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18 Reasons to Choose Little Cedars Nursery for your Childcare

If you’re choosing a nursery or pre-school for your child in or around Streatham, Furzedown, Tooting or Balham, making your final choice may not be as hard as you think. Take a look at 18 compelling reasons to choose Little Cedars Nursery below. You’ll soon see why we’d make an unbeatable choice for the childcare of under-fives in the area.

1. Superb Parent Feedback

In the last five years, Little Cedars has received only 5-star reviews on Google and FacebookIndependent feedback from other parents is worth its weight in gold. In the last five years, Little Cedars has received only 5-star reviews on Google and Facebook. That’s top marks, consistently for 5 years running.* Comments that accompanied these independent reviews were equally compelling — here are just a few examples:

“Amazing nursery! Our daughter loved it here and all the staff are fantastic!”

“[The] team are amazing in every way, with the attention and time they give to the children. Very good knowledge on childhood illnesses and allergies.”

“With the new management this nursery is better than ever. Well done Maggie!”

“Lovely nursery, great team and an amazing outdoor space — they have animals which is fantastic. Amazing management team …”

“I just love the friendly vibes, the lovely facilities (including resources, grand garden and animals!). Maggie, the manager, has been just wonderful and you can see her deep commitment as she often supports her team in the rooms! [A] hands-on manager that will always give you time to talk about your child is a recipe for a success! Highly recommended!”

Ofsted also remarked that parents gave them wonderful feedback about the nursery in their recent Ofsted inspection.

2. Rated as a “Good Provider” of Childcare by Ofsted

In Ofsted’s recent appraisal, they consistently rated Little Cedars Day Nursery as “Good” — in every category. The Ofsted report sang our praises across the board. Here’s how they rated each of the core, specific areas in their opening synopsis:

  • Ofsted rate Little Cedars Day Nursery as a Good ProviderQuality of education is rated as ‘Good.’
  • The quality of leadership & management is rated as ‘Good.’
  • Behaviour & attitudes are rated as ‘Good.’
  • Opportunities for personal development are rated as ‘Good.’

Learn more about the excellent Ofsted report for Little Cedars Day Nursery, here.

3. A Home-From-Home for Under-5s

Little Cedars is a warm, welcoming and nurturing environment.Little Cedars is a warm, welcoming and nurturing environment. To the babies and children, it very much becomes a home-from-home where they feel safe, valued, cared for and all with wonderful, close relationships with both peers and our childcare professionals. It’s also a place of immense fun where little ones are happy, stimulated and nurtured in order to bring out the best in them.

4. Exceptional Resources, Equipment & Facilities

Little Cedars Nursery is extremely well resourced and equipped, both inside and out.Little Cedars Nursery is extremely well resourced and equipped, both inside and out. Take a look at our photo gallery to see the high quality equipment outside to give you an idea. We have an amazing array of facilities that children will love, as they play and learn. They will have immense fun while also learning in the most natural of ways. We have multi-sensory areas, carefully-chosen reading materials, interactive toys and equipment and specially designed areas for each specific age group.

5. Affordable Childcare Fees

For those childcare hours that are not covered by Government schemes, our nursery and pre-school fees are very good value. What’s more, prices are discounted for children attending all five week days each week. Siblings attending at the same time also receive a 13% discount, making childcare services at Little Cedars Day Nursery even more affordable.*

6. Free Childcare Funding Schemes for Eligible 2-Year-Olds

We support the Government's free childcare funding schemes for 2, 3 and 4-year-olds.If your 2-year-old is eligible for the Government’s free childcare scheme for this age group, rest assured that Little Cedars Day Nursery supports them and this can potentially give your little one 15 free hours of childcare per week for as many as 38 weeks of the year. That’s 570 free childcare hours per year for your 2-year-old!

7. 15-30 Hours of Free Childcare Per Week for Eligible 3 & 4-Year-Olds

We also support the free, Government-funded childcare schemes for eligible 3 and 4-year-olds, giving them 15 to 30 free childcare hours per week over 38 weeks of the year. That’s 570 to 1140 hours of free childcare each year if they’re eligible. The good news is that all 3 and 4-year-olds living in England are eligible for the 15 free hours per week as a bare minimum.

Check out our Rough Guide to Free Childcare Funding in England for more details.

8. Free Childcare Vouchers Accepted

Little Cedars Day Nursery accepts recognised and valid childcare vouchers, which can really help with affordability. That’s never been more important and useful for families.

9. Great Support for Children with Additional Needs

If your child has additional special needs, choosing the right nursery/pre-school for them is an even harder task. However, Little Cedars Day Nursery has that covered too. Here’s what the independent Ofsted inspector had to say about the topic in their recent visit:

“Children who have additional needs are making good progress from their starting points. Managers and staff offer highly effective support and work closely with parents and other agencies … enabling targeted support that helps children reach their full potential.”

10. Healthy, Balanced Meals & Snacks

Our in-house chef prepares healthy meals for the children each day, along with healthy snacks. Only fresh, high quality ingredients are used to produce the children’s healthy, balanced meals and all special diets are catered for.

Food and snacks are included in our standard fees with the exception of 3 and 4-year-olds receiving Government funding for their nursery places. For those alone, there is a small fee for meals because those are not covered by Government funding. There is, however, no fee for food for 2-year-old funded places.*

11. A Key Person Assigned to Every Child

A Key Person is assigned to each child at Little Cedars Nursery.A Key Person is assigned to each child at Little Cedars Nursery. This is an early years practitioner who ensures that the child’s needs are being catered for and that their care at the setting is tailored to them as an individual. They help children settle in when they first join the nursery and build strong relationships with both the child and the parents. They are therefore usually the natural and key point of contact at the nursery.

12. A Learning & Development Programme Tailored to Your Child

A totally bespoke learning and development programme is developed for each individual child at the setting. This is designed to bring out the very best in them — in every area. So, areas where they’re naturally gifted are made even stronger and any areas where they need extra focus are identified, with appropriate measures introduced as required — including in any areas of special need. In this way, children achieve personal bests across the board and their potential outcomes are absolutely maximised.

13. A Progress Journal for Every Child

The early years practitioners at Little Cedars are so much more than childminders and Little Cedars should not be thought of as just a crèche. Our childcare professionals facilitate the early learning of children and constantly monitor their progress. Indeed a progress journal is maintained for every child as a continuous record of their learning journey. Parents/carers have access to this at any time and are also encouraged to add to it, using its findings to aid the continuation of the child’s learning and development programme even when at home. It’s all an integral part of ensuring that each child thrives in every area of their learning and development.

14. Hand Picked, High Quality Staff

We have a very special team at Little Cedars Nursery.We have a very special team at Little Cedars Nursery. Every one of them has been hand picked to ensure they are the perfect fit for the nursery and for the children therein. They’re warm, natural carers who will form wonderful relationships with children and bring out the very best in them. They become the children’s safe, familiar and friendly faces at the setting as well as facilitating top-notch learning and early years education. They also ensure every child is happy and is having fun whilst under our care.

15. Everything Has a Purpose at Little Cedars Nursery

At Little Cedars nursery/pre-school, everything has a purpose. Whether it’s a hand-picked book or piece of equipment, an interactive game or a particular activity the children are undertaking, it is there for a specific reason and is there to benefit each child in a particular way. An awful lot of thought goes into every little detail at Little Cedars in order to give children the tools to fulfil their utmost potential.

16. A Complete, All-Round Early Years Education

We help little ones achieve personal bests in all 7 areas of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS).At Little Cedars we do so much more than simply look after babies, toddlers and under-fives. We educate and nurture them too. In fact, we ensure that our little ones achieve personal bests in all 7 areas of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS). This is a high quality, all-encompassing learning and development framework that covers communication and language, physical development, personal, social and emotional development, literacy, mathematics, understanding the world and expressive arts and design. It pretty much covers everything children need to blossom and thrive.

17. We Prepare Under-Fives for Starting School

One of the key goals at Little Cedars Day Nursery and pre-school is to prepare the children for when they transition to school at the age of five. That’s a key milestone in their lives and we ensure that their transition goes as smoothly as possible. This includes a good early years education, as well as the fostering of good physical and mental skills, independence, good social skills and suchlike. When they leave us for school, they leave as the very best version of themselves, fully equipped to absolutely hit the ground running.

18. Safety is Always Paramount

The safeguarding of all babies and children under our care is of paramount importance to Little Cedars Nursery. Ofsted recognise this too, commenting in their recent report that our arrangements for safeguarding are effective, with risk assessments and appropriate procedures all being in place. So, as a parent or carer, you can rest easy in the knowledge that your baby, toddler or under-five child is in very safe hands — and that’s even independently verified by the experts.

Apply for a Place at Little Cedars Nursery & Pre-school

A nursery place for your child in Streatham, near Furzedown, Tooting, Balham, Norbury & Colliers Wood

Little Cedars is a nursery & pre-school offering high quality childcare in Streatham, near Tooting, Tooting Bec, Tooting Common, Tooting Broadway, Furzedown, Balham, Norbury and Colliers Wood.Ofsted rate Little Cedars Day Nursery as a Good ProviderWe hope you can now see all the benefits of sending your baby, toddler or preschooler to Little Cedars nursery/pre-school. If you are looking for a good nursery/pre-school in Streatham, or high quality childcare near Streatham Hill, Streatham Park, Streatham Common or Furzedown, Little Cedars Nursery would make an excellent choice. We’re also close by if you live or work near Tooting, Tooting Bec, Tooting Broadway, Tooting Common, Balham, Norbury or Colliers Wood. Contact us today to get started with your child’s nursery application or to arrange a visit, so you and your little one can see it for yourselves. Please choose a button to get started:

* Correct at time of writing (mid-August 2022).

The Complete Guide to Choosing a Nursery

One of the key challenges that affects parents is how to choose the best nursery or pre-school for their little one. Babies can go to nursery at just a few months old and Government funding for childcare kicks in from as early as 2 years of age. So, the choice of nursery is a decision that, for many, needs to be made very early in a child’s life.

What is the best way of choosing the most appropriate nursery or pre-school for your child? What factors should be taken into consideration? This guide clearly explains the key considerations and provides a useful road map to find the perfect nursery or pre-school match for an individual child.

Choose a convenient nursery locationA Convenient Nursery Location

The most obvious factor to consider is location. After all, you will usually want your child’s nursery or pre-school to be close to either your home or place of work — or somewhere en route — so they’re easy to drop off and pick up. With a quick Google map search for nurseries in your desired area, you’ll already be able to generate a great list of possible contenders.

Social Proof

While you’re still on the search results page, you can check how well the various nurseries have been reviewed on Google. Little Cedars has an average rating of 4.4 out of a possible 5 stars on their Google listing, for example — that’s very good. If you dig a little deeper, you can see that, of the 7 total customer reviews, 4 of them were rated at the full 5 stars, which again is extremely good. You can also see any comments with some reviews, where people left them. In our Little Cedars Day Nursery example, here are the comments:

“With the new management this nursery is better than ever. Well done …!]”

“… her team are amazing in every way, with the attention and time they give to the children. Very good knowledge on childhood illnesses and Allergies.”

“Amazing nursery! Our daughter loved it here and all the staff are fantastic!”

So, that’s the kind of thing you need to look for — happy customers! You can also do a similar exercise via the Facebook profiles for each of your contenders. How many 5 Star reviews have they got? What were the comments, if any?

Check children are happy at the nurseryCompatible Opening Hours

The nursery’s opening hours will also need to be compatible with your working hours and allow sufficient time to drop off and collect, allowing for travel. This may help to whittle down your list of contenders a little. Many nurseries and pre-schools only operate during weekdays, so if you work at weekends, you may need to make other arrangements on those days or find one of the rare nurseries that is also open on Saturdays or Sundays. Similarly, you may require childcare all year round and not all nurseries/pre-schools offer that. Our Little Cedars example operates for 51 weeks of the year, only closing for public holidays and one week between Christmas and New Year, so that would be very convenient if you’re looking for an all-year nursery or pre-school in the Streatham area.

Ask Around

Also ask around your friends, family and perhaps neighbours for recommendations. These are worth their weight in gold! You could also consider asking for any recommendations on social media, for example on Facebook, appropriate Facebook groups, or on other parent groups and forums online.

Spend time on Nursery Websites

A huge amount can be learned from a visit to your nursery contenders’ websites. They should tell you about the nursery’s approach to early years learning and development, about safeguarding and security, their curriculum, staff quality, facilities, equipment, anti-COVID measures and a whole lot more. Pricing may also be important as a consideration and websites are usually a great way to appraise fee levels without having to ask directly. If your child has a brother or sister, also check to see if the nursery or pre-school offers a sibling discount. Find out if food and drink are included in the fees. These are just a few examples of the type of information that you can usually obtain just by visiting nursery/pre-school websites, assuming they’re well maintained.

Speak to the Nurseries

Once you have a short list together, call each of the nurseries and speak with them. You can get a great deal of insight by talking with staff members. They may be able to tell you much more about the nursery than can be gleaned from their website or social media profiles. Sometimes speaking to staff can turn up wonderful nuggets of information. For example, they may run a phone app for parents to allow them to receive regular updates about their child throughout the day. They may be able to tell you more about security at the nursery. They should also be able to tell you how they are approaching the effects of the pandemic and what measures are in place to keep everyone safe, whether they’ve won any awards, whether they’ve just had an Ofsted inspection that’s not yet published … and so on.

Excellent, high quality staff, who are all suitably qualified.Visit the Nurseries & Ask Questions

Once you’ve whittled down your nursery contender list to a manageable level, it’s also a great eye-opener to visit the nurseries on your short list. There’s nothing quite so insightful as taking a tour of the nursery contenders in order to see them in action on a standard nursery day. Take note of the facilities and equipment, how the staff interact with the babies and children and consider taking your child with you during the visit. Was the setting a ‘good fit’ for them? Was it homely and welcoming? Did the children there look happy? Were the facilities good? Were the activities varied and well-supervised? Were children’s individual needs catered for? Were babies and young children given enough time for naps? Is the setting well-kept and does it look professionally run? If your child has special dietary requirements or preferences, will these be catered for? Is the food high quality, healthy and well balanced? Do staff feed back to parents/carers regularly about their children? Do they keep progress notes in regard to children’s learning and development and, if so, can they be viewed at any time? What are the child-to-staff ratios? How are special needs catered for? Visiting the nursery will give you ample time to ask these and lots more questions.

Ofsted Reports

Ofsted is the ‘Office for Standards in Education’, the main body for childcare and educational settings in England. You should check out recent Ofsted reports for any childcare settings that you’re considering. These can show some great detail about the running of nurseries and pre-schools on your list. Assuming they’re properly registered childcare settings (which they absolutely should be), don’t be alarmed if you can’t find an Ofsted report if they’re quite new. Not all settings will have them as they happen every four years, so relatively new nurseries may not have an Ofsted Report as yet. If they’ve had one, though, the Ofsted website will show the report. At time of writing (late 2020) Little Cedars has not yet had their Ofsted Report as they were only registered in late 2017, but we’ll publish results the moment our first Ofsted report has been generated.

Ask about safety & safeguarding measuresNursery Security & Safeguarding

For parents and carers, the safety and security of babies and children will be every bit as important as a homely atmosphere, a nurturing environment, a good curriculum, caring staff and modern equipment. Ask the nursery about security and safety at the setting. Are there anti-intruder measures in place, like an entrance system, CCTV and so on? Are there measures in place to stop the children being able to leave the premises unintentionally? When children and babies are picked up at the end of the sessions, is there a water-tight protocol in place to ensure that little ones are picked up by only the right people? Ask your nursery contenders all these kinds of questions.

Are Free Childcare Schemes & Vouchers Supported?

Find out if your nursery/pre-school contenders support the “free Government-funded childcare hours”. At Little Cedars, we support both the 15 and 30 hour schemes for 2- to 4-year-olds, where eligible and when spaces permit of course. Read our Rough Guide to Free Childcare Funding to learn more about those.

Any questions?

We hope this guide helps as a guide to choosing a nursery for your under-five baby or child. It goes without saying that Little Cedars would be absolutely delighted if we are considered as a nursery/pre-school place for your baby or child in Streatham, near Streatham Hill, Streatham Common, Streatham Park, Upper Tooting, Tooting Bec, Tooting Common, Furzedown or Balham in south west London. Do feel free to ask us any questions, book a visit, apply for a place or call for information and we’ll be very happy to help — click an option below:

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