs are normally calculated over a 12 month period of 39 or 47 weeks so even if your child is leaving in the summer to go into school you will still need to pay the August fees.

We can't wait for the summer season and all our fun plans. We can feel the warm sun on our faces and watch nature bring everything alive again.

Lots of love All the forest team xx

Guest Blog -Why I chose a Forest School Setting for my children

Tue, 25 Feb 2025 21:25:18 GMT

Author, Chris Birks, is a parent at Annie and Co and environment scientist . As this edition's guest blog contributor he walks us through why he and his partner chose Forest School for his children.

Our eldest son started at Annie's when he was about 20 months old, after initially going to a conventional nursery. Moving him to Annie and Co is one of the best decisions we have ever made as a family.

We wanted our son to have as many of his formative years outside and in nature as possible. We had read books about forest schools and were really inspired by the ethos and the commitment to young children enjoying the outdoors in all seasons, allowing them to experience and immerse themselves in a natural and physical environment that, sadly, could be all-too-absent growing up in an urban environment.

We couldn't believe our luck when we found that there was a forest school option close to our house.

We got in touch and Annie invited us along to visit. Seeing the children playing and exploring so happily and confidently at the amazing outdoor site where it is based, we immediately knew it was a place our son would be happy. We were impressed by the many years of experience Annie had in childcare, the creativity shown by the team at devising activities - everything from planting vegetables, to camp fires, to making hedgehome homes - and the care the children received. Our son thrived from day one, made great friends and he stayed at Annie's until he started at primary school (contrary to many arguments against forest schools, he adjusted easily to a classroom environment and there is no concern over his literacy or numeracy).

Our youngest son started at Annie's when he was a year old. We are delighted that both boys have had such a joyful, adventure-filled start to their lives.

Guest Blog - A teacher's perspective of Forest School -why you would choose it for your own children

Tue, 14 Jan 2025 15:37:20 GMT

Author, Marie Glackin, is a parent at Annie and Co AND a local primary school teacher. As this edition's guest blog contributor she walks us through why she chooses Forest School for her sons.

I spent a lot of time researching and looking for a childcare setting for my first son. I was finding it difficult to find somewhere that was small enough that my child would be given one to one attention but also offer him a circle of friends to help develop his social skills. Then we found Annie's. I was immediately drawn to the wonderful atmosphere created by Annie and her staff. The children were so happy and relaxed. I think this is due not only to the ample open space available to the children, which is unlike anything I had seen in any other setting, but also due to the value the staff put on each child. It was clear from early on that the staff took the time to get to know my child and understood his personality and behaviours.

Both of my boys have loved being at Annie's. They love the opportunity to run around the forest and I feel so lucky that they get to spend the majority of their day outside, engaging with nature. My eldest always comes home full of explanations about goings on in the forest (most recently about what the hedgehogs are eating). As a teacher, I know in many schools, outdoor learning is often limited and very rarely specialised. I think my boys have been very lucky to have not only experienced a forest school setting but for it to have been led by such qualified staff. They are both so happy and at home outside which I don't think they would have been if we had sent them to a regular nursery.

They both love all of the craft activities that happen at Annie's, especially the cooking and baking and we love the amazing things they have made and brought home such as cushion covers, diva lamps and Christmas decorations.

Both of my children have flourished at Annie's. They have developed their language and have such a greater understanding about the world around them. The outdoor setting has also meant that they have been given so many opportunities to help their physical development which was particularly beneficial for my oldest son.

I think something that is so special about Annie's is the wonderful community they have created. Through hosting camp fire get togethers throughout the year, families are able to get to know each other and you can develop relationships with the people your child is spending so much time with. It really is a very special place and I feel incredibly lucky and privileged that my children were able to experience it.

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Sustainability for all

Tue, 19 Nov 2024 10:16:32 GMT

Sustainability for all.

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September 2024 Newsletter

Thu, 05 Sep 2024 18:20:12 GMT

Winter term 2024

Hi Folks!

Welcome to our September newsletter. We hope you were all able to have a restful and happy summer. We have already heard about lots of the fun things you’ve all been getting up to and we are super excited to get all the updates from our little friends as they return to their new term with us.

As with all Septembers you will be seeing new families and faces joining so please make sure to say a warm hello and welcome to our newest additions.

For new joiners welcome on board! Here you will find our plans for the term and some general parent updates.

We’ve got some fun things planned for the term and a few things to update you all on so a huge welcome back from the team and lets get stuck into some Foresting!

Autumn term plans

We have lots of fun activities planned for our little people this term. Not to mention some great festivals to celebrate together.

Planting- We managed to grow some tomatoes which we are picking now but our potatoes and other plants and herbs were lost to an army of slugs which were supported in their quest to eat everything by so much rain!! The children loved picking them up every morning and putting them in a bucket and taking them to the hedgehog houses. We are going to try to grow some winter growing veg hopefully not too slug friendly !!
There are many festivals and celebrations over the autumn term which we will be celebrating with your children such Diwali, black history month, Halloween, Christmas and more
As well as using lots of natural materials for doing crafts we are going to work on doing more yoga, circle singing, storytelling and Forest School games.
We are going to be preparing our hedgehog houses to make them comfortable for our hedgehogs to hibernate in the cold weather.
The children have done really well at patiently watching the birds and knowing their names. We have a very friendly Robin as well as Colin the crow of course. In the future we hope to be able to buy some sound recording equipment so we can record them more accurately and hear them really clearly. We will also be making bird feeders for them to help them over the winter.
We are on the lookout for more walking action outdoor story books such as bog baby or going on a bear hunt. If anyone has any ideas or suggestions let us know.

News and updates

We have renewed our Recognised Forest School status after passing our annual checks to make sure our forest school is still meeting the required standards or practice.
We are still the only accredited early years forest school in north London and one of only three accredited early years setting in London.
We are hoping to have a parent day around half term and our usual Christmas parent and alumni celebration this year. Watch this space or the whatsapp for firm dates as we get them into the calendar.

Staff

There are so many new staff members I had to make a new section for it! Please give these new faces a warm welcome if and when you next see them.

New members of staff- Elaine, Deborah, Elecia, Gabi, Cissy,
We have all had fun with Binta over the summer sadly for us she has to go back to uni. She is studying chemistry and pharmacy. We will all miss her but she will be back. She loves all the children!!
On our long term young people's work experience programme Jackson, Poppy and Maya Year 13, all did really well in their A levels, Jackson and Poppy are going to uni and Maya is taking a year out so she will be around but also doing some travelling.
Zac, Milo, Morolake, Myla and Belva are all going into year 13 and Jack will be joining us as he moves into year 12.
Jack, like Maya, is returning to us as they are both alumni children.

Staff training update

Rachel has completed her level 3 Forest School Leader training and so is our newest crowned Forest leader in the forest gang. She has also now committed to the next step in her development which is the level 5 apprenticeship. This is no mean feat so please give her a well done for her Forest achievement and good luck for her level 5.
Giulia continues with her Forest school training and is nearing the end of her course.
Charlie continues with his level 3 Early Years childcare education course and his writing is going from strength to strength.
Anna continues to make strides in her level 3 apprenticeship training and today gets a special shout out as, as part of apprenticeship month last May, she received the prestigious accolade of Apprentice of the Year from our apprenticeship Partners. This goes to show the huge commitment to her own learning and we are very proud of her achievements. This is the first newsletter since it happened in May but if you’d like to give her a belated well done now you know!
Having had Hemmy with us for only a short time she has decided to take the plunge and has started her level 3 apprenticeship for Early Years.
Deborah again having only been with us for a short time is also taking advantage of learning opportunities and has started her level 2 apprenticeship in Early Years.
Elaine is about to start her level 3 Apprenticeship.
Gabi is about to start her Forest school leader level 3 course.

Just because staff are new doesn’t mean they can’t get on board the training train. Even our newest members have been hard at it. We are congratulating Elaine, Gabi, Elecia and Cissy for completing their paediatric first aid training, as well as food hygiene, and safeguarding.

A special shout out in particular to Elecia who has shown a great hunger to learn and since starting has done every course we’ve thrown at her from FGM awareness, Prevent training, Introduction to safeguarding and Food hygiene.

With all this interest in learning we can barely keep up with staff and their newest courses!

Our commitment to ourselves, our children and our staff is that anyone can be a lifelong learner. The example that we set as staff to the children that attend is that there is always more knowledge to be learnt and betterment to be achieved and we are excited that our current staff team reflects this so beautifully. Please make sure to join us in encouraging them.

We are also delighted to tell you that 4 of us are going to the FSA conference at the end of September to get lots more ideas and skills for having even more fun with your little people in the outdoors !!

Housekeeping

Please could we remind you that the last pick up time without receiving a fine is 5.30. The lateness fee that is in your contract will be applied from September.
If you could please label your clothes even things like a vest, t-shirts, hats and gloves etc because it's really difficult to keep track of everyone's belongings.
As you may have noticed the parent whatsapp group is now unfortunately a Read-only group. So if parents would like a message relayed to other parents you are welcome to message Annie who is a group admin or the duty manager who carries the cabin phone. The Cabin phone number is also an admin of the group but if you need it this number is 07452 781747.
We have put together a kit list which we have put on the website if you need it but it's not exhaustive so if you see anything else that you would like to recommend that would be great too. Vinted and H& M and even Sainsburys can have good stuff. https://www.annieandco.co.uk/parents

Term dates for the year

Please find below our dates for the calendar year.

Please note: If a payment date falls during a holiday period the same amount is still payable as parents are charged only for the 47 weeks we are open across the year and spread across the year into 12 equal monthly payments.

These can also be found if you need to refer to them throughout the year https://www.annieandco.co.uk/parents

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Planning a curriculum and timetable for early years developmental success in an outdoor setting

Mon, 01 Jul 2024 15:09:21 GMT

Management of our Timetable and curriculum at Annie and Co

As an outdoor setting we know that we have to things a little differently to to make sure our little people are reaching all their developmental milestones. Of course like all settings in the UK we are guided by the Early Years Educational Framework. However below we detail our principles of timetable and curriculum management that we use to make sure that our children receive a rich array of experiences in their early years educations.

We know that the curriculum, learning environment, children's experiences and journey into life are only as good as the people delivering it. For this reason as well as the EYFS we look to these pillars below to make sure we are providing the required richness for our children to receive the best early years education our provision can provide, leveraging all 7 areas of effective learning and all the best aspects of outdoor education.

1. The setting up of the environment so they can learn from their surroundings, what we physically put out for them to play with. i.e. collections of toys, games or activities. This is called an enabling environment. So every morning it is important that we put out interesting and stimulating things for them too do and to find.

2. It is important that we create an environment where a child feels safe and respected and the environment is full of fun, love, nurturing and language.

3. Exposure to language is the most important element of creating a learning environment. It’s not important if you child is non verbal and it's not about asking questions or directional language such as ‘sit down’, ‘eat your food’ or ‘what colour is that?’. It’s about thinking and developing creative questioning in the minds of young people. It’s using creative language and observations of the world using words that are unusual, extending their exposure to a wider vocabulary. Research shows that richness in language encourages extended learning.

4. Planned and timetabled activities such as circle time, reading, story time should be daily before and after toast as well as other times.

5. Planned adult lead activities should also be daily but should be free choice such as painting, cutting, mark making, cooking, planting and digging.

6. Dynamic activities such as following the children’s lead requesting puppets or pretending to be a driver with passengers on a train.

7. Walking stories with books such as 'Bog Baby' and 'Going on a bear hunt' should be incorporated into the timetable at least twice a week. If we run out of these walking story books we should think them up ourselves with help from the children's imaginations.

8. Long term planned themed activities such as celebrations, festivals and nature projects such as hedgehog house building/care need to take place across the term within the termly planned activities, with strong reflections and scaffolded for learning throughout the term for the abilities of the group.

9. Pooling of everyone’s ideas and expertise. Asking people to lead activities that they are particularly good in certain areas is a great way to share the responsibility of planning throughout the team.

Spring Term 2024 Newsletter

Mon, 05 Feb 2024 16:08:33 GMT

Hi folks! First of all everyone at Annie’s house would like to wish all our children and families a belated Happy New Year! Thank you for all your lovely cards and gifts.Thanks to all the families who joined us for our annual Christmas party for the festivities. This was our first Christmas in the cabin and so we were really excited to celebrate it with you all and so thank you for the great turn out.

We thought it would be great to let parents know what fun plans we’ve got coming up this term and what they can expect the forest gang to be getting up to as winter turns to spring time.

Spring term plans

We have lots of fun activities planned for our little people this term. Not to mention some great festivals to celebrate together.

As some of you might have already spotted, we have been caring for our shoots and shrubs over winter in our little green house. Throughout spring we will continue to plant some of the mature plants into our growing space. We are also getting very excited as some of the previously planted wildflower seeds and bulbs are starting to sprout so we are hoping to have a lovely collection of flowers as the temperature starts to warm up. All the children are particularly interested in birds and we have been doing some serious watching and listening as well as identifying birds. The woodpeckers have also been very busy tapping on the trees.

We hope to be able to help the local wildlife by adding some bird boxes to the scout park this term. We will also continue to look after our new found hedgehog friends by keeping their hedgehog houses nice and cozy until they are warm enough to come out and say hello in the summer. Talking shelters, we are also eagerly awaiting our willow to commence the build of our willow arbor to make a more permanent but natural reading and relaxing corner for everyone. We will be sure to keep you updated with the progress through pictures!

We also intend to put in place a more permanent mud kitchen for our culinary mud masters in the forest gang to play with as much as they wish! We hope you all like mud pie as these guys are about to get some serious practice in.

As for celebrations this term we have lots in store as this is one of the busiest times of the year for fun things to celebrate. Keep an eye on your post out there, as we are already preparing for valentines day which is fast approaching. This term will also see us celebrating the Lunar New Year. This year is the year of the Dragon and we will be having lots of conversations about what that means for children in all the countries that celebrate the Lunar New Year. There will be a special chinese new year campfire with lots of homemade chinese food and we are hoping to listen and dance to some special chinese music. Of course February won’t pass us by without a pancake celebration or too as well!

Later in the term we have mothers day coming up as well as Red nose day and of course Easter to celebrate. Closer to the end we will also be celebrating the gorgeous carnival of Spring where we will be looking very closely at nature and the annual cycle of living things and all of the lovely things to expect from the natural environment from spring.

News and updates

As some of you might be aware this term and last term we welcomed a couple of additional staff members to the team. Make sure to say Hi if you haven’t already. We have Hemmy who used to be a parent for Teddy who is now in big school, plus Zach and Ceiba who will be joining us for some afternoons throughout the week. We expect a couple more to be joining throughout the term so keep an eye out for new friendly faces for us to introduce you to.

Rachel has been continuing her Forest Level 3 studies and is due to send in her final submission in the next couple of weeks. Hopefully at the next newsletter we can give her a shoutout for becoming our newest Forest Leader!

Giulia is also doing great work continuing with her level 3 Forest Leader course which we think will be completed towards the middle of the year.

Anna continues to study hard for her level 3 apprenticeship and Charlie is trooping through his level 3 childcare certificate too.

We are really proud of all of our staff that are pursuing their own learning and achieving additional qualifications. We look forward to updating you on their progress. As a setting we believe in leading by example and there is no better example to our little people than adults continuing to pursue learning, proving that you can always add strings to your bow at any time!

Housekeeping

Thanks to all the parents who have been helping us by labeling your child’s things. Please make sure to continue labeling as much as possible as it helps us keep track of everyone's belongings.

We have another tricky situation where your children are bringing in their toys or something special to them which we have no problem with but it just needs to be on the understanding that they will probably need to do some sharing but also these precious things are often difficult for them and us to keep track of. So if you could ensure as much as possible that if your child wants to bring something in they understand both we and them might not be able to find it at the end of the day to go home with them on that particular day.

We know sometimes you are waiting a while at the gate, for the time being please make sure to press the button and give the manual bells a big ring too. We will be installing a louder button bell in the next few weeks so this should get easier soon. Thank you for your patience in us finding the best gate solution for our little forest setting.

Many parents have been asking about the 2 year old government funding as of so far, we have still not been made aware as a setting what this funding will look like in terms of amounts or even operationally. We are eagerly waiting to find out all the information that we need and hope to be able to inform parents who it applies to as soon as we can. For the time being we have made the relevant requests to register for the scheme.

Some parents have been getting later and later for collection, whilst we have allowed people a bit of a grace period to get used to collecting from the Scout Park we would like to remind you that collection should be no later than 5 30pm and there is a chargeable penalty written into the contract for those that are unable to make this time. It is a long day for both children and staff so we ask parents to please make sure to respect collection times and staff’s time.

Term dates

First Half- Monday 8th January 2024 - Friday 12th of February 2024.

Half term(open for full time children) - Monday 12th of February 2024 - Friday 16th of February

Second Half - Monday 19th of February - Thursday 28th March 2024

Easter Holiday(open for full time children)- Friday 29th of March(Bank holiday)- Friday 12th of April 2024

Closed on bank holidays- (Good Friday- 29th of March and Easter Monday- 1st of April)

Summer Term Start date- Monday 15th of April

We can't wait for spring to come, we can feel the warm sun on our faces and watch nature bring everything alive again.

Lots of love All the forest team!

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Personal Social Emotional Development through Den Building

Thu, 26 Oct 2023 09:24:15 GMT

Building PSED through Den Building

Den building can be a lot of fun, for adults as well as children. This holds esteem by its own doing - we believe children should encounter activities which invigorate and inspire them. What is the big deal about den play? The impact it can have on all areas of advancement. Nonetheless, for this blog, we will simply be zeroing in on PSED.

With the 'make up for lost time' account because of Coronavirus, it's essential to consider how we can enough help children comprehensively, instead of simply centre around proficiency and maths. Children have persevered through isolation. We realise that PSED is crucial hence why it is a great region in the EYFS.

We try to make ways of supporting PSED in playful ways. Den building is an open ended activity with restrictions on how you make and develop it. This relieves children from any pressures - children can connect fair and square they are unafraid of

disappointment. It makes children take into consideration what they'll be using, how to consolidate them, how to utilize the den. They can decide, state their preferences and discover a sense of identity.

The idea of den play allows for group play. Children cooperate, make arrangements, share thoughts, compromise, reflect and assemble. It open doors for children to team up, alternate and regard the contribution of others. In doing as such, they are

cooperating to accomplish a ultimate objective. When the children completed the den in our forest their faces were unbeatable they gleamed of joy and had a sense of pride and achievement which allows their confidence grow.

By empowering children to build freely, they're able to build their resilience and determination they're learning through their errors and dealing with the dissatisfaction that comes with this. We found this activity a great way for a child to deal with not getting their own way and having to negotiate effectively it encouraged them to use their

independent side and develop their emotional intelligence.

With den building, there is an element of risk play so it's important for both adults and children to continuously risk assess. The main one being the den may fall so having set safety rules placed by adults is an important aspect in this activity for example "before going in make sure an adult in present" and asking questions like "is that the safest place to put that stick?". If the den does fall it may be disheartening at first but it teaches them life lessons.

I hope you guys have fun playing Bob the builder in the forest...How are you going to build your den?

Sept 23 FSA Conference- Annie's Run down

Thu, 12 Oct 2023 14:07:27 GMT

Sept 23 FSA Conference- Annie's Run down

I am on a forest school journey. Sonya ( Daughter number 1) and I, completed our forest school training in 2018. We achieved the Forest school accreditation in May 2022 and were reassessed in May 2023 and it was renewed again. We are one of 6 early years settings in the UK to have this accolade.

An integral part of being a forest school practitioner is to be committed to continuous professional development(CPD). Professional Development is important to all of us at Annie and Co. It brings new ideas and experiences for all of us and the children. Life is truly about expanding your experiences and learning always.

With this in mind; to connect, to listen and to learn, I headed, on the last Friday of September, with Sonya and many like minding people to a sunbathed hill in Essex. Danbury outdoor center, just outside Chelmsford was the venue for the annual Forest School Association (FSA) conference. The conference was attended by over 300 people and was mine and Sonya’s first time attending.

There were over a 1000 workshops to choose from and one could fit in up to 3 workshops over the course of the weekend. I wanted to concentrate on storytelling and how I could do it better. So I signed up to two different storytelling workshops, which both had interesting and helpful ideas that I could incorporate into my practice. I also attended another workshop and learnt how to make a light weight saw which was great fun too!

There were also approximately 16 stalls, selling all sorts ranging from tools, work benches, outdoor clothing and willow to name but a few. I bought several palm drills for the children to use as well as small clamps to keep their objects in place, in order to drill safely such as conkers and acorns.

The organisation of the conference was run really well. All the organisers and volunteers were so helpful and kind. There were quizzes, singing, dancing and campfires, lots of connecting, talking and laughing, as well as lots of food and cake. I met some very interesting people, who had great life stories.

Nell Seal, who oversees the accreditation of Forest settings, organised a meeting between all the accredited settings and practitioners. This was another great session that allowed us to come together, share experiences and support each other.

So many people in the world think that forest school is just about being outside, but there is so much more, a whole pedagogy in fact! This is why children we have in our setting show so much resilience, strength and well being. They learn so many life skills to prepare themselves for the next big adventures of their lives.

All in all it was a really successful weekend and we are already really looking forward to attending next year. As Rachel is just about to complete her own Forest school Leader course we are hoping that she can attend with us too.

September 2023 Newsletter

Tue, 19 Sep 2023 10:00:26 GMT

September Autumn Term 2023 Newsletter

Hello everyone! We are here! The children have already been informing us of all the lovely things you’ve been getting up to over the summer holidays and the team are coming back refreshed and raring to go for another year of fun and learning in the woods.

During the summer weeks we got up to lots of fun activities including making hedgehog houses and ladders to make sure they are safe and comfortable in the woods living alongside us. As always our resident gardener, Anna, was helped with the harvesting throughout the summer, with the children seeing the potatoes, tomatoes, raspberries and strawberries all mature ready for picking, we even had a pumpkin! The children helped grow these all from seed and looked after them diligently over the spring and summer and were able to enjoy them cooked on the campfire and as tasty fruit salads. We are going to need a lot more seeds for the next batch!

As some of you may know we said goodbye to our big four year olds this term, so far all are doing well settling into their reception classes. Parents have been particularly happy with their confidence and readiness going in and we are very proud of our little friends graduating out and being so ready for their next adventure!

As is life, as the older ones graduate, we get to welcome some new families into the forest gang and this year is a busy one. Our full time move to our cabin in the woods has meant that we are more popular than ever and so we get to welcome in Lennox, Leonard, Skye, Reuben, Phillipa, Pandora, Kaue, Kai and Laif! Make sure to give them a hello when you see them at drop off, pickup or in the area. The older children remaining have settled very well into being the big siblings of the setting and are doing a great job at helping these new little people settle in with us.

Activities Planned for the term

We have some great activities planned for the upcoming term that our forest gang will be able to get involved in.

Since we did such a great job at cultivating our little garden last growing season, the Scout Park is helping us reallocate some of the planters to a sunnier spot. With this we hope that our little friends can plant even more and harvest even more ingredients for them to cook and prepare food with than ever. We are even more excited about this as we received a very beautiful seed house from Cassie’s family when he graduated and the children are already planning what they want to get ready to seed using the little seed house. We know for sure potatoes, tomatoes and rosemary are top of the list.

We are going to work in collaboration with the scoutpark on other ecological projects as well such as more wildflower planting and more projects to support pollinators, such as bee bricks, and fruit tree planting.

We also plan to extend our hedgehog highway to make sure we can continue looking after our hedgehog friends. Hopefully they will come to visit us like they did last year when they were particularly happy with our handy work with their hedgehog houses!

Other plans are being put in place as we speak for the term where we hope to be celebrating Diwali, Black History Month, Halloween and the Day of the Dead to name a few! Of course finishing off with our usual Christmas in the woods celebrations. If we’ve missed any out that your family celebrates let us know! We are always on the hunt for new celebrations our children can discover and learn about. And the adults too!

We will also be starting up the build for our willow arbor den that we hope to be able to use as a reading corner and hangout spot. As ever we will continue with lots of printing, natural ingredient dying and painting as well as forest school counting and books in the woods.

News and Updates

(Some general news and updates from our side)

After months of emails and going backwards and forwards we have officially received our Ofsted registration to be permanently based at the Scout Park and in our gorgeous cabin, so thank you to all the parents who sent in supporting emails and who willed the process along with us. We made it!

Annie will be attending the annual Forest School Association conference where the country's most recognised Forest leaders gather to swap best practices and push the quality education initiatives forward. We are excited to find out what Annie learns at the conference and what ideas we can instigate to make our Forest school the best possible provision for our forest gang. Keep your eyes peeled for an individual blog about the conference after she’s attended.
In the spirit of continuous CPD for staff Annie and Rachel will also be attending a nursery world conference about outdoor education and development in early years.
Sahara is steaming ahead with her level 5 Apprenticeship in Early years Education and doing great on all her assessments so far.
Rachel is about to complete her level 3 Forest School leadership training and we are excited to be able to crown her our newest Forest School leader. She has worked very hard for the whole year to complete the course so make sure to give her a well done when you next see her.
Anna has been working very hard with her Level 3 Apprenticeship and has been exceeding her tutors expectations with her most recent assessments.
One of our newest members of the team, Giulia, is continuing to pursue her forest school level 3 training and doing amazingly well.
We are super happy to be able to welcome Charlie back from studying Chemistry in Bristol as a permanent staff member again. Both the team and the children are really excited to have him home again as he was missed by everyone. He is starting a level 3 course in early years and education with a view to progressing to level 5.
This September Milly, one of our Alumni/ staff members, will be returning to Leeds Uni to continue her degree in fashion.
As well as Binta who will also be returning to the UEA to continue her degree in Chemistry. We will miss them both and we are hoping that they will visit us again soon in their holidays.
We will continue to be supported and support Maya, Jackson and Poppy, our young after school helpers. These 3 are all in year 13 and are part of our work experience programme.
Finally, now Teddy is a big boy and settling into his spot at big school, we will be welcoming his mummy Hemmy for a few days a week. She’ll be trying her hand at forest school with us and we know she’s going to be a great addition to the team.

House keeping

For our little people that have started nursery or reception in September we will be sending all of the photos that we hold over to you guys so you can enjoy them as a family.
For new families please make sure to start labelling your little people's coats, boots, jackets and anything you can think to label, just so we can keep track of whose things are whose and that everything goes back to the right houses.
Please note that as for term dates are as follows for this term

Half term- 23/10/23- 27/10/23
End of term- Thursday 21/12/23
Next term Start Date- Monday 8/1/24

As usual we will look to do a couple of family days where the Forest Gang get to invite mummies, daddies, siblings, grandparents and anyone else who they want to visit can come for a hello. These normally coincide with half terms and then a larger one at Christmas. Keep an eye on the whatsapp group and dates for these will be announced closer to the time b ut it’s a great way for parents to meet each other as well as the team and other children at the setting.

Annie and Co are moving!!

Thu, 20 Apr 2023 16:30:50 GMT

We are moving!

Announcement news!

What's new?

Here at Annie and co we've been working hard on a super new and exciting setting. Having been awarded the first FSA Forest School recognition in north London last year, we have been looking to increase the amount of time that our children get to spend outdoors. Since we already had such fun in the Scout Park and had already made friends with Collin the crow and the resident prickle of hedgehogs, we thought it would be the best place for us to establish new roots.

After working closely with Steve, Martin and Becky at the scout park, we have done up our very own beautiful cabin in the woods. We have tried to make it a home from home and we can't wait to welcome the new 2023 cohort through the doors.

Where's it?

From the new academic year onwards we will be based in our very own cabin in Bounds Green Scout park, just off of gordon road in N11. You can see our new front door from the car park or you can access it by turning right at our stick man display.

When are we opening?

We are hoping to be able to take our current children on role to the cabin during the summer term to try it out but for new applicants we are now enrolling for our first full time Forest School places starting in September 2023.

To join the waiting list and come for a visit please feel free to fill out the following waiting list form https://forms.gle/cpechq8wHJZkYHscA or you can email us with any questions at learninginearlyyears@gmail.com .

Whilst you're here, checkout our Gallery and Forest page to see what we get up to with the Forest Gang. Can't wait to see you round here too shortly!

September Newsletter

183:774854097 (Phillippa Anne Sabbagh) — Tue, 13 Sep 2022 13:21:13 GMT

Autumn Term Kick Off

Hi folks! We hope you all had an amazing summer holiday and you were able to get some rest in to get ready for the new year. We have lots in store for our little people and we are raring to go. Here's a little run down of the term ahead and some fyis.

Autumn Term

First and foremost, we have new little people to welcome to the forest Gang. We have Konnie, Isla, Naoki, Jasmin and Leo N all starting with us this September. So if you see some new faces at the gate make sure to say a warm welcome. These little people have been doing a great job at getting settled in and the older children are excited to show them the ropes.

As the warm weather comes to an end and we stay goodbye to a sweltering August our activities will start to change along with the season. To kick the September Season off we will be going Sloe berry picking to make our fav September treat sloe berry cordial and if we are lucky to get some elderberries too then we will be making some elderberry jam on the campfire with the gang. The change in temperature means that the gardeners in the team can get on planting their winter vegetables, we already have a few butternuts that are doing very well and we hope to be able to add pumpkins and Brussel sprouts to the list too!

Moving into October the gang will be celebrating Diwali, Black history and Halloween. The Stickman and his lady love will of course be celebrating everything that we are celebrating too so keep your eyes peeled for their costume and theme changes as the year goes on.

Towards the end of the term we are hoping to do a parent campfire with some soup and smores so we will give out more information about that the closer we get to that. As we do every year as well, the children will be working on a end of year prezzie for the parents but unfortunately any more details of this will be kept under-wraps(literally).

Throughout the term as a whole we will be working on stretching the children's independence, resilience through continuing our work in the Forest. For those of you who were with us last year you will know that the temperature can bite as winter draws closer, so we will be reminding our little friend how much fun can be had out in the forest and how to get the best our of their days. We can't wait to show you what we get up to!

News and Updates

(Some general news and updates from our side)

- Term date for the term are as follows- First half of the term 1/9/22- 21/10/22, Half term- 24/10/22 - 28/10/22, Second half of the term 31/10/22 - 16/12/22.

- Ourselves and the team will be observing the 19th of September Bank Holiday to allow staff members and our families to use that day as they see fit to commemorate the Queen. Please note this means that we are closed on this day and will be back open again Tuesday the 20th.

-As some of you may know Rachel has just started her Forest School Leader training so will be coming back to the gang with lots of new ideas of things to do with the little ones. It's a huge achievement for her to be sponsored by Annie's house to do the training so make sure to share a well done with her when you see her next.

- Continuing with the theme of training. After her few month of backpacking, Sahara is back with us to commence her level 5 apprenticeship as an Early Years Educator. We can't wait for her to get started and are super glad to have her back.

-Unfortunately, one much loved member of the team, Charlie, leaves us towards the end of the week to start his second year at University on his Biochemistry degree. We've had the best summer ever in his company, we'll miss his baking and cooking and are hoping to lure him back during the holidays! Give him a fond farewell this week as Thursday will be his last day!

House keeping

- For the parents who haven't done a winter with us yet, please make sure to prepare the usual thermals, snoods, hats and gloves that really help our little people get used to being out and about even in the cold weather and helps them enjoy themselves when they are out there.

- For any parents who are maybe expecting or just welcomed a new member to the family and is hoping to start them with us in Sept 2023, I know it may sound premature, but please let us know as there are already 50 families on the waiting list hoping for a Sept 2023 start. It is normally our practice that Siblings get first dibs but please let us know as we will start parents visits for 2023 starts this term.

July- End of Term Newsletter

Fri, 22 Jul 2022 17:29:14 GMT

July- End of term summer Newsletter

Summer Term

It’s been a sweltering few months at Annie and Co this term and we’ve all had a great time! Here’s our end of term newsletter to let you know what we’ve been getting up to.

All the hard work that we did on our vegetable patch in the spring came to fruition this term and we were able to make our first few harvests. So far our most successful crops have been the potatoes and the strawberries. We got right into the cooking and the eating of these as they went onto the campfire to make chips and jam! We are still diligently looking after the remaining plants in our vegetable patch and are looking for to harvesting our sweetcorn and radishes as soon as they are ready too.

This term saw the Queen’s jubilee celebrations and it was great to spend an afternoon with all the parents enjoying our freshly made elderflower mocktails in teapots. We also celebrated fathers day with our little people who were really proud of their father’s day gifts. We hoped you dads liked them out there!

This term we have been focusing hard on our letters with the older children adding their names to the name tree each day in the forest and having lots of story circles amongst the trees.

As usual we have been very busy in the forest, with some expert den building, mud kitchen cooking and fairy garden building and we can’t wait to do even more come the summer holidays!

We have also been enjoying our new hammock an d the music box finally making it down to the forest too. Collin the crow is not sure about our music just yet but we are having fun singing, dancing and making lots of fun music for him to enjoy!

We would like to say a huge thank you to all our little forest friends for making the term such a hoot! To you parents thanks for the continued engagement with us and what we are doing for our little people. It's been a fantastic year and we wish you all the best summer holidays! We are excited to see what fun stories and adventures you all have on your return. It's been a tricky few years for a lot of our little people and families but we got there in the end, hopefully you agree that the children are now thriving again!

Summer Holidays

For those that are with us during the holidays as well as term time, we will be doing lots more playing with water and making sure we keep in the shade. We hope to be carrying on with our target painting projects and will be thinking of what our stick man and his lady love might want to do once they return from their summer holidays too.

We hope that by this time our sweetcorn will be ready and we will be able to have some corn on the cobs on the fire and start planting our winter vegetables back into our patch.

News and Updates

(Some general news and updates from our side)

As some of you may already know this term we celebrated achieving our official Forest School Association recognition to become only the fifth early years setting in London and eighth in the country to achieve this so far. It was a hugely proud moment and we really appreciate all the parents who have supported our move further into the Forest ethos!
We also had a visit from Ofsted the outcome of which was that ‘we continue to meet the criteria for a safe and productive setting’. Our outstanding status has been retained and we are really grateful again for the glowing testimonials that were sent in by the parents.
Some of you may have met the new cohort of children who will be starting in September and all the places that were available remain full. We are at maximum capacity each day and have been overwhelmed by interest from local parents both through word of mouth and through our website so thank you to all of those singing our praises out there.
We are hoping to have a picnic the week before we all break up which will be next week now. We are just trying to work out with the Scout Park which would be the best day to invite you guys and we will let you know. Hopefully, you can all join us for a picnic and a play.

House keeping

For our little people that are going into nursery or reception in September we will be sending all of the photos and any assessments that we hold over to you guys so you can enjoy them as a family.
Please note that as for term dates we are back open for those who are with us normally during the holidays on the 22nd of August. However Haringey Term dates for the new school term start on the 1st of September so the 31st of August will be the last day for anyone going into nursery or reception this year.
Also for parents who only use us for 39 weeks of the year please remember that fees are calculated as an annual total and then divided into 12 monthly payments. Please bear in mind this means that your August payment will form your last and final payment of the academic year.

Press Release Announcement- FSA Recognition.

183:774854097 (Phillippa Anne Sabbagh) — Wed, 11 May 2022 09:24:03 GMT

Annie and co Nursery and Forest school (Early years learning ltd) is officially recognised for good Forest School practice

Annie and Co Nursery and Forest school is celebrating its success at becoming the First Recognised Forest School Provider in North London by offering children an opportunity to experience ‘good practice’ Forest School.

Annie Sabbagh the proud owner of Annie and Co said “We have always strived to be as good as we can and give an excellent service and experience for our little people and finally this is the recognition that we are doing a good job! We believe that the Forest school ethos sets children up for the rest of their lives and we have always been proud to have been part of their journey, being recognised by the FSA for our setting is just the Icing on the cake and the Cherry on the top!”

Forest School is a specialised learning approach based in a woodland or natural environment with trees. It offers all participants regular opportunities to develop self-confidence and esteem through hands-on learning experiences. Its roots reach back to early years pioneers in outdoor learning in Scandinavia.

In October 2017, the Forest School Association (FSA) - the UK’s professional body and voice for all things Forest School - launched a new scheme to recognise Forest School Providers who demonstrated that they are following good Forest School practice - the FSA Recognised Forest School Provider scheme. Successful applicants such as Annie and co are added to a publicly accessible map on the FSA’s website www.forestschoolassociation.org/find-a-forest-school-provider/

For parents wond ering where to send their children, or even for decision makers such as Local Authorities and Academies, it is important to know that a provider is operating professionally. Are they working in accordance with good Forest School practice? Are the sessions conducted so that the children’s self-confidence, communication skills, use of tools (among other skills), is progressing week on week? Do they have the appropriate qualifications, First Aid Certificate and risk assessment processes in place? Are the woodland sites well managed?

The FSA Recognised Forest School Provider Scheme offers that reassurance! Gareth Wyn Davies (CEO of the Forest School Association) says, “Good Forest School practice is being followed by dedicated Forest School professionals all over the UK. We believe that the FSA Recognised Forest School Provider scheme will provide these schools and organisations with the means of demonstrating the quality of their work to parents and those who fund their work. It will also help promote their work as they will be found on the FSA publicly searchable map. Forest School is a distinct learning approach based on a set of 6 principles. Our scheme helps people identify those providers who are following good Forest School practice and distinguishes them from other outdoor education that is not Forest School. We therefore congratulate Annie and Co Nursery and Forest school on their success at becoming an approved ‘good practice’ provider.”

The scheme takes providers through an evidence based assessment process ensuring that their practice meets all the necessary requirements to operate professionally in line with the 6 good practice principles of Forest School. It also gives providers a chance to take stock of their programme(s) to see if any improvements need to be made.

If providers fulfil all the evidence needs, and their application is successful, applicants receive a range of benefits including an e-badge that they can display on their website and marketing materials, are listed on an online publicly searchable map and can access a range of member discounts.

Feedback from successful applicants who have been through the application process has so far proved positive but ultimately the real success comes from the participants using Forest School. As David, aged 14, confirms, “I don’t have ADHD when I’m out in the woods!”.

Ensuring provision is professional is a major part of this experience and the FSA’s goal is to ensure that more positive outcomes, like David’s, are the result of good practice Forest School provision.

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May 2022 Spring/ Summer Newsletter

183:774854097 (Phillippa Anne Sabbagh) — Fri, 06 May 2022 14:16:46 GMT

May 2022- Spring/ Summer Newsletter

May 2022 Spring/ Summer term

We had a great few months between January and April this year. Here’s our latest newsletter to keep up with the news!

As we come out of the winter our team of little people got to work planting and sowing seeds ready to play out in April and May. So far we have strawberries, potatoes, sweetcorn, tomatoes, butternuts, french beans, onions, asparagus and peppers all ready to go so we are expecting some excellent harvest later on in the year.

As promised the little ones celebrated Chinese new year, pancake day, mothers day and Easter as did our Stickman, his family and his ladylove.

The children as always have been mastering their climbing, jumping and hopping and we are starting to have some serious balancers on our hands!

Summer Term

Summer term looks like it’s going to be another fantastic term with lots of activities planned for the woods and celebrations to be had. Most notably we are planning on having a big children’s tea party to celebrate the Queen's platinum jubilee with proper tea cups and tea pots for them to enjoy.

For us the summer term is a great time for our little ones to learn lots about life cycles and food cycles as well as just being able to run free. As always painting will be a common fixture in our plans as well as lots of summer water fights! The warm weather also means that our books are nice and safe so we will be ramping up the amount of books and stories on offer in the woods.

News and Updates

(Some general news and updates from our side)

- We are currently in talks with the Scout Park to be able to secure a building on site for our team to work out of. Whilst this hasn’t been finalised we are hoping by next year we will be able to spend even more time in the outdoors come rain or shine.
We have submitted our final application to the Forest School Association and are hoping to hear back soon if we have received their official Forest School Accreditation. This would make us the first official accredited Forest School nursery in Haringey. We will let you know when we receive word back.

- As some of you may know Sahara is leaving this term to go on her travels in South America. She will be keeping us up to date on her travels and location so children can learn lots about maps and other countries, cultures and traditions. She will be returning to us in the Autumn term to start her level 5 apprenticeship with us, so hopefully we won’t have to miss her for too long!

- As it stands we are now completely full for September 2022 and so would like to thank all our parents that have been recommending us to lots of new parents. The response to our move into forest school has been amazingly well received and we are hugely proud of what we have been able to achieve in a short time of focusing on this ethos.

- On successful completion of her kickstart placement with us, Courtney will be staying on with us and has already started her studies to achieve her level 3 apprenticeship with us. She has been an incredible addition to the team and we are excited to see how far she can go! We are also proud to reveal that Courtney has been nominated for a kickstart award in the category of Most Improved candidate with the results set to be announced in June.

- Our next parent meet up will be at the end of the term. We will finalise dates closer to the time but we hope you will join us for some summer water fights, playing in the sun and a bite to eat.

House keeping

- If you have any old teapots and or tea cups that you no longer need in your house please bring them to the house so we can add them to our jubilee celebration collection.

-Please note that after the tea party we plan to repurpose these into bird and bug houses so please only bring ones you don’t want back!

-For the families who will graduate this term and leave us to go into school we are working on making sure that all assessments have been finalised. We will be sad to see them go but so you don’t miss out on all the amazing photos that we have taken of them over the months and years all photo files for each child will be transferred over to the parents after final August Payments have been made and the admissions folder is closed out.

Gardening Hacks to Celebrate Gardening Week

Thu, 05 May 2022 15:51:16 GMT

Gardening Hacks

To celebrate National Gardening week the forest gang have put together their best gardening hacks they use in our beautiful Scout park to keep our little garden ticking over and ready to bring us new life, flowers and vegetables this summer.

They want to share them with you so everyone can enjoy a beautiful garden this year!

1. Seedlings

This year we used seed trays to start our plants indoors so they were nice and sheltered from the rain and the cold. We put the tray somewhere warm and dry and made sure to water them regularly, but very gently. This helped them grow strong and faster just in time for planting out in April.

2. No pots/ land? No problem

If you don’t have lots of space that’s not a problem at all and you shouldn’t have to stop planting because of it! You can recycle and repurpose lots of things into planters. This year we have been more creative than ever and we have old drawers, tyres and sacks all being used as planters for our summer crops.

3. Waste not want not!

Talking about repurposing….

In an effort to continue with our recycling and repurposing drive we have extended this to the kitchen and have been saving up all our banana skins, cutting them up and putting them in some water to soak for a few days. When ready this water makes the most perfect chemical free fertiliser to feed back to our plants. Not only does this reduce our waste but it keeps our plants nice and nourished.

4. Plant things you love!

Choose plants and vegetables that you can’t wait to eat or see come up into your garden. We realised that by planting things you absolutely love you do a much better job and taking care of them because you are so excited to reap the rewards later.

This year so far we have planted strawberries, onions, french beans, tomatoes, sweetcorn, butternuts and potatoes. It’s safe to say we are in for a feast and we still have more seeds to sow!

5.Sharing is Caring

Whilst this one might seem like a no brainer the children wanted to make sure that everyone knew it! Make sure you regularly check and water your plant babies. If you tend to them and care for them then you are in for a nice treat down the line but if you forget you’ll be sad and have no treats waiting for you in summer.

Thanks to our team of little gardeners you now have all the tricks and tips that you need to have a summer feast like us.

From us to you happy Gardening Week and good luck with your planting!

Top tips to make the most of the outdoors during the winter

Thu, 03 Mar 2022 17:07:07 GMT

Top Tips for outdoor winter fun!

Here at Annie and Co we are pretty much outdoors whatever the weather! This term so far has been no different apart from the days that Eunice kept us out of the woods. We know that it’s easy to get bogged down in the dark and gloomy winter months of January and February but there are still ways to have fun outdoors!

Here are our children’s top tips for making the most out of them.

1. Celebrate Everything!

This term our Stickman Christmas display became our Stickman Chinese new year display with added Tiger guests of course! All the children participated in decorating the Chinese new year display and learnt how to wish each other happy new year in Mandarin! All children took part in our Luna new year days by having tiger face paints and tasting new Chinese foods like noodles and spring rolls all made, forest-style, on the campfire.
In February the children also celebrated Valentine's day by taking part in our secret card making and sending mission. Children sent secret valentines day cards to their families and were able to learn all about posting things.
With all the celebrations that we could think of done and dusted the children then decided that the stickmen might like to visit Paris so decorated the display all over again with a french theme, made new beret hats for the Stick man and his Stick lady love and learnt some new french words to say to each other. Let's see where they go next.

2. Look after our animal friends! - It’s easy to want to stay inside in the winter months and hunker down but it’s a great time to learn how to look after our animal friends around us who don’t have a warm home to go to.

To help look after our bird friends the kids took part in making bird feeders to understand how to look after them during the cold months when food is hard to come by.
We now have a regular friend Colin the Crow who has taken a liking to the popcorn campfires and comes to say hi most days we are in the woods. The children have learnt that with a bit of compassion, thought and care they can get a lot back from nature.

3. Get the ground ready for spring - Generally the winter months you don’t think about planting but keeping the ground fertile and ready for planting in spring is a job in itself.

In January and Feb our team of little people helped feed and clear our little piece of land and have now started planting.
The whole gang planted crocuses and daffodil bulbs and our most recently have completed their potato pouches!
We are now all eagerly watering and checking them each day to see how they are getting on and looking forward to a bountiful display in a few weeks and months.

4. If you are already Messy…Get Messier!

The children have been working on various paint projects as well during the term, for this they now wear their special paint suits so they can really get stuck in.
This has helped the children experience lots of creative freedom and find new ways to express themselves with extra colour, vibrancy and even design ideas that would be hard to come-by with an indoor painting activity.
This has become one of the children’s favourite activities so we suspect that it will make a regular appearance in our monthly activities.

These are just a few of our favourite things we’ve been up to in the last few months and our favourite ways to continue enjoying nature in the colder winter months. We look forward to showing you our growing displays as we burst into Spring in March and April.

Until then Kung Hei Fat Choi and happy valentines day.

Happy New Year! Jan 2022 Newsletter

183:774854097 (Phillippa Anne Sabbagh) — Wed, 12 Jan 2022 14:57:07 GMT

Jan 2022 Newsletter

Hi folks!

We hope you are all rested and energised for the new term after the Christmas break. We have been enjoying catching up with our little friends about what they got up to over the holidays and of course what Santa brought them.

We thought we would take this opportunity before we are fully in the throes of January to wish you and all your families a Happy New Year!

In our ongoing partnership with our parents and families we thought this would also be a great moment to recap our projects and news for last year and let you know what we have planned for the term ahead!

2021

As with most of you 2021 started off as a pretty strange year but we are happy to report that, for us, it has been great, if a bit of a learning curve!

This year has brought us a partnership with the Local Scout park which means we have really ramped up our Foresting! Our setting is now in the forest for a full 50% of time meaning that our kids have more time than ever to explore, play in nature, go bug hunting, birds watching, planting and generally learn about the outside world whilst being in it!

We have always been a setting that values children being able to explore outdoors but this year marked a shift that we will be outdoors every day, no matter the weather!

We hope the parents agree when we say that we can really see a difference in the children and how they are coming on by being able to access such freedom on such a regular basis.

2021 has brought us campfire lunches and roasted marshmallows as well as muddy slides, hedgehogs and dens and that’s just to mention a few things!

A couple of highlights from the year from the team here were summer water fights, Sahara’s black history month campfire with fresh plantain and our Christmas Stick Man project which we were all proud as punch to put up. Not to mention all the mud pies and tree climbing that we get up to on just the normal days! We’ve popped some of our favourite pictures of the year below.

Plans for Spring 2022

With us being more in the woods than ever this term we have lots of great outdoors fun planned for our little friends.

As some of you may or may not know Milly will be travelling through Central America so we will be learning lots about maps and map reading.We will also be making a Flat Stanley for her to take with so we don’t have to miss out on any of the trip! We will be following her travels and also getting stuck into some map reading for ourselves in the woods!

Beginning of February will mark one of our favourite celebrations, Chinese New Year! We will let all the parents know when it will be happening but there will be a red and gold day where everyone will be invited to come in lucky red and gold clothes and we will be cooking up some tasty Chinese dishes on the campfire, weather permitting. It's the year of the tiger so Rachel, our resident expert face painter has volunteered to swing into action. We are also hoping to make some lovely stick lanterns so we can decorate our little piece of nature in the scout park.

As spring warms, the gang will be doing a lot of planting and learning about how things grow. We have managed to carve ourselves out a little corner in the scout park which we hope to be able to maintain and grow on so the children can really experience the beauty of the nature around them. Pollinating flowers and watching the clever bees will be really special. The snowdrops we planted are very confused but the crocuses and hyacinths are trying to come up already. As part of the growing and nature project we will be learning to use some tools as well this spring! The team will be making benches, hedgehog houses and bird feeders all with the help of our little ones! We hope to find some budding carpenters in the gang and make some comfy homes for our animal friends that we share the scout park with.

There will also be some special things happening for valentines and Mothers day too!

As the weather picks up we will look to invite all you mums and dads to join us for a picnic or campfire so you can see what we've all been getting up to so as soon as we are ready we will let you all know when that will be.

And last but not least, you couldn’t have a spring term plan without including Easter, so this year with the help of some of our little fairies we will be hoping to have the biggest Easter egg hunt ever. It will be our first in the scout park and in the run up we will be making Easter baskets and decorations all with what we can find in the woods.

As always we are hoping for a fantastic new year and thank all the parents for coming along for the ride and letting us have such fun with your little people. We will give out more details as these projects go ahead and of course parents will be kept up to date with all our day to day events and activities as normal!

Once again Happy New Year everyone lets make 2022 awesome!

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*Guest blog*-Diversity in Early Years – A Male working in a female-dominated industry

Charlie in a recent Unifrog workshop talking about his work in Early Years

*Guest Blog* - Why Children Should Grow Their Own Food in Early Years Settings

Newsletter 2025

Summer 2025

*Guest Blog *-Why I chose a Forest School Setting for my children

*Guest Blog *- A teacher's perspective of Forest School -why you would choose it for your own children

Sustainability for all

Sustainability for all.

September 2024 Newsletter

Winter term 2024

Hi Folks!

Welcome to our September newsletter. We hope you were all able to have a restful and happy summer. We have already heard about lots of the fun things you’ve all been getting up to and we are super excited to get all the updates from our little friends as they return to their new term with us.

As with all Septembers you will be seeing new families and faces joining so please make sure to say a warm hello and welcome to our newest additions.

For new joiners welcome on board! Here you will find our plans for the term and some general parent updates.

We’ve got some fun things planned for the term and a few things to update you all on so a huge welcome back from the team and lets get stuck into some Foresting!

Autumn term plans

We have lots of fun activities planned for our little people this term. Not to mention some great festivals to celebrate together.

News and updates

Staff

There are so many new staff members I had to make a new section for it! Please give these new faces a warm welcome if and when you next see them.

Staff training update

Just because staff are new doesn’t mean they can’t get on board the training train. Even our newest members have been hard at it. We are congratulating Elaine, Gabi, Elecia and Cissy for completing their paediatric first aid training, as well as food hygiene, and safeguarding.

A special shout out in particular to Elecia who has shown a great hunger to learn and since starting has done every course we’ve thrown at her from FGM awareness, Prevent training, Introduction to safeguarding and Food hygiene.

With all this interest in learning we can barely keep up with staff and their newest courses!

We are also delighted to tell you that 4 of us are going to the FSA conference at the end of September to get lots more ideas and skills for having even more fun with your little people in the outdoors !!

Housekeeping

Term dates for the year

Please find below our dates for the calendar year.

Please note: If a payment date falls during a holiday period the same amount is still payable as parents are charged only for the 47 weeks we are open across the year and spread across the year into 12 equal monthly payments.

These can also be found if you need to refer to them throughout the year https://www.annieandco.co.uk/parents

Planning a curriculum and timetable for early years developmental success in an outdoor setting

Management of our Timetable and curriculum at Annie and Co

Spring Term 2024 Newsletter

Personal Social Emotional Development through Den Building

Building PSED through Den Building

Sept 23 FSA Conference- Annie's Run down

Sept 23 FSA Conference- Annie's Run down

September 2023 Newsletter

September Autumn Term 2023 Newsletter

Annie and Co are moving!!

We are moving!

September Newsletter

Autumn Term Kick Off

July- End of Term Newsletter

July- End of term summer Newsletter

Press Release Announcement- FSA Recognition.

May 2022 Spring/ Summer Newsletter

May 2022- Spring/ Summer Newsletter

Gardening Hacks to Celebrate Gardening Week

Gardening Hacks

Top tips to make the most of the outdoors during the winter

Top Tips for outdoor winter fun!

Happy New Year! Jan 2022 Newsletter

Jan 2022 Newsletter

Guest blog-Diversity in Early Years – A Male working in a female-dominated industry

Guest Blog - Why Children Should Grow Their Own Food in Early Years Settings

Guest Blog -Why I chose a Forest School Setting for my children

Guest Blog - A teacher's perspective of Forest School -why you would choose it for your own children