Welcome to Cargilfield Nursery!

Cargilfield Nursery is a unique setting that provides a caring, stimulating and safe environment in which all children are given the tools to thrive. Here we encourage independence, creativity and curiosity and foster children to develop a positive self-image and confidence. We endeavour to guide each child to gain important life skills, finding and exploring their passions to enable them to reach their full potential. We pride ourselves on our child centered approach in which we provide effective teaching, responsive learning and high-quality provision in a range of enriching settings. Equality, manners and inclusion are our core values at Cargilfield and these in combination with our nursery experience provide the children with the solid foundations they need for their onward journey through the school.

Our Learning Spaces

Our purpose built, spacious Nursery opens out onto a large outdoor garden area providing children with constant opportunities to explore the world around them. We are privileged to be able to offer a wide range of natural settings for the children to immerse themselves in and these spaces include; our Nursery Garden, Nature Kindergarten (woodland), Enchanted Forest (woodland) and Beach Kindergarten (Cramond Beach). These areas ensure the children have large amounts of time engaged in natural spaces and allow the children to explore all aspects of the curriculum in a more natural and open-ended setting. The children also have access to the Upper school library, Pre- prep Astroturf and Pre-prep Hall which they use for several clubs or group times.

Our Team

Our highly qualified, experienced and motivated team of Early Years Practitioners work alongside our specially trained and qualified nursery teacher. Staff have an excellent knowledge of childhood pedagogy and our high adult to child ratio ensures that each child’s experience is tailored to their own learning needs and next steps.

Our Learning Experience

Children attend specialist Music classes and Library sessions and have the opportunity to take part in a wide variety of extracurricular clubs within their nursery day. Our extensive and broad learning experiences offer children the opportunity to learn through free choice, play-based learning as well as more structured group time experiences. Our unique approach offers a balanced educational experience that few settings offer and our dedication to outdoor learning experiences alongside academic rigor is what sets Cargilfield apart.

At Cargilfield Nursery we treat every day as an adventure and all the children leave our setting with countless memorable moments to treasure. If you are interested in becoming part of the Cargilfield family please do contact us.

Developmental Milestone Matrix

The developmental milestones matrix is a tool split into four parts; Communication, Thinking skills, Motor skills and Relationships. It is used by the nursery staff to track each child’s individual progress in terms of development.

We update the developmental milestone grids termly and they provide a detailed overview of each child’s development and allow staff to tailor teaching and support to each individual child.

Here is our Developmental milestone matrix. You can hear more about this by listening to our podcast on the topic.