Little Barn Owls Nursery is an award-winning farm and forest school group with locations across the Horsham area, Mary Goodsell discovers how this forward-thinking nursery group are going from strength to strength
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Winners of 'UK Nursery Group of the Year 2020' and 'UK Nursery of the Year 2015', Little Barn Owls recently announced that they are proudly expanding their portfolio with the acquisition of the former Orchard cafe on the A272, between Cowfold village and Buck Barn crossroads. The nursery site will cater for up to 60 children between the ages of 3 months to 5 years.
Founded in 2010, impressively this is the fourth site for Little Barn Owls group, who have over 400 families currently attending their schools that they have formed over the past twelve years. The four Little Barn Owls sites, including their pioneering Atelier21 Future School, are all within a ten-minute drive of each other, and the community feedback has been nothing but positive.
An exceptional approach to staff training, a forward-thinking ethos to nurture confident, caring and curious children has resulted in back-to-back ‘outstanding’ Ofsted. The staff training is all undertaken in-house, with the addition of external trips and regular industry conferences – in fact, 95% of their senior team have been with them since the beginning of their childcare and educational careers. Having built a steadfast team over the years they are in a strong position to be opening another location, enabling them to cater for more families in the area, whilst continuing to develop the quality of educational and care facilities that they deliver.
The group’s approach to teaching and development is hugely focused on purposeful, inquisitive learning, with the addition of their farm and forest schools. The new Cowfold site will boast their largest farm school yet, an extensive orchard and they will also continue to take the children on regular visits to their very own forest school, located in nearby Southwater.
Outdoor learning is fundamental to their approach and ethos, having taken inspiration, to some extent, from Scandinavian approaches and the Reggio Emilia approach from Italy. They aim to inspire children to grow in confidence, resilience and empathy; something that is especially reinforced when the children are regularly involved in looking after the nursery’s animals. The group has proven that expertly managed outdoor play can provide children with the freedom to engage and explore the great outdoors in a safe environment.
Although outdoor learning is a huge part of their educational structure, the indoor learning environment is just as impressive. Across all subjects, students are encouraged to work on longer-term projects that are then presented at the end of their year. The students of Little Barns Owls have the opportunity to regularly work and play within their bespoke art studio classrooms with the highest quality materials.
The future is looking bright for the group with the addition of another nursery site at Highwood Estate in Horsham planned for the future, and the opening of the Atelier 21 Future School on the outskirts of Crawley this year. A school for pupils aged 4-14 years which offers a dynamic and learning-focused environment for primary and secondary years pupils.
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