With dedicated rooms for babies and toddlers, safe courtyards, a forest school, and a working organic farm, Wing Wildlings Nursery offers a unique setting where children learn through play, nature and adventure, indoors and out.
Our Ethos
Our ethos is rooted in Forest School principles, encouraging freedom, risk-taking and emotional growth in a natural setting.
What guides our approach
We believe children learn best when they are happy and content in their environment. The Forest School ethos is founded on a deep respect for children and young people, as well as their ability to initiate, test, and sustain interest in the world around them. It believes in children’s right to play; their right to access the outdoors, their right to takes risks and the vibrant reality of the natural world and their right to experience a healthy range of emotions to build resilience that will allow them to continue and creatively engage with their peers and fulfil their potential. Forest School focuses on the process of learning rather than the substance – on the ‘how’ rather than the ‘what’. This means that genuine Forest School practise advances boldly out of the shadow and limitation of ‘planned activities’ and into the realms of the unplanned, unexpected, and ultimately boundless.
Children and young people are encouraged to take charge of their own learning, which often requires the Forest School leader to facilitate, whether by promoting outdoor play, “scaffolding” a child’s learning, or mostly by observing the children’s interactions in the outdoors. Our ethos is to offer distinctive experiences on the farm, such as allowing children to participate in sheep scanning, lambing, kidding, and many other activities they wouldn’t typically encounter in a traditional nursery setting
Our Setting
Our bright and welcoming nursery rooms are designed to nurture independence, creativity, and curiosity, with every space thoughtfully arranged for young children to feel safe and inspired.
What’s inside our nursery
Wing Wildlings Nursery is based in at Wing Hall and Wing Hall Farm in Wing, Rutland. Our indoor settings are recently renovated buildings at Wing Hall. Our setting offers, bright, open spaces for the children to explore. Complete with children sized toilets and hand washing sinks, the nursery is a great place for your child to become Independent. We have roleplay areas, cosy corners, messy play areas and construction areas. We use natural resources as well as many other toy favourites.
Our Maxi Adventurers room is for children from 2 to 4 years old
Our Mini Explorers room is for children from 9 Months to 2 years
We have small secure courtyards at the back of both rooms, offering digging areas, planting, sand pits, mud kitchens and more. As well as the courtyards we have access to the kitchen garden to forage, the front lawn and a small woodland area including a mini-forest school.
Our Outdoor Setting
Children regularly visit the farm and forest school to feed animals, explore nature, and take part in hands-on activities that build confidence, coordination, and curiosity.
Farm and forest school
Wing Hall Farm is a family-run, certified fully organic farm with animals including sheep, cows, goats, chickens, rabbits, pigs, horses and the list continues to grow. The farm offers children unique opportunities including feeding the animals, cuddling the animals, learning about the animals’ habitat and diet first hand, and exploring how a working farm operates.
In addition to the farm, we have a lovely secluded forest school. Our farm’s forest school is tucked in the woods. We have a lake at our forest school, and the children enjoy pond dipping, exploring nature in and on the lake, and throwing objects into the water.
We have a bad-weather shelter, which means the children have an undercover place if they are uncomfortable in the rain or simply want some quiet time away from the forest school environment. We have a creative space as well as a chill-out place for children at the shelter.
Our fire area is a popular spot at our forest school. Children can sit around the fire and listen to a story while also learning about fire safety and campfire cooking.
The final component to our forest school is our risky play area with tree stumps, mud play, den building and much more fun to be had—all whilst being safe, but testing children’s balance, coordination and confidence.
Depending on the weather, we try to visit the farm with the 2-year-olds and over for at least one session a day so the children get to visit the animals and forest school and carry out plenty of outdoor exploration.
A closer look at our nursery
Explore the spaces that shape each day at Wing Wildlings, from our bright indoor rooms and courtyards to the farm and forest school beyond.
