Children who love animals will love being at Lingfield Nursery School!
Our friendly family of animals are a constant presence and love to be made a fuss of by the children. We feel that the animals, apart from being a real source of fun and interest, add tranquility to the school’s environment and have a real purpose in your child’s learning and development. Here, they can get to understand and respect the animals and learn the importance of looking after them.
Our animals are safe and friendly around young children; however there will always be adult supervision when the animals and children are together. But what fun when they do! Every animal has its own individual personality and the children soon pick out their own special favourites. It could be Gary, Brutus or Laurence, our three inquisitive pygmy goats, Matilda or Barney, our potbelly pigs. They are very tame and like all pigs, love a good back scratch. We also have lots of guinea pigs which the children love to handle. They feed all our animals with carrots and apple.
Mutton and Jeff are our lovely little Shetland ponies, hiding behind their shaggy manes yet always happy to be stroked and fed. They delight in playing together, staging their own races up and down the field. They play together with Eyore, Tom and Gerry our donkeys.
We employ a trained animal carer to ensure our animals are well looked after, clean and happy. We observe strict hygiene when the children and staff touch the animals, using antibacterial hand gel and our outside washing facility.
The outside environment
At Lingfield Nursery School we are very proud of our wide range of outside facilities. We are situated on 14 acres of beautiful countryside, where the children can run and be free. We have a large outdoor pergola, this is frequently used as an outside learning environment come rain or shine. Our large play field hosts a very large sandpit, music station, climbing area and swings. Not to mention our paddling pools, parachutes and other resources which are frequently used. We have a large playground which is covered in wet pour (Safety surface) this is to protect the children from bumps and grazes should they fall over.
Here at Lingfield Nursery School we value the importance of outside play. We believe our large outside play area helps the children to explore and develop in a secure environment, and our large outside environment enables us to hold a variety of outside events such as summer open days, sports events and a leavers party for the children who leave for the ‘big school’. These events provide us with opportunities to use our very own bouncy castle.