Twenty Incredible Years of Childcare
We love celebrating birthdays at Snapdragons, in fact, we love them so much that everyone in our team has an extra day off on their birthdays to show them how much we appreciate them. Now we're gearing up for a birthday that's really special to all of us. It's ours!
Twenty years ago, Snapdragons Nurseries Ltd was born in a farmhouse in Atworth, Wiltshire, and we haven't looked back. Since January 1998, Snapdragons has grown steadily from one small village nursery to a thriving family of eight in Wiltshire, Bath and Bristol. Back in 1998, there were just two children in attendance on the opening day and now there are over 1,100 children attending a Snapdragons nursery every week and many thousands more who have been part of our family over the last twenty years.
What else have we achieved in all those years? Well, we've gained multiple Outstanding Ofsteds and hold national nursery industry awards from Nursery World and Nursery Management Today; we've achieved the highest gold standard Food For Life Served Here award from the Soil Association; we're part of the Pickwick Learning Teaching Alliance. We've trained apprentices, under-graduates and graduates, encouraging and supporting them to further their careers. We've hosted students from all our local colleges and universities and given placements to trainee Norland Nannies from Bath and Japan. Our teams have attended hundreds of training courses to ensure their knowledge is current and relevant: First Aid, Food Safety, Safeguarding, Leadership and Management, Forest School and Nutrition as well as every aspect of child development and early years education. We've built two purpose-built nurseries and converted a farmhouse, a girls' school, a language school, a veterinary college, a church and a conference centre into Snapdragons Nurseries. We still employ five of our original staff, all now holding senior management roles and sharing their expertise.
So, although it's only Snapdragons Atworth who can genuinely claim the 20-year party hat, everyone, from our wonderful team of employees, through our unique and incredible nursery children, to their supportive (and discerning!) parents, can all celebrate the years of knowledge and experience that have helped to make us, we think, a very special family of nurseries. Happy birthday to us!
Food for winter
We've been settling back into nursery the past few days and putting the final touches on our winter menus that will be starting from next week. Everyone needs something to keep their belly warm on these cold days, so we've introduced some dishes to do just that, like 'macaroni cheese' and 'chicken and vegetable soup'. Mmmm, we can almost taste them already. In fact, you can find the recipe for the soup in the latest issue of the Snapdragons Magazine, so you don't even have to think about what it tastes like - you can try it yourself!
These menus will run for the next few months, before we finally head into spring again at the end of March. Until then, snuggle up and know your children are warm at nursery with these tasty menus this winter.
Menu 1 - w/c January 8th, February 5th, March 5th
Menu 2 - w/c January 15th, February 12th, March 12th
Menu 3 - w/c January 22nd, February 19th, March 19th
Menu 4 - w/c January 29th, February 26th, March 26th
New year, new magazine
It's 2018 all of a sudden, which means a whole new year is coming up full of fun, excitement and education at Snapdragons - plus it's our 20th anniversary, so we'll have lots of extra things planned for that!
For now, enjoy this early treat - our January 2018 magazine - filled with fun and insightful news and articles about what's been going on over the past few months at Snapdragons. It's great to have you back!
Party time for the team
We changed venues for our Employee Christmas Party this year, heading to Bristol for our biggest and "bestest" Christmas party ever!
After an early opportunity to explore the science exhibitions, we moved upstairs to enjoy food, drinks, photo opportunities, Rodeo Reindeer and a hugely popular cash grabber!
Moving on to our Snappy Awards, we recognised some of the best performers of the year, as voted for by their peers, ending the night with dancing into the early hours.
Once again, a wonderful evening, and it was fantastic to bring our incredible team together and celebrate not only Christmas, but another impressive year of bringing exceptional childcare to Bath, Bristol and Wiltshire.
Thank you to you all - together you're the heart of Snapdragons and you deserve all the recognition you get. Here's to 2018 and continuing to follow that trend.
See all of our photos here.
Christmas closure dates
We're rapidly approaching the Christmas break now, as we hurtle towards December with all of the speed of a toddler hearing the lunchtime call, which means that the nurseries will be closing for a brief period of time once Christmas Day hits us. We'll only be closed for a week though, so don't worry, we'll be back before you know it.
- Christmas Day - Closed
- 26th - Closed
- 27th - Closed
- 28th - Closed
- 29th - Closed
- 1st January 2018 - Closed
- 2nd January 2018 - re-open from now on from 08:00 - 18:00
Any questions, feel free to raise them at your nursery, but otherwise enjoy your breaks everyone!