Newpark Childcare Centre

Newpark Childcare is a family-run childcare business with over 18 years of early years experience.

Our spacious open-plan play room at the Barbican nursery gives children the space they need to learn and play, with areas for creative activities including drawing, craft, painting, sand and water play and other messy activities plus a home corner for role play, a book corner and a quiet area for babies to sleep and bottle feed.

For information about our fees, please see the Newpark Childcare Centre Fees related link below.

You can find the link to our most recent Ofsted reports below.

Monthly Fees Under 2's £1970 (5 days) £1810 (4 days) £1560 (3 days) £1195 (2 days) Monthly fees 2-5's £1585 (5 days) £1535 (4 days) £1250 (3 days) £940 (2 days)

Newpark Childcare Centre in the Barbican opened in 2004 and is a small private provision run by the Clutterbuck family. It operates from a converted church hall in the Grade 1 listed Barbican Estate. There are two entrances to the nursery, one of which is down a flight of steps off pedestrianized St. Giles' Terrace, the other through a quiet residential car park, providing ramp access. The nursery is fully wheelchair accessible.  The setting consists of one main play room with a separate smaller room for Montessori pre-school activities. There is a small kitchen and a children's bathroom with nappy changing facilities, and separate adult's bathroom with cloakroom which is also suitable for disabled use.  The children are aged between 1 year and five years old. There are currently some children in attendance who speak a second language, mainly other European languages, such as Spanish, Bulgarian and Italian. There are currently no children with special educational needs. The setting Newpark follows the Montessori Method as the underpinning ethos for the nursery.

The teachers and carers act as good role models, having faith and trust in the children, responding to their needs through positive interaction and guidance. The freedom with limits that the environment offers enables children to enjoy and be part of their learning development. Children are allowed to make good choices within an environment prepared to meet the growing needs. Children in turn display confidence, trust and respect. Therefore enabling children to enjoy and be part of their environment and learning. The children enjoy cultural and practical life activities which also involve exploring their outside environment, with regular walks, and visits within the local community. The ethos of Newpark is to encourage the child to be independent and self confident, whilst developing social skills and respect. This leads the child into the acquisition of literacy and numeracy skills, as well as giving them an appreciation of science, culture and the world in which they live. Children have the confidence to help each other in their work, and turn to carers for praise for the work of which they have a sense of pride for . Every activity and moment of play is used to extend children's learning and open ended questions are asked to promote the development of language. Children enjoy being challenged in the maths area with various shape sorting and counting activities. Many experiences are created that involve the use of language and numeracy in a fun yet informative way. Children are guided by carers to explore ways of carrying out their activities without being given the answer. Children are encouraged to ask questions. Praise and encouragement is given throughout to support trial and error techniques. Through daily observations carers become aware of each individual child's limits so can push them to their limits without taking it too far. The older children use equipment such as sand paper letters and numbers to help them learn the individual shapes of letters and numbers, and have writing books to practice in as they progress.
Socialising with each other helps to develop their confidence in themselves and as part of a group. Children are encouraged to be curious and ask questions about the world around them, and are provided with opportunities to learn more. These allow them to move onto the new steps in the School. We work closely with the Schools that the children attend after leaving the setting, and often arrange school visits to meet new teachers and make sure that the child is prepared for the next step.

Newark has a strong belief that all children are unique and they need to be approached individually, taking into account their personal abilities, needs and interests. When the child joins the nursery, a key-person, a parent and a Senior member of staff have a detailed discussion on the child's current interests and needs, any concerns a parent may have and the development of the child in all areas of learning. Each child has their own Developmental Tracking, filled in and reviewed by the key-person every six months, which helps to identify the scale of the child's abilities  in each area of learning. Once the tracking is complete, the key-person identifies the areas of learning where the child is under-performing or exceeds the level of development and plans the activities for that child accordingly, recording the needs and interests of the child, the activities offered and the outcomes in the Individual Planning book that each child has. The nursery provides a wide range of materials that promote various learning and suit different groups of children (i.e. babies, toddles, bilingual children, boys and girls, SEN children). A key person submits a developmental report for a key-child every six months with a detailed progress in each area of learning. 

If a child has a Specific Educational need the setting is fully committed to working in partnership with Outside agencies and the local Authority.

Extra training can be obtained by staff to further the aid of any child who may need it. Newpark contract a private consultancy to conduct regular mock inspections to help staff and management reflect on their practice and maintain ongoing improvement. Being a small nursery we have the added benefit of being able to spend a little extra time with parents each day during the hand over's in the morning and evening. This provides extra time to discuss their child and the nursery. We inform parents of the child's week and provide observations on the child's development, including a next step. The next step is used as the focus for individual planning and activities are planned to help each child achieve their next area of development. These activities are then placed in to the weekly environment plan to ensure the activities are carried out. These “complete guides” are used to write six monthly accurate development reports to be given to the parents. A parents evening is held at this time giving each parent the opportunity to meet with all carers and the chance to discuss their child and the nursery, both in the present and for going forward. A bi-monthly newsletter is sent to each parent including detail about staff, new children and up and coming events. Parents are invited to pass on any ideas or requests in these newsletters.

The Directors, management & staff work well together to provide a good quality provision to children and their families. The nursery continually ensures that we offer the best a child deserves by constantly reviewing and improving our practices and services. Building upon effective meetings, which are currently taking place separate from staff meetings for the manager & staff to discuss individual children's planning and development in a quiet area, will ensure that the children continue to grow and develop, achieving their full potential. This will allow for recognising any extra help the nursery may need from outside parties for any children with Special Educational needs.

Good practice of working together with parents, and the observation and monitoring of children's individual progress, will help identify any child with special educational needs. Our nursery has identified a member of staff as a SENCO who will work alongside parents to assess the child's strengths and plan for future support. The SENCO will ensure that appropriate records are kept according to the Code of Practice.

We are committed to working alongside parents in the provision for their child's individual needs to enable us to help the child to develop to their full potential. We are committed to working with any child who has a specific need and/or disability and making reasonable adjustments to enable every child to make full use of the nursery's facilities. All children have a right to a broad and well-balanced early learning environment. Where we believe a child may have additional needs that have previously been unacknowledged, we will work closely with the child's parents and any relevant professionals to establish if any additional action is required. All children will be given a full settling in period when joining the nursery according to their individual needs. Where a child has additional needs, we feel it is paramount to find out as much as possible about those needs, any way that this may affect his or her early learning or care needs and any additional help they may need by:

• Liaising with the child's parents

• Liaising with any professional agencies

• Reading any reports that have been prepared

• Attending any review meetings with the local authority/professionals

• Observing each child's development and monitoring such observations regularly.

Our SENCO will be the first point to discuss if a parent is worried about their child, or if the need any help.