Little Jungle School of Early Childhood

Children’s ideas drive the learning at Little Jungle: a question about paper or mechanics can become a project to investigate, discuss and develop. The Reggio Emilia approach inspires this work, with staff listening to children’s theories and providing materials that help them test their thinking. This is an education built around exploration, rather than simply moving from one adult-directed activity to another.

At its May 2023 inspection, Ofsted rated Little Jungle Outstanding, praising the curriculum’s organisation and the way staff extended children’s learning. The examples are memorable: younger children investigated paper, while older children collaborated on a zip-line design. They give substance to the nursery’s emphasis on creativity and research.

This review covers the provision for children aged two to five at 47a Amott Road, London SE15 4HU, which has 56 places in total. Younger children attend a separate address across the road. Attendance here is offered on a two-day, three-day or five-day basis.

Rooms and Ages

Chimps covers children from 24 to 42 months, while Crocs spans 36 to 60 months; these overlapping groups allow developmental differences to shape the organisation of children’s days. They are broad age bands rather than rigid stages. Learning with children at different points of development is part of the approach, allowing children to explain ideas to one another as well as learn from adults.

The separation between addresses matters for parents considering the wider Little Jungle campus. The two-to-five provision and the office share 47a Amott Road; the youngest children are based across the road. The older provision’s inspection judgement should be read as belonging to this setting.

Learning and Activities

The EYFS provides the framework for children’s learning, development and care, with play and exploration supporting their development across its areas of learning. Alongside that common foundation, Little Jungle’s Reggio Emilia inspiration adds an emphasis on listening closely to children and treating their questions as starting points for investigation.

Open-ended materials are an important part of this method: resources can become whatever children imagine, rather than having a single prescribed use. Natural materials give children opportunities to create, experiment and revise an idea. Sustained investigations are documented as projects, helping staff reflect on both children’s learning and their own decisions. The practical distinction is time to pursue a question, rather than treating each experience as a finished task.

In May 2023, two-year-olds explored what paper could do and experimented with making it move, bringing movement and positional language into the same investigation. Older children planned a zip-line together, exchanging ideas about its construction. These examples show how a child’s interest can connect language, practical experimentation and working with others.

Outdoor and Community Life

The garden was a place for construction and physical challenge in May 2023. Children made a slide and arranged wooden logs to balance on, helping one another as they moved along them. Outdoor play involved making decisions about structures and movement, as well as being active.

Local outings also fed back into children’s projects at that time: experiences of playgrounds helped them think about changes to their own nursery garden. Regular outings and community project work form part of Little Jungle’s approach, with children encouraged to acknowledge the people they meet politely. The link between exploring the neighbourhood and developing an idea back at nursery gives these experiences a purpose beyond a change of scenery.

Relationships and Communication

Parents can contribute observations through an online learning portal, as well as speak with staff in person, by telephone or by email. That creates a route for something noticed at home to become part of the conversation about a child’s learning. Parents are also invited to participate in children’s experiences, bringing family interests and knowledge into nursery life.

The Parents and Educators Association (PEA) organises fundraising and social events through the year. Little Jungle also organises workshops for children and adults. Participation therefore extends beyond receiving updates: families have ways to contribute to the wider life of the setting. For parents who enjoy an active relationship with their nursery, this is a substantial part of Little Jungle’s character.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

At the May 2023 inspection, Ofsted found safeguarding effective and reported substantial learning progress, including for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), supported by staff’s knowledge of individual needs and work with other professionals. Those are dated findings about practice, rather than promises about an individual child’s experience today.

Independence was visible in everyday routines in May 2023. Children served food and drinks, cleared their plates and took responsibility for helping at mealtimes. Visits to the kitchen and conversations about ingredients connected eating with questions about colour, taste and the menu. Care routines were also opportunities to practise doing things for themselves.

Sessions and Attendance

Opening hours are 7.30am to 6.30pm, Monday to Friday. Little Jungle operates across the year, closing for bank holidays, a week in August and two weeks over Christmas. Those closures matter when matching nursery attendance to work commitments.

The booking rule is specific: families choose two, three or five days, with neither one-day nor four-day places offered. Admissions use a waiting list that takes account of the intended entry date, age and required attendance days. Existing families, siblings of children attending and children with Special Rights receive priority within that process. Sibling priority applies only while the older child still attends, and joining the list does not guarantee a place.

Families receive automated waiting-list updates every three months and can use a self-service function to review their position. Open days are offered by invitation to families approaching the top of the list. To accept an offer, parents return a signed registration agreement and pay the first month’s fee in advance; no deposit is required.

Getting There

The address is 47a Amott Road, London SE15 4HU, and general enquiries can be made by telephone or email. A condition of accepting a place is that families do not drive to or park at Little Jungle, so the everyday journey needs to work around that restriction.

Funding and Paid Extras

Eligible children attending Little Jungle receive funding through Southwark. A separate allocation of fully funded places carries no requirement to buy additional hours; this is an allocation rule, rather than a guarantee of a funded place for every applicant.

Current prices come in the nursery’s written quotation. The advance payment needed to accept a place should be considered alongside the chosen attendance pattern, even though there is no deposit.

• Attendance choices. Two, three and five days are the permitted booking patterns. Families needing one or four days would have to organise their childcare around that rule.
• The journey. Not driving to or parking at Little Jungle is a condition of a place. Consider whether the journey remains workable alongside your working day and other family commitments.
• Waiting-list priorities. A sibling’s attendance gives priority only while that child remains at Little Jungle, and does not guarantee a place. At an invited open day, discuss how the entry date, age and attendance pattern affect your application.
• Moving into the older provision. Children aged two to five attend 47a Amott Road, separately from the youngest children across the road. At an open day, ask how settling and movement between the age groups are handled for your child.

Little Jungle suits families who want children’s questions and creative experiments to shape their early education, and who value contributing to learning through observations, workshops and the PEA. Its project-based approach has concrete inspection-era examples behind it, from paper investigations to collaborative construction.

The practical fit is equally clear: it serves families choosing two-day or three-day attendance as well as those booking five days. The permitted day patterns and the no-driving condition deserve as much attention as the educational philosophy. For families whose routines fit those requirements, the combination of child-led enquiry and active parent participation is the strongest reason to consider it.