Whether you’re considering sending your child to an Ashbridge Day Nursery or any other nursery setting, you may be curious about the benefits of early years education for your little one. It is normal to feel uneasy about spending time away from your infant at first, which makes educating yourself on the benefits of nursery all the more important and reassuring.
It is important to give your child the opportunity to learn and develop independently. Therefore, you should take the time to choose the right early childhood education setting to ensure that both they and you will receive all the help and support you need. In this blog, we will explore the many benefits that a nursery can have for your little one’s cognitive, physical, and emotional development.
The Benefits of Nursery
The early years of a child’s life are crucial when it comes to their cognitive, social, and emotional development. Therefore, it is important that you find the right nursery for your child that provides them with all the support and learning they need. Here at Ashbridge Day Nurseries, we lay the foundation for their future learning and success through our interest-led curriculum and social activities to ensure they flourish, thrive, and are prepared for their future education. Here are some of the main benefits of nursery for your child.
Cognitive Development
Cognitive development starts from birth when babies can only see about 10 inches around themselves. From here, their first milestones include developing their optical focal length and discovering their bodies. Your child’s cognitive development only continues to grow over their infancy while they play with toys, watch TV, listen to their parents speak, and generally experience the world around them. It is crucial to encourage cognitive development and ensure that children have the stimuli around them to help them flourish.
Across all four of our Ashbridge Day Nurseries, we embrace practices from the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) curriculum to build systematically on each stage of your child’s development. Our interest-led early years teachings and promotion of outdoor learning focus on developing language, communication, and vocabulary to provide meaningful learning opportunities. With the help of our experienced early years teachers and practitioners, no opportunities for learning are missed; their innovative and flexible approach to teaching helps form rounded and confident learners.
Social and Emotional Benefits of Nursery
One of the biggest benefits of a nursery for your child is the social settings and experiences it provides. Children benefit in an array of ways from shared social experiences, as they help them develop interpersonal skills and grow their emotional intelligence. Our nurseries, Ashbridge Nursery Hutton, Ashbridge Nursery at Maxy Farm, Ashbridge-on-Ribble Day Nursery, and The Fledglings Day Nursery, offer a nurturing environment that helps to develop a positive self-image and encourages your child to learn.
As part of our ethos at Ashbridge, we believe in promoting confidence and well-being so that your child has respect for others and the outside world. Thanks to our rural locations, we are able to promote outdoor learning through our Forest Schools and River School. This creates a fresh and stimulating environment for learning, and we believe that children learn best when actively engaged and challenged.
Structured and Early Learning
While it is important that your child is being challenged during their early childhood education, we also see the benefits that come from structured play. Structured play, both alone and with others, is an integral part of the nursery experience and, for some children, may be their first step in playing and sharing with others. At Ashbridge Day Nurseries, we promote investigation and creative thinking through structured play and provide interactive teaching experiences that encourage children to learn through exploration.
At Ashbridge Day Nurseries, most of our classrooms have direct access to the outdoors, allowing children to extend their learning environments and offering them unrestricted access to the outdoors. Infants attending any Ashbridge location benefit from specialist facilities designed for specific age ranges. From play areas and soft play for babies and two-year-olds to kitchen gardens and miniature villages for pre-school-age children, facilities across all Ashbridge Day Nurseries are designed to develop your little one’s cognitive, social, emotional, and physical development.
Nursery Funded Hours
If you’re keen for your child or children to reap the many benefits of nursery but are worried about the financial implications, then you’ll be glad to hear about funded nursery hours. In the UK, the government supports early childhood education through funded hours to allow all children to reap the benefits of nursery. This helps to ease the potential financial burden on parents while ensuring that children have access to the learning and support they need.
Here, we offer both 15- and 30-hour early years funding, which can be accessed as soon as your child is eligible for it. We have places for this funding available at a variety of locations and times across our nurseries. Simply get in touch with one of our nurseries, and we can discuss your child’s requirements and funding place availability.
For more information on the services we provide or to book a tour at one of our facilities, get in touch using our contact us form or by contacting the nursery directly.
