We hope everyone is having a lovely Christmas and are enjoying the time off (if they are lucky enough to have it!!)

As many of you will know the 4th of January will mark Arbor Green Nursery’s first birthday.

It has certainly been a busy and fun packed year. So fun in fact that a lot of it has been taken out on the walls! We thought what better a chance to have a bit of an update and give the nursery interior a bit of a spruce up – after all, nobody wants a tired and dirty looking children’s nursery.

We think it’s coming along nicely and hope that everyone notices a difference when we return in the New Year. Our thanks must also go to David Hamill who has taken time out of his Christmas break to come down and give us the benefit of his skills. When he is not helping us at Arbor Green David is a talented composer for film and TV. You can check out his work at www.cue6.com. If we ever get a film made about Arbor Green then we know who will be doing the score!

It looks as though Jack Frost has decided to visit the UK and our nursery early this year, and Arbor Green has received it’s fair share of snow over the weekend. Parents might find that the snow fairies have even been down over the weekend to build a snowman!

We are lucky to have such a large outdoor area to make use of and are sure that the nursery children are going to have a great snowy time over the next week!

We  would love to see any snowmen that the children have been building over the weekend – if you have any send them to info@arborgreennursery.com.

If you have been to the nursery you will have seen that we have a large area for the children to play in. We have our wooden wendy house and our climbing frame.

This week we have had a brand new feature added that we can’t wait to talk about!

The fantastic people at Earth Calling have been down to the nursery to install our amazing Willow Den. Gus and his team have done an amazing job of constructing this really beautiful and really lovely feature.

When it gets to March or April 2011 and the children can begin to play in it we know that they are going to love it. Once the willow starts to grow it will create a brilliant little corner of the garden that  can be used for all sorts of games and activities.

We hope the children are as excited about it as we are. Would would really like to work with Earth calling again in the future as we fell our  grounds have so much potential.

If you have any questions about the willow den or suggestions for what else we could do with the garden we would love to here them.

I have just read a very interesting piece on Nursery world asking the question of do we in the UK send our children to School too early.

Deciding when your child is ready is a tough decision but many parents don’t realise that they do have a choice if they feel their child is not ready.

Although schools and local authorities are obliged to offer a place from the September after the child’s first birthday there is not obligation for this place to be accepted. It is possible to defer the child’s entry to school for another year and to still receive 15 hours per week funding from the government, something we offer in our nursery fees.

Some may ask “Why defer?”

If the child is old enough and accepted for school should we not give them the best start and give them the opportunity to learn as quickly as possible? Not necessarily.

Some children are simply not ready for exposure to school at this early age. The emotional pressures which come from being immersed in the school environment can even hold back the development of the child. There is also evidence to suggest that this can effect grades that are achieved in later life.

Of course every child is different and parents must carefully weigh up all the information they have available to them before making a decision. That  decision must of course always be in the child’s best interest.

We're ready for school now!

If your child attends Arbor Green Nursery and you feel they are ready for school we shall wave them off on their last day with a smile (and perhaps a tear!) Remember we do offer stimulating and challenging activities for pre-school children in our Edinburgh nursery. If you decide the time is not quite right then we would be most happy to let them grow that little bit extra with us.

To visit the full nursery website go to www.arborgreennursery.com

We have arrived!

To catch up with the 21st century we thought it might be a good idea for us to be on the cutting edge of technology and get ourselves a blog.

Most of you will be aware that a blog is used to communicate thoughts and ideas on the web in a (reasonably!) easy manner.

We hope to use this blog to let you know of our opinions on childcare (in the UK, Scotland and Edinburgh). There is so much constantly changing on this field that it can be difficult for children’s nurseries to keep up. It sometimes feels like the legislation changes faster than the babies grow up!

Legislation, guidelines and best practice are often analysed and reworded that it is important for managers of nurseries to keep up to speed with the latest thinking.

That is something we at Arbor Green Nursery are good at. Of course we want to provide the best care possible for children in Edinburgh and that means putting in the effort of reading, speaking to colleagues, speaking to support services and the Care Commission to really stay on top of the latest in nursery news.

The Arbor Green Nursery Tree

It’s not all boring of course! At Arbor Green Nursery we love to have a fun time, the children will tell you that!

We will also be using this blog to keep you up to date with nursery news, staff news, events and anything else that we can think of.

If you have any comments we would love to hear them. If there is a subject or topic regarding the nursery or childcare in Edinburgh you would like our thoughts on then please just let us know.

You can either post them to this blog, email us on info@arborgreennursery.com or speak to us in person.

If you have found this blog while looking for a nursery in Edinburgh you can always contact us to book a visit.

We look forward to hearing from you!!