We pride ourselves on the commitment of our long standing staff team.

'Children are independent and considerate learners because the long standing and consistently warm staff design the environment to make it accessible and understandable.'
(Taken from Ofsted 2008).

Our staff are very important to us and are chosen with the utmost care. We employ qualified nursery nurses, teachers and experienced nursery assistants who are highly motivated and enthusiastic about their role in supporting the children. The staff give lots of encouragement to the children and always have time for a cuddle. They encourage spontaneous play and create different learning environments for the children to play in both indoors and outdoors.

Our staff pride themselves on the relationships they build with the children and parents. Our recent Ofsted report quotes:

'Staff's superior skills and commitment to each individual child enable them to promote each one's development in all areas through choices that the child themselves has made.'

Our aim for children who have been at Ashton House Nursery is for them to be happy and to start school with self confidence and high self esteem.

Our younger children have their own nursery-to-home diary so that parents and staff can communicate about the child's recent activities and achievements. For our older children, we provide a daily information board where child's activities can be shared. Staff are always available to talk to parents and we hold regular parent's evenings.
Our Room Leaders and their staff teams work from 8am to 6pm to ensure there is continuity of staff within rooms throughout each day.

All children have a designated key worker. This helps the children to settle into the Nursery and provides a constant point of contact for parents. Children benefit from being part of small group activities with their key worker.

Investment in staff development is a priority at the nursery and we carry out our own in-house training. All of our staff are trained or are currently training up to NVQ 3 in Early Years Care and Education or hold the NNEB qualification. We invest in training some of our staff up to degree level and our deputy manager is currently training towards her Early Years Professional Status (EYPS).

In 2007, we have again achieved our Investors in People award for our continued investment in staff training and welfare.