Our nursery is founded on family values, we are not a business chain or committee led, we are run by a family who has dedicated over 25 years to providing all our children with the best learning experience and lots and lots of fun! We value every child for their uniqueness and support each one to aim high and be the best they can be.
Our Mission: To quite simply: provide the best learning experience to all our children. We aim everyday to provide an outstanding learning environment, which is engaging, caring and supports all children to achieve amazing things. Our dedicated staff will excite, explore and learn with the children and see every day as an adventure, led and driven by our amazing little pandas. Encouraging confident, independent, lifelong learners.
Our Values: Panda has always been based on family values. Panda has been running for over 60 years. June Thompson devoted herself to Panda for 19 years and keeping it in the family – Ali Thompson her daughter in law is now the Director. All we do is based on what we would expect for our own children – the best. We value every child for their uniqueness and support each one of them to aim high and be who they want to be.
How are we going to achieve this? By working to create Happy Children, Happy Parents and Happy Staff. Because in an environment where you feel happy, secure and comfortable the best active, high involvement learning can take place. We are constantly reflecting on this mission, looking at ways to improve and develop our nursery.
Our Approach: We run a planning in the moment approach. This means we don’t spend hours planning sessions, but all staff understand the importance of planning at that moment, when they see the opportunity to step in and support / extend a child’s learning. This may be introducing new resources into their play or new ideas. Our approach is totally led by the children and their play. We do spend a lot of time reflecting and adapting our environment, based on the needs of the children in the session – to provide a learning rich environment for them to explore and learn.
We are also inspired by the Curiosity Approach, based on the philosophy that children learn by tinkering and exploring, loose and authentic resources. We are on a journey to replace the plastic toys with wooden, authentic items from home, upcycling whether we can, to enhance the learning experience of our children.
We have high aspirations for all our little Pandas. We support each one of them to be:
Passionate about learning and prepared for school
A confident communicator who can make friends and respect others
Not afraid to take risks and find new challenges
Determined and resilient
An independent little being and creative thinker
“Staff have high expectations for children’s behaviour and act as positive role models. Leaders are committed to providing a high standard of care and education.” Ofsted 2022
Getting messy!
Using shaving foam and paint to strengthen
our gross motor skills during Write Dance
Celebrating British values at snack time,
china cups, yummy fruit, listening to others,
having great conversations with good table
manners!
Sam Gyimah Surrey MP and Under-Secretary
of State for Childcare and Education visits
Panda
Bring your Dad to nursery day – we have so much fun!
“I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to Panda Nursery, and meeting all the fantastic staff who provide such a valuable service for local families. It was great to spend time talking with the children, and I was very impressed by their art work. We need more nurseries like Panda in Tandridge.” Sam Gyimah MP (View our blog post)
We balance short, small group adult directed activities with child led play, making sure we have lots of time for children to explore and test out their new ideas on their own or with their peers. Every day we are off on a new adventure led by the children. We offer opportunities to learn from our routine, staff support, exciting environment (inside and out).
We encourage independence and the development of skills which will support children to be great British citizens and life long learners.
Our nursery is committed to ensuring that our teaching, learning and caring environment promotes and upholds ‘British Values’ which involves valuing and being aware of the multicultural society we live in.
We do this by encouraging:
• Children to learn right from wrong
• Encouraging turning taking, sharing and inclusion
• Challenging (and encouraging children to challenge) negative attitudes and stereotypes
• Demonstrating (and encouraging children to demonstrate) mutual respect to one another and tolerance to those with different faith and beliefs.
We take children from 2 years old, it’s fine if they are still in nappies – we work with you when you and your child are ready for toilet training.
Our focus for our two year olds is to help them feel safe and settled in an environment away from their parents or main carers, helping them develop their confidence and independence.
We build on basic skills: sharing, turn taking, making friends, using the toilet, developing their independence. We also teach basic letters, numbers, colours and shapes.
We could be off on a nature walk one day, jumping in muddy puddles, bathing babies or making sandwiches another.
We love reading stories, puppet shows, singing songs, painting, running around outside and having lots of fun!
Our adventurer group are 3yrs old, usually going to school the following year and the focus on learning through play continues. We are led on the children’s adventurers and support them to become independent and ready for the next stage in their life, through their own play and discovery. At Panda we support the development of confidence and independence – I can find my coat, go to the toilet, ask for help when I need it. I can make friends and know I have choices and how to make the right choice. I’m willing to give things a go to find out exciting new things.
We also support them to develop pre-handwriting skills through fine and gross motor activities. We encourage a passion for learning and support pre-reading skills.
We love music and movement, we are always singing and dancing. We use this to support children’s imagination, expression and communication skills. We even have our own Ballet Teacher – Miss Tarryn.
We spend a lot of time outside in our play area, on walks to the Glebe field and the local area. We use the environment inside and out to develop our physical skills.
Each session children are asked to bring in a piece of fruit for the sharing basket, the fruit is washed and shared with the children during the session.
Children bring packed lunches to the afternoon session or if they come all day.
We cook fresh, home made, healthy and yummy food for our breakfast and afterschool clubs on site. Made by our wonderful nursery chef. All allergies are catered for and we are a nuts free zone.
We pride ourselves in supporting all children to be included in the learning opportunities in our setting. Our SEN Team (Special Educational Needs) work hard supporting all children who need that little extra support. Our SENCO is Kelly Thompson supported by Ali Thompson and all Key Workers.
SENCO support is integrated with a child’s key person and we work together with parents and outside agencies (Speech & Language, Paediatric consultants, Health visitors etc.) to provide united support for our children. Ofsted commented on the time and effort we dedicate, “all children, including those with special educational needs, make rapid progress from their starting points in learning“. (Ofsted 2016)
Inclusion: Our SEN team supports our fundamental aim that all children are supported to take advantage of the same opportunities at Panda, regardless of their social background, religion, culture or abilities. We work hard to ensure all can fully participate in our nursery, feel welcomed and included.
Equality: At Panda this is not about treating everyone in the same way, one size doesn’t fit all. It’s about recognising each child needs support in different ways in order to make sure all children and families can take advantage of all learning experiences.
We treat every child as unique and value them all. We celebrate our differences and the diversity within our nursery.
We are all working parents juggling work / life balance. We pride ourselves in being there to support our parents, from flexible sessions, that helping hand at drop off or a cuppa and chat when you are having a bad day!
We work with you to support your child through these precious early years. Open communication is really important to us.
Email is our main form of communication; ensuring even those busy working parents who can’t always pick / drop off are kept informed. We email a termly list of activities and dates giving you plenty of notice of those dates you need to book off and come in to join nursery events.
We also use a secure online journal to keep you updated of your child’s progress and have text system for those quick messages and reminders.
This is all in addition to the usual notice boards and we are around for a good old fashion chat whenever you need to.
Ali Thompson is around most days in reception to greet you and answer any queries you have.
It is really important to us that you are involved in your child’s journey with us. We encourage you to add posts to their online journal and come along to parent’s evenings and events.
We’re here to help, and do our best to support your child and family. Whether you are just having a bad day and need an cuppa and someone to talk too, or need help finding specific help groups or financial support, we will do our best to help!
More than just Early Years Practitioners
Ofsted praised our staff for “providing an outstanding learning environment for children with extensive opportunities and resources for play, exploration and discovery”. (See our Ofsted Report 2016)
“I’m so proud of my team – who together, work hard everyday to make Panda the best nursery around” Ali Thompson (Panda Director)
View our outline of A Panda Practitioner to see what outstanding qualities we expect from our team.
Recruiting the best team
When recruiting our team we look for that special sparkle. That person who excites, inspires and captures the attention of our children.
We also look for those with the skills, warmth and enthusiasm to fit into our hard working team. Most of our staff are parents themselves, and have the life experience parenthood brings. Many are Level 3 qualified and we all follow a comprehensive training programme. As a team we have high expectations for ourselves as well as our children.
We follow a Safer Recruitment process and all the latest safeguarding procedures. Staff complete an induction and probation process and have regular appraisals, 1 to 1 support meetings and training reviews.
Whole nursery learning
The Director, Room Leaders and Early Years Practitioners are Level 3 trained in childcare. We are all first aid, health and safety and Level 2 Food Safety and Hygiene trained. We update our Paediatric First Aid qualification as a team every 3 years.
Our culture is one of whole nursery learning – for the children and staff. We all have training and development plans and regularly attend courses. We work hard to ensure we have a clear understanding of how children learn, and how to provide rich, varied, learning experiences.
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Current Vacancies:
Contact ali@panda-nursery.co.uk for the ‘official’ job description or to discuss any of the roles above
We’ve found this great alternative job description
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A bit about our Director
I’ve been involved with Panda for over 12 years now. I started out supporting my mother in law June Thompson who dedicated over 19 years to Panda and is still on hand now!
I’m crystal clear on my vision to make Panda Nursery the best place for children to learn and develop and uncompromising on continuously reflecting and improving all we do to ensure we follow outstanding practice. I want the best for my children and see all children at Panda as part of our family. I base all we do on – would it be good enough for my child? Would I be happy as a parent? I want happy children, happy parents and happy staff.
I started to support June Thompson with finance and accounting, managing HR and working on improving internal and external communications. Once I had my children my outlook on life changed. My love of Panda grew along with my wish to be around more for my children and help support them and many other children with the best start they can have in their early years. I slowly became more involved with supporting the business and took over from my mother-in-law, June Thompson in September 2014.
I have 2 amazing children; both my son and daughter came to Panda and are still involved.
With a 1st Class (HONS) Management Studies degree (Bsc) from Brunel University, I worked in Marketing for over 10 years. Being part of and then managing Marketing teams in Insurance and IT. While working in Marketing I completed a Postgraduate CIM Diploma in Marketing and went on to become a Chartered Marketer with CIM Membership (MCIM). As my focus on Panda grew I studied and completed the Level 3 Children’s & Young Person Diploma. I now aim to complete a short course each term to keep my knowledge fresh and drive our brilliant nursery to continuously improve.
I love hearing your views and am happy to chat about any concerns. You can find me in reception, email me on ali@panda-nursery.co.uk or call me on 07812 522492. Come and have a chat.
Ali Thompson
Panda Nursery Director
Level 3 Children’s & Young Person Diploma
Management Studies Bsc (HONS) 1st Class
Postgraduate CIM Diploma in Marketing – MCIM Chartered Marketer
Every day we aim to be one step better than we were yesterday.
We regularly review our sessions, routines and environment at a management and team level to ensure we are providing best practice and meeting the needs of our children.
At least one of us a term is on a training course and bring back a wealth of knowledge to share with our team. We welcome parent feedback at any time, we’ll always acknowledge your comments and feedback what action we’ve taken.
We also work closely with other nurseries, childminders and nannies in the area, learning from each other and sharing ideas. We work together when we share a child between settings to support a joined up, complete learning journey.
“Thank you so very much for all the wonderful work you have done with Emily. If ever there was an advert for how amazing you all are, Emily’s progress is it.”
Mrs Adams
“You run an excellent nursery. Staff are excellent. Children love it.”Mrs Richards
“Both of my children went to Panda Nursery and loved it. The staff are really friendly and focused on development, which is great for the children. But as a parent, what I like most is that they are more organised than other nurseries, and I particularly enjoy receiving the regular online observations with photos.”
Mrs Choy
All 3 of mine have gone to Panda with the third currently, and it has always been great. Everyone there works really hard at making sure your child has a great experience, which is exactly what I want as a parent. – Mr Edwards
“I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to Panda Nursery, and meeting all the fantastic staff who provide such a valuable service for local families. It was great to spend time talking with the children, and I was very impressed by their art work. We need more nurseries like Panda in Tandridge.”Sam Gyimah – Surrey MP and Under-Secretary of State for Childcare and Education
Panda is a fantastic place. You totally deserve the outstanding as you all work so hard to make it a wonderful place for the children. – Mrs Bennett
“Katie has loved her time at Panda and with all your hard work has developed into quite an independent young lady! She talks incessantly about her teachers and has huge respect for all of you! Keep up the good work!”Mrs Bodle
“Panda Nursery is an excellent pre-school setting. Our child has been very happy at Panda and we have found the staff excellent, professional and caring towards the children.” Mrs Haynes
“We love Panda, both Theo and Constance have been extremely happy. The staff are great and we appreciate such a good ratio of staff to children and the fact that staff have experience and generally have their own children. Also love the music and singing.”Mrs Turner
“What can I say, it’s been an amazing two years you and your team are fantastic. My daughter has had the best time and me too!
You have made my first experience of her starting education the best. Thank you so much. I will keep in touch and see you when my son starts!”
Mrs K Thompson
We accept 15, 30 hour and 2 year old funding. Outside of this funding all hours are chargeable. Please note all places are for 43 weeks of the year. We are not open the full 52 weeks of the year.
FEET Funding
You can use FEET funding at Panda stretched across 43 weeks of the year – which equals a maximum of 13 hours a week. Surrey Council also restrict the total amount of hours you can claim per term, so please refer to our funding guide before confirming your hours.
Universal Funding (15 Hours for 3 – 4 year olds)
All children in the term after they are 3 years old are entitled to the universal 15 hours. We arrange this for you, we’ll pass you a form to complete at the end of the term before you can start claiming.
Working Entitlement Funding (30 hours for 3-4 year olds / 15 hours for 2 year olds)
You may also be eligible for this 15 hours funding if you meet the criteria. You can find out more about this criteria on the Surrey Early Years website
To claim the funding you need to apply for an eligibility code through the gov.uk website: https://childcare-support.tax.service.gov.uk the https://www.gov.uk/childcare-calculator might help.
Funding limits
Please note that Surrey Council only allow us to claim 3 year old funding during surrey term time (38 weeks of the year). Panda runs for 43 weeks of the year, so for 5 weeks a year our sessions are fully chargeable. This usually works out that 1 week in Autumn term is chargeable and 2 weeks in our Spring and Summer terms.
At Panda you can use your funding to cover morning or afternoon sessions but if your child comes all day you pay for 2 hours and 15 minutes.
Government tax accounts and Childcare Vouchers
We accept payment from both the government child tax accounts and childcare voucher scheme. Please let us know the name of your childcare provider and we can send you our account reference
You can find out more about all the options open to you at: https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk/ or the Surrey Early Years website: FEET funding for 2 year olds / Free Education Funding for 3 and 4 year olds
You can also download the Surrey Privacy Notice. View our blog for more information about the Early Years Pupil Premium (EYPP).
We appreciate there is a lot of information to digest – so if feel free to come in and talk to us if you have any questions regarding the funding.
Places are limited and we operate a waiting list system.
To register your place on our waiting list please email ali@panda-nursery.co.uk for an application form.
We ask for a £25 application fee which covers the cost of processing new applicants and confirms your place on our waiting list. It is not a deposit. The fee does not guarantee the full 15 / 30 hours or any specific sessions as sessions are offered on availability. We do our best to offer a place around your preferred start date, but places are limited and the start date on your application form is not guaranteed by the application fee. Once you are on our waiting list we will contact you as soon as we know a place is available and in which sessions.
Our main intake is in September. We do take children throughout the year but places are more limited.
If your child is 3 years old at the time of application or eligible for FEET funding then you are not required to pay this application fee. Unless you wish to register a place on the waiting list over 10 weeks in advance of your preferred start date.
We are open 8am – 6pm every week day for 43 weeks of the year. Children can attend for the standard pre-school day or tag our breakfast and/ or afterschool club onto the day.
Please note the age below is usually the age the children start in the groups. Children typically stay in the same group for the academic year.
| Children 3.5 – 5 Years | Adventurers |
| 8:00 – 8:30 | Breakfast Club (includes breakfast) |
| 8:30 – 12:30 | Pre-school |
| 12:30 – 15:45 | Pre-school |
| 15:45 – 16:30 / 18:00 | After School Club (includes a light tea) |
| Children 2 -3.5 Years | Explorers |
| 8:00 – 9:15 | Breakfast Club (includes breakfast) |
| 9:15 – 12:15 | Pre-school |
| 12:15 – 15:30 | Pre-school |
| 15:30 – 16:30 / 18:00 | After School Club (includes a light tea) |
We are closed on Bank holidays and Surrey School Half Term breaks
Term dates:
2023 – 2024
Autumn Term: Friday 1 September – Thursday 21 December 2023
(Half Term break 23 October – 27 October)
Spring Term: Tuesday 2 January – Thursday 28 March 2024
(Half Term break 12 February – 16 February)
Summer Term: Monday 8 April – Monday 5 August 2024
(Half Term break 27 May – 31 May)
We enjoyed a brilliant Earth Day workshop with Nature Makers – we all loved planting sunflower seeds, creating fantastic art and talking about our planet
Our Panda parents have helped us to celebrate the languages, culture and diversity of our children at Panda by providing resources and coming in to talk to the children. Our little Pandas have really enjoyed sharing some of languages they use at home.
And enjoying a special story at Limpsfield Church
We are delighted to share that we have worked with Public Health at Surrey County Council to achieve the Eat Well Start Well Healthy Award for Early Years Settings.
We work hard to ensure that we provide a nutritionally balanced diet throughout the week, with breakfasts and hot dinners all created from scratch and freshly cooked each day at nursery. Our menus meet all the nutritional requirements set out in the assessment criteria for the Eat Well Start Well Award
This award is open to early years care providers based in Surrey. It recognises settings that ensure that the food they offer provides appropriate amounts of energy and nutrients and encourages children to make healthy choices.
If you would like to find out more about our breakfast and afterschool club, email ali@panda-nursery.co.uk
The children especially like helping to make the playdough, carefully following the instructions
Developing fine motor skills and working on number recognition
We’re loving caring for our strawberry plants and watching them grow
We’ve all enjoyed watching our caterpillars turn into butterflies, and we loved being able to release them
An invitation to play and explore different textures and materials
A great way to support fine motor skills development, needed for a strong pen grip
Making playdough pancakes then eating yummy pancakes for pudding!
Sensory play with rice – giving our little Pandas opportunities for mark making and exploring shapes
Blowing through straws to move the table tennis balls
We’re making the most of the wet weather, enjoying one of our favourite garden activities!
To celebrate World Nursery Rhyme week we are learning some rhymes we don’t usually sing at Panda. Singing Nursery Rhymes helps to lay the foundations of good literacy, encourages movement, communication, joining in, socials skills, imagination and most importantly the children love them!
Our green dinosaur island gave us lots of opportunities for sensory, imaginative play
Lots of opportunities for sensory play and fine motor skills development.
Great post from @bookoolaink. Reinforcing all of the activities our little Pandas enjoy with us, supporting their learning journey to become readers.
We’re very excited that our new Panda book borrowing library is now in place outside the nursery! Enjoy!
Using natural resources to spark our little Panda’s imaginations
We are looking for an enthusiastic Early Years Practitioner (qualified level 3 minimum) to join our fun and friendly team.
A varied role which includes lots of singing, dancing, getting messy, reading, playing, going on adventures in our wonderful woodland setting ethereum tumbling and exploring the world with our curious 2-5 year olds.
Must be available:- 43 weeks of the year- 5 days with varying hours between 8am-6pm. Competitive rates of pay and generous breaks throughout the day.
If you are interested please email ali@panda-nursery.co.uk
Lots of lovely healthy packed lunches at nursery with lots of chatter about healthy yummy food.
We’ve been reading lots of stories about going to big school to support our leavers this term.
As part of teaching our children to be healthy we’ve been talking about oral hygiene: cleaning and looking after our teeth. We used the bottom of bottles painted white and cleaned off the playdoh from the pretend teeth!
Mrs Tilling makes the best Baked Oats for the children in breakfast club – she also makes really yummy dinners for our afterschool club.
We hope you enjoyed World Book Day – we had lots of fun at Panda!
Fine motor development, using the tweezers to carefully place the fruit slices in a bowl. Enjoying the refreshing smells of the oranges and lemons as we played and talked about the fruit. (These weren’t for eating this time – we had lots more yummy fruit for snack!)
Lots of winter fun!
Great way to learn about mixing colours
Panda Nursery is looking for an Early Years Practitioner to join our fun team.
Someone who likes to sing, dance, get messy, read lots, play with dinosaurs, paint, go on adventurers in the wonderful woodland we are based in, sail the seas on a pirate ship, explore the world with our curious 2-5 year olds and give them lots of cuddles and support … A little paperwork involved as well.
We are open 43 weeks of the year. Competitive rates of pay and generous breaks throughout the day. Role is initially based over 3/4 days 8:30 – 16:00.
If you are interested email ali@panda-nursery.co.uk or give us a call on 07812 522492
A few pallets and old saucepans = lots of fun on our new music walls. If anyone has any spare pallets please email ali@panda-nursery.co.uk – we love making new things for nursery!
To inspire our little artists and creative minds
Fantasy play, or pretend play, is an integral part of childhood. While too often limited by the narrow confines of a role play area, pretend play can flourish outdoors if children are given the space and materials.
Great article by Marisa Lark Wallin at Community Playthings:
https://www.communityplaythings.co.uk/learning-library/articles/lets-play-outside?source=pal219
Recently, local photographer, Kate York came to Panda Nursery to take photos of the children for their annual school photos. We moved away from the the standard ‘staged’ school photo format and we absolutely love the results.
We were very excited to receive and unwrap all our new uniform today, all ready for the new starters joining us in September. Really looking forward to meeting all our new little Pandas after the summer holidays.
Can’t wait!
Mikey Dean aka Coach Mikey is an amazing football coach and we are very lucky to have him at Panda teaching our children on a Mondays.
Our children absolutely love his action-packed, fun multi-sports session.
In addition to his Panda classes, he runs pre-school sessions for children in Hurst Green – click here to find out more: Mikey Dean preschool session.
For more info about the classes he runs at Panda – email ali@panda-nursery.co.uk
Remembering those who fought for our freedom,
so bravely giving their lives for our independence.
So we can play, explore, grow old and love our country.
50 packs of our Panda Nursery Playdoh made for the Limpsfield Fete tomorrow – Sat 16 June on the Glebe Meadow!
Come and meet us at the fete and have fun playing with our playdoh – you can even buy some to take home! You can also see the plans for our new building and chat to us about our exciting new home.
We’ve watched them grow from eggs, and now our Panda caterpillars have transformed into amazing butterflies. We have loved seeing them change and learning all about how the caterpillars grow into butterflies. Today was a very special day as we released them into the Panda garden. Goodbye our beautiful butterflies – come back and see us soon!
Although the weather was a challenge we had a lovely time playing in the snow at Panda!
We really appreciated your patience during the difficult snow week and for supporting us by picking up early on a couple of sessions. Thanks to all of our Panda team for battling in each day to keep the nursery open. Roll on the summer! 
Messy Church at St Peter’s Church in Limpsfield is on Sunday 18 March 3:30 – 5:30 pm.
Crafts, activities, sports and worship. Fun for all ages.
We wanted to share Janet Lansbury’s article with you about supporting creativity and give you a little insight as to why children are not coming home with ‘perfect’ pieces of art pre-planned every session by the staff. Sometimes we support and guide their creations, but we realise the real learning takes place in the process of the creation rather than the end result.
We’ve had so much fun lately painting on cling film windows and building huge masterpieces out of old boxes. The end product doesn’t always make it home because the children can take it on another learning journey (cutting it up, burying it, displaying it, covering it in black paint, gifting it to a friend and so on). We provide the resources, encouragement and support that the children need but then it truly is pure freedom to create and be in ‘their’ moment – that’s when the real magic happens.
Janet Lansbury explains more: http://www.janetlansbury.com/2012/08/are-you-putting-the-kibosh-on-creativity/
Super Hero and Gun Play?! You don’t allow that at Panda, do you?
This has opened many debate at nursery and as a team we have researched the topic, debated it and attended training seminars to come up with the opinion that “Yes we do”, because at Panda we are focused on the process of learning, supporting our children to learn through things they are interested in and recognising the learning we can scaffold on to this type of play.
After all, if you say ‘No Guns’ – the children are very good at playing guns but pretending not to. So why not embrace their thoughts and interests and jump on the opportunity to support their learning. We understand this type of play can get out of hand and are always on hand to direct it, rather than ban it.
Kate Nutbourne on the Keeping Early Years Unique blog (https://www.keyu.co.uk/) outlines a few facts about the positives of weapon / superhero play and how to manage it:
We’re pleased to have been able to support Flo’s fight with a Name the Bunny competition, run by Liz Cutler, raising £91. Thanks to everyone for your support. Please see the link below for further information:
Florence Jackson is only 2 years old and has been battling with cancer since she was 16 months old. She has stage 4 neuroblastoma and needs to travel to the US for life-saving surgery. They are currently raising money to fund this trip and the surgery. You can find out more about Flo’s Fight on: https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/Flosfight. www.flosfight.com 
We are now collecting Sainsbury’s Active Kids vouchers and we would really appreciate any you can donate.
A collection box is now in the foyer.
The deadline for us to collect is June 30.
We’ve been on some lovely winter walks lately around the Glebe field and Limpsfield. We’ve been looking for frosty spider webs and crunchy leaves, we seen some amazing frost patterns and even some signs of Spring!
We go outside a lot at Panda, so please remember to leave a pair of welly boots for your child at nursery (with their name on) and send them in with a warm coat, hats and gloves when it’s chilly.
Panda Nursery children are surely stars in the making, having performed their Christmas play, “Shine Star Shine”, to rapturous applause on Friday 16 December! This year’s play, a popular choice amongst nursery and primary schools, was performed to perfection by members of the Adventurers Class
View the article by Sophie Martin on the Limpsfield Village Site
The youngsters and staff of the Panda Nursery at St Peters Hall, Limpsfield, all got on board the good ship HMS Outstanding to celebrate the nursery’s Ofsted Report.
The nursery was inspected in September and Inspector Ben Parsons found the quality and standard of the early years provision, the effectiveness of the leadership and management, quality of learning, teaching and assessment, personal development, behaviour and welfare, and outcomes for children all Outstanding.
Article & Photo by Kevin Black: https://www.facebook.com/groups/oxted/permalink/10153857126065896/
http://www.tandridge-today.co.uk/article.cfm?id=111454&headline=Nursery youngsters get on board the good ship Outstanding as named by Ofsted§ionIs=news&searchyear=2016
The NSPCC, Aardman and OMD UK have teamed up to create a short animated film as part of a campaign that encourages parents to talk to their children about sexual abuse.
We have a great job in the universe of occupations. What do we do? We are Star Polishers polishing our little stars!
This is a poem our wonderful parents read out to us at the end of our Leaver’s show.
We agree, we have the best job and are so proud of our school leavers. We wish everyone of them a bucket full of luck on their new adventurer – always aim high and be whoever you want to be!
We hope they come back to see us when they are all grown up and are Fireman, Princesses or Spaceman… xxxx
Thank you also to all parents for the yummy cake which adults and children enjoyed!
This term we have been growing our own fruit and veg in our allotment patch. W
e have also been cooking and enjoying eating it at snack time.
We’ve grown strawberries, green beans, potatoes and garlic (which we’ve made into garlic bread!).
The children have loved being involved in the whole process from planting, watering, watching them grown and harvesting our crops. We’ve learnt so much about where food comes from and how to help things grow!
We are very
proud to have won the Hesketh Junior Challenge Cup at the Oxted Horticultural Society’s ‘Celebration of Local Gardening’ – with our Sunflower display. We grew sunflowers, made a Panda sign out of sunflower seeds, and made our own sunflower collage.
We’ve had so much fun at our Sports Days this summer term. Our little Athletics ran running races, egg & spoon, obstacle and relay races. Our Explorers brought their Daddies to run with them and we even had a Superhero race. Well done to all our Sporty Tots!
We had a right royal party at nursery on Thursday 9 June to celebrat
e the Queen’s Party. We ate cucumber sandwiches, union jack cup cakes and drunk squash poured out of tea pots. We also waved our flags to the National Anthem. Happy Birthday to the Queen!
At Panda we have high aspirations for all our little Pandas, supporting our Adventurers to be ‘school ready’. But what does that really mean? At Panda we prefer to talk about life readiness – helping our children to be independent, resilient, confident and ready to face their journey ahead.
The word ‘Panda’ sums up the qualities we are supporting our children to develop:
Passionate about learning and prepared for school
A confident, communicator who can make friends and respect others
Not afraid to take risks and find new challenges
Determined and resilient
An independent little being and creative thinker
Working with local schools we understand these are the skills our children need for the next stage of their learning journey and we support them all to achieve them:
Social and Communication
Literacy, Maths and Pre-School skills
Independence
Good luck Limpsfield – we’ve helped to paint the village in red, white and blue for the competition by growing flowers in our spare welly boots!
A big thank you to Nicole for coming into our Explorers session this week and giving our children the chance to play Florist, choosing flowers and wrapping them up for mummy.
Nicole has over 20 years experience as a florist and is now bringing her expertise to Oxted. You can find out more at her website: http://nicolemma30.wix.com/flowersbynicole or email nicolemma30@hotmail.com
At nursery we follow the EYFS and you too could support these areas of learning.
Under Physical Development: Health & Self Care – you could support home learning by encouraging your child to:
A big thank you to Oxted Rotary for inviting our Director Ali Thompson along for lunch and to speak at their meeting on Tuesday 12 January. It was great to meet the group , share what we get up to and have the opportunity to show how our children are benefiting from the very kind donation from the Oxted Pram Race with a new messy play table!
1st Rugby are coming into nursery on Friday 15th January at 1:30pm to run an intro session for our children and we are all very excited!
They are running fun exercise and activity sessions around the principles of rugby for 2-6 year olds on Saturdays at Hazelwood School.
You can find out more at www.1strugby.co
… For all our presents. Fifty Four Panda children and their parents all visited Godstone Farm on the 15 December for a great day out. We looked at the animals around the farm, played in the soft play, had a picnic lunch together and of course, visited Father Christmas. In fact it wasn’t just Father Christmas, Mrs Christmas was there too. She read the ‘Night Before Christmas’ to us and we sang a few of our favourite Christmas songs, before we woke up Father Christmas. Thank you Godstone Farm for such a great day out.
Panda has sponsored a Christmas tree at St Peter’s Church in Limpsfield, take a look when you are on your way to the Christmas services this year. Our tree is the first by the door!
The children have been busy making decorations and went over to the church on Friday 18 December to have lots of fun decorating it and looking at all the other wonderful trees. Merry Christmas Limpsfield!Michael Jones in this article explains why it’s so important to get children moving and using gross motor skills in mark making to support the development of writing skills. We love Write Dance and this article from Teach Nursery.com explains the concept.
Panda Nursery would like to say a big thank you to Sam Gyimah. They were delighted that the Surrey MP and Under-Secretary of State for Childcare and Education, took time out of his busy schedule to pop in and meet the children and staff at Panda Nursery in Limpsfield, on Friday 6 November 2015.
He met children from both their Explorer group (2-3 year olds) and Adventurers (3-5 year olds) who gave him a card and firework picture that they had been busy making during the week.
Ali Thompson, Director of Panda Nursery said, “we feel privileged to have had the opportunity to talk to him directly about what it’s really like in a nursery, particularly a put-a-way setting. It was great to share views about the funding rate review, introduction of the 30 hours funding and developing nurseries around a qualified, high quality workforce”.
Sam Gyimah MP said: “I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to Panda Nursery, and meeting all the fantastic staff who provide such a valuable service for local families. It was great to spend time talking with the children, and I was very impressed by their art work. We need more nurseries like Panda in Tandridge.”
Panda in the press:
We all wore fancy dress and were overwhelmed by all the cakes we had for our cake sale. Thank you to all the families who helped us support this great cause.
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Panda Nursery, Glebe Meadow, Limpsfield, Surrey RH8 0DG
Driven by our dream for Panda Nursery to have its own home, we have designed a purpose built, amazing building which provides the absolute best learning environment for our children. Nestled in the woodland and beautiful green space of the Glebe Meadow we take advantage of all the nature, and countryside around us.
We are located at the bottom of St Peter’s Hall car park – on the Glebe Meadow. We have plenty of parking which enables you to quickly drop off and pick up as we know your time is precious. We are under 10 minutes from Oxted or Hurst Green train station so can support working, commuting families.
You can request an application form by emailing ali@panda-nursery.co.uk or giving us a call on 07812 522492
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Copyright 2019 Panda Nursery (Panda Pre-school Ltd)
All rights reserved.
Copyright 2016 Hurst Green & Holland
Children’s Centre. All Rights Reserved.
