Celebrating 20 years of The Oaks
We love a birthday at Birmingham Day Nurseries, and this year, we celebrated a big one.
The Oaks Day Nursery turned 20 earlier this year, with activities taking place to commemorate this milestone between 17 September – the nursery’s Ofsted registration date – and 27 October, the date of its official grand opening two decades ago.
The celebrations kicked off with a sponsored walking challenge, where children and staff walked for an additional 20 minutes every day for 20 days. Parties, cake baking, and party games followed, with the celebrations culminating in a special gathering of Oaks’ families past and present on 26 October.
Throughout it all, The Oaks fundraised for Birmingham Children’s Hospital’s Celebration Toy Fund, which provides gifts to children in the hospital during special occasions. £180 was raised in total.
Where it all began
In the autumn of 2004, we realised that we’d outgrown our original nursery – which now houses our preschoolers – and moved into our current premises. We also changed our name from ‘Selly Oak Colleges Day Nursery’ to ‘The Oaks Day Nursery’, and it was at this time that the nursery also passed into the hands of University of Birmingham.
Our team at the time was made up of 24 permanent members of staff, including one manager, two deputy managers, and an early years advisor. Registered for 80 children – 30 under 30-month-olds and 50 31- to 60-month-olds – we provided childcare for University staff and students, until we realised that the local community was crying out for baby spaces too.
We increased our under-twos spaces. This expansion saw the nursery go from strength to strength, improving occupancy, strengthening community links, and evolving with the early years sector. Due to our location and the neighbouring Bournville housing estate, there were time restrictions on the use of the back garden and field that is now our Forest School. We had two main gardens back then – the side garden and the back garden – and outdoor play was timetabled to be shared between four playrooms and age groups, in a similar way to schools offering ‘outdoor play’.
Fast forward to today, we are an ‘Outstanding’ 120-place nursery with a team of 55 and counting. Every room has a free-flow garden that allows children to choose when they want to play outdoors, and our original gardens are now additional play spaces that encourage playrooms to mix and use different spaces and equipment. We are also fortunate to have our own Forest School site and specialised staff, which has led to the expansion of our curriculum and child-led opportunities in so many ways.
In 2021, we recognised how special our Forest School was and realised we could support our community further by offering a playgroup for other families to experience outdoor play. Guided by our expert leaders, Muddy Explorers was born – and this branch of Birmingham Day Nurseries has gone from strength to strength. Another site at Winterbourne House and Garden opened in spring 2023, with the launch of Mini Explorers – a stay-and-play group for babies and their grown-ups – and our popular holiday club, Wild Explorers.
Sessions frequently sell-out and we’re in awe of how engaged our families and local community are with outdoor learning. Seeing children come into their own at our Explorers clubs and our playrooms never gets old.
We wouldn’t be where we are now without you all – thank you. Here’s to another 20 years!