Young Friends Kindergarten

Growing food, repairing resources and caring for animals give Young Friends Kindergarten a clear identity. Sustainability takes practical form here: children cook, spend time in nature and take part in beach cleans. For families who want environmental values to shape ordinary childhood experiences, this Hove kindergarten offers a concrete expression of that choice.

At its April 2024 inspection, Ofsted rated Young Friends Outstanding, finding an ambitious curriculum, excellent progress including for children with SEND, and effective safeguarding. The detail matters more than the label: learning connected practical responsibilities with language, independence and early mathematics.

Young Friends accepts children from birth to five at 89 Holland Road, Hove, BN3 1JP. Attendance includes sessions ending at either 4pm or 6pm, alongside a funded-only route with its own attendance arrangements.

Rooms and Ages

The Fox group serves children aged three to five, while the daily routine also names Hedgehogs. Movement to the older pod happens gradually: children begin with play visits involving their existing and future key people, then move alongside children of a similar age. That makes a change of group a sequence of familiar experiences rather than a single abrupt switch.

Learning and Activities

The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) provides the framework for children's learning and development, including communication, physical skills, relationships and early mathematical understanding through play and everyday experiences. Young Friends Nature Curriculum adds its own organising idea: the Three Pillars of Sustainability, linking care for people, the environment and resources.

These ideas have practical consequences. Looking after materials and considering reuse sit alongside building friendships and learning about plants and animals. Early mathematics belongs within that work, rather than being confined to a separate activity. The curriculum approach connects children's interests with these social, environmental and economic themes.

Planning follows the growing year as well as children's changing interests. The onsite woodland garden, the kitchen garden at the Weald, local parks and the beach all inform what children explore. This gives seasonal change a place in learning: the surroundings help determine what there is to investigate, discuss and make.

Daily cooking and seed-to-plate learning connect food preparation with growing ingredients. Older children make kitchen garden visits, while Forest School, an approach centred on learning through outdoor exploration, and nature workshop activities form part of the Full Young Friends Experience. The important distinction for parents is between the everyday curriculum and enrichment included in their chosen attendance package.

In April 2024, children used gardening to practise counting and explored measurement through water and clay. They also composted food scraps, repaired objects and used tools. These are useful examples of how practical work can give early learning a purpose children understand: a quantity needs counting, a material needs sharing, or something needs fixing.

Outdoor and Community Life

The Full Young Friends Experience includes local outings, beach cleans and animal experiences, including pet therapy. These activities bring environmental responsibility beyond the kindergarten itself. A beach clean gives children a task with a visible result, while caring for animals places another living creature's needs within their day.

Outdoor experiences were also prominent in April 2024. Children gathered wild garlic for cooking, travelled by bus to a library and collected litter at the nearby beach. In the garden, they cared for rabbits and replenished bird feeders. These dated examples show the breadth of the outdoor learning observed then; they are not a timetable of current trips.

Relationships and Communication

Each child has a key person within their pod and a buddy key person who provides continuity when the main contact is away. For parents, this creates a clear relationship for discussing their child, with a second familiar adult built into the arrangement. Settling sessions are included in fees and organised with the child's key person, so the relationship starts before the regular attendance routine is established.

Famly is the communication app used for everyday contact. The key person introduces themselves through it and arranges settling, while families receive a welcome pack containing policies, a contract and an All About Your Child form. That combination gives staff information about the child and gives parents the practical terms before attendance begins.

The Young Friends Growth Cycle is used to review learning four times a year. Seeding is the planning system that turns observations of children's interests and developing skills into changes to activities and the environment. Families receive weekly pod photographs and a monthly personal photo overview; the group photographs offer conversation starters, while the individual overview shows what their own child has been doing.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

The Just Right System uses Green, Amber and Red to help children recognise and manage feelings. Adults support regulation through calm contact and guidance. This gives emotional learning a recognisable language, with adult help forming part of the response when a child is upset.

In April 2024, Ofsted found that staff understood children's starting points, supported babies sensitively through signs and simple speech, and helped children develop mature ways of managing emotions. Babies were encouraged to persist with dressing and feeding themselves. Care and learning worked together: everyday tasks offered opportunities to communicate, try again and gain independence.

Current safeguarding arrangements include a Designated Safeguarding Lead, ongoing staff training and procedures for reporting concerns. Staff induction, supervision and professional development are also part of the team's structure. These are concrete arrangements families can understand alongside the dated safeguarding judgement.

Additional support can involve Early Years Pupil Premium, Disability Access Fund and SEND or language support services. Funded-only spaces give priority, where appropriate, to children needing extra developmental, social or emotional support. This describes how support is organised rather than promising a particular outcome for an individual child.

Plant-based meals and snacks are prepared daily from scratch in the kindergarten kitchen. The dietary policy provides for ingredient substitutions to accommodate allergies and other dietary requirements, making the individual arrangement an important part of planning a child's care.

Sessions and Attendance

Young Friends opens Monday to Friday from 8am to 6pm. Its full day sessions run from 8am to 4pm or from 8am to 6pm, with a minimum attendance of two sessions each week. Sessions are fixed and cannot be exchanged, so families need an attendance pattern that works consistently rather than relying on changes from week to week.

Stand-alone funded places operate on Mondays and Fridays. Optional paid wraparound care can accompany funded hours in the morning and late afternoon. These arrangements serve different needs from the two full day options, and the funded-only route has separate rules about food, care items and enrichment.

The kindergarten closes for bank holidays, the Christmas period and two inset days annually. Families receive at least eight weeks' notice of inset days. Fees continue during illness and family holidays, and the scheduled closures are reflected in monthly billing, so a missed attendance day does not automatically reduce an invoice.

Changes to sessions, opting out of the Full Young Friends Experience and postponing a start date each require one month's notice; postponements also depend on management agreement. A refundable deposit is required when reserving nursery attendance, with cancellation and repayment conditions, and the first invoice includes a registration charge. Funded-only deposits are returned within one month of the child starting under the Provider Agreement.

Funding and Paid Extras

Funded childcare and private hours are both offered. Universal EYFE provides fifteen hours of funded early education weekly for eligible three- and four-year-olds, starting from the term after their third birthday, while eligible working families can use the thirty-hour entitlement, including from nine months; some two-year-olds qualify through local authority funding. Eligibility is confirmed through HMRC or the local authority, and working-family codes need renewal each term.

Funding is stretched over fifty weeks: the fifteen-hour entitlement becomes 11.4 hours weekly, and the thirty-hour entitlement becomes 22.8 hours weekly. These are the kindergarten's year-round arrangements, rather than those headline hours being delivered every week throughout the year.

Private fees include meals and snacks, and the Full Young Friends Experience includes care products such as washable nappies, wipes and flannels. During funded hours, meals, consumables and enrichment are optional, separately charged additions; families choosing Funded-Only Care supply food and care items themselves and do not receive enrichment experiences or trips.

Morning and late-afternoon wraparound hours are optional paid care, with meals and snacks included during those hours. Current prices come in the nursery's written quotation; the fees and attendance terms explain the charge structure and conditions.

• The attendance package changes the day. Funded-Only Care requires families to supply food and care items and excludes enrichment trips. At a visit, discuss how that route fits your child alongside the Full Young Friends Experience.
• Fixed sessions need a dependable routine. The minimum is two sessions weekly, and booked sessions cannot be swapped. Compare the 4pm and 6pm finishes with your regular commitments before choosing a pattern.
• Food and animal contact are part of the offer. Plant-based cooking and pet therapy feature in the kindergarten experience. Families managing allergies should confirm their child's current food substitutions and arrangements for animal contact.
• Settling centres on familiar adults. A key person and buddy support continuity, with settling included in fees. Use the visit to discuss your child's routines and how those first sessions will be organised.

Young Friends suits families who want sustainability expressed through cooking, growing and practical responsibilities, with a named curriculum connecting those experiences. The April 2024 Outstanding judgement gives that approach substantial inspection support, while the key person and buddy arrangement adds a clear structure for continuity of care.

The attendance choices suit families booking full day sessions from 8am to 4pm or 8am to 6pm, and those seeking Monday-and-Friday funded-only attendance with optional morning and late-afternoon wraparound care. The decisive choice is the package as much as the finish time: food, care products and enrichment need to match both family priorities and the intended budget.