12 September 2017
Past family holidays at the Jones’s aren’t quite like the Thomas Cook adverts. Each year I imagine the pool splashing, the laughter, the sandcastle, the cocktails and the sunsets. Yet... they never quite materialize how I imagined. Add into the equation my Mother who seems to become a human cocktail calorie calculator at the first sniff of Malibu, and I literally want to drive myself off the cliff of sanity.
18 July 2017
For many 3-4 year old children, this summer will mark an important milestone...
Preschool Graduation!
23 June 2017
Thank you to everyone that came to celebrate Evolution Childcare @ Scholars House's official open day in Wolverhampton last week.
16 June 2017
We are very excited to announce that The Stables' dance and sensory room is officially open!!!!
9 May 2017
in¦clu|sion
[ɪnˈkluːʒ(ə)n]
NOUN
the action or state of including or of being included within a group or structure:
"they have been selected for inclusion in the scheme"
30 April 2017
Congratulations and good luck to Sarah and the Team at Shadsworth Business Park – they have been shortlisted for The Newcomer Award at the 2017 Hive Awards!
16 March 2017
Head Office has been a hive of activity this Month. We have had brighter mornings, baby showers, weddings, engagements, birthday celebrations and plenty of staff nights out. Add to this, parents evening time, AND we are celebrating womanhood this month. With the fun factor in mind I thought this month, I would give you a practical ‘Adults’ take on understanding the EYFS terminology.
21 February 2017
Now I don’t mean to be cynical here but in the Jones household, since Rob and I became Parents, we have a Valentines Code of Practice. The Code goes like this:
I hereby agree to ZERO show of public affection on Feb 14th, the lead up to the dreaded Valentine’s Day and for 7 days thereafter.
Why do you think we have this special binding agreement? Well it’s because before we had Children, Valentine’s Day had a whole new meaning.
10 January 2017
I confess, I am the World’s biggest Christmas romantic. Years of Christmas movies, happy ever afters and feel good chick flicks have left me with a rather unrealistic view of Christmas Day.
“Here we go again” Rob sighs as I protest how perfect this year Christmas day will be.
“How hard can it be to have a grown up Christmas without any drama?” I reply trying to convince him and myself it seems at the same time. “Surely our three Gremlins, associated boyfriends, granddaughter, Great Grandparents, in-laws etc etc can all behave for the entire 24 hour duration”.
-No reply-
“Sue” he eventually replies with that black is black and white is white tone of voice. “The kids are normal, the family is normal, the day is normal, what isn’t normal is your fantasy version”.
Well… as it turns out… shock, horror, Rob was indeed right and I didn’t quite get the fantasy day I was dreaming of after all. Instead however I had a wonderful, mixed up, crazy, insanely bonkers, fantastic, drunken and totally normal day after all. Perhaps Rob is right and my New Year Resolution should be to leave my fantasy day to the movies?
24 December 2016
Christmas as a working mum is that wonderful relaxing time of year where we are expected to combine working full time with relentless shopping, present buying, house decorating, food shopping, mass catering, pot washing, house cleaning, family visits, bed stripping, present wrapping, party organising, nativity watching and marital mayhem.
28 November 2016
Before I ventured into being a mum I had a lot of time to be incredibly selfish. I loved to dream, to plan, to organise and to accomplish. I used to think about being a mum with a sense of smugness, I knew it all and I was going to be an amazing mum. I read every parenting book on the planet just so I could be sure I had it organised.
I would never lose my temper with my children. I would never let my children run around with their shoes on the wrong feet. I would never wear gym clothes all day. I would never leave face painting on their faces for five days. I would never let them eat sugar. I would never let them wear a Cinderella outfit for a full week. We would never skip tooth brushing or hair brushing because of the drama. I would never be “that” mum. I would spend my days with my children reading books, visiting national trust parks, going to libraries, museums, doing crafts, and exploring the outdoors. I was going to be the very first Super Mum.
4 October 2016
There is nothing better for your mental well being than throwing your head back and belly laughing until your stomach hurts, your eyes are full of tears and your cheeks hurt. Well it may come as a surprise but babies are no different to us adults. Just as you find things from mildly funny to damn right hysterical, so will your baby.
So how do we turn those giggle muscles on and boost baby belly laughs? Babies develop their side splitting sense of humour in a clear process so essentially they find different things funny at different stages in their development.
20 September 2016
Confidence and self-esteem is something we as adults can particularly relate to and something that all of us want our children to have. We want our children to grow up happy and emotionally strong, knowing that who they are and what they stand for is enough and all that matters to them. We want them confident and comfortable in their own skin and want them to celebrate and be proud of their achievements. We want them to know their strengths and their weaknesses and to embrace the fact that they are wonderful and unique and utterly individual.
27 August 2016
This Summer has been a giggle from start to finish with a Toddler in our midst. Grandparenting has shone a whole different light on Parenting. Well it has in our house and out has gone the rule book and in its place is rule breaking and chaos with a whole host of laughter thrown in.
27 July 2016
As a grown up mum of 4 (including husband) and a feisty Leo mum at that to a growing and extending Family, I have always considered myself strong. I've pulled up the big girls pants, I've upped my game and I've worked my butt off to be independent and a positive role model to my children. I've worked long hours, I've taken challenges, I've taken risks and I've survived, all whilst wearing 5 inch heels, red lipstick and a smile.
4 July 2016
Growing up we can all remember vividly the things we liked and more importantly the things we disliked as we embarked on our learning journey through the early years. For me, my parents desire to travel Europe with a caravan in tow meant endless hours of being trapped in a metal box with wheels on it whilst being subjected to endless power arguments about which of my parents were the superior navigator, and trillions of games of ‘I spy with my little eye,’ designed to actively engage my imagination and momentarily keep me occupied.
1 June 2016
Over the years as a practitioner and indeed a mother I’ve seen first-hand how the "Keep up with the Joneses" mentality can be really damaging to little ones. It doesn’t seem five minutes ago since I was at my own children’s sports day to hear, to my horror, my daughter's so called best friend’s mother announce to her child "If you win, and I know you will, I will buy you a bike". So how does a healthy bout of competitive instinct turn into a killer instinct to win at all costs... hummm lets investigate.
31 May 2016
Managing Director, Sue Jones was interviewed recently for Nursery World magazine, who wanted to know Sue's criteria for buying nursery furniture that will stand the test of time.
26 May 2016
We have a new family member of the Jones household called Kevin. Kevin right now is driving me insane. I have decided I don’t like Kevin very much. Kevin has the ability to turn the house into chaos.
Kevin is a 6 inch Unicorn.
12 May 2016
Rob and I have been refurbishing our house since January. We both have discovered new skills we didn’t know we possessed. I can fill a skip in lightening time. Rob can un-fill the skip just as fast.
11 April 2016
April brings with it financial turmoil...
By financial turmoil it’s the battle of the Childcare Vouchers vs Tax Free Childcare I am talking about. As a Nursery provider it is essential that I can keep parents informed on the Government support and employers support that is available as many parents are increasingly reliant on paid/supported childcare fees. April is the time of year where we interpret the Chancellors presentations to Parliament and assess the impact this has on our Parent groups.
6 March 2016
So it’s March already... and along with the crazy weather, the rain, the snow and the rather dazed spring flowers unsure if Spring is on its way or not, this month we celebrate Mothers.
Not one of us was brought into this world without a mother. Whether you are blessed to still have your mother in your life or whether she has left to the Pearly Gates and is not physically with you any longer, we all have a mother. Some of us are lucky enough to have two active roles in our life and the Mother in Law becomes another mother figure, on hand at all times to offer advice and support and never judge as we clearly become ‘insane in the mum brain’.
13 January 2016
Happy New Year everyone!
Wow what a Year 2015 was! For the Nurseries we have embraced an incredible year of Reinventing, Restructuring, Reorganising and Reflecting. We have grown and expanded. On a personal level so has our family, with the addition of little Frankie our gorgeous bundle of love that we fondly call our granddaughter.
8 December 2015
I love, love, love December as not only is it the month of anticipation, excitement and awe as the Children and staff at Nursery get very giddy at the imminent arrival of the man in the Red Suit. It is also the month of our staff Christmas Party!
By Man in the Red suit by the way I am not talking Rob in his Red LFC Football Kit, I was actually referring to Santa but after our Staff Christmas doo and the many, many inquisitive questions from my team, I thought I would once and for all spill the beans and break the taboo on what it was REALLY like being a footballer's wife (you may be sorry you asked Ladies).
28 October 2015
The run up to Halloween in Nursery is a wonderful week full of ghosts, ghouls, goblins, witches and wizards in Nursery. There are cobwebs, spiders and skeletons galore. We will have carved pumpkins, dunked apples, baked Halloween biscuits, played games, wrapped each other up as mummies and played trick or treat, themed our lunches and collected and given out more sweets and treats than I would care to imagine. We will have had fancy dress competitions, danced, played in slime and goo and giggled as we have face-painted each other! All in all Nursery will be none stop fun, fun, fun!
21 August 2015
It’s early, it’s hot and I am rushing around the house trying to organise a gazillion things before I head off to work.
28 May 2015
As a Nursery owner I am often asked and always prepared for Parenting Questions such as:
12 November 2014
As Monday morning arrived with a bang and the weekend blurs into the distance, I caught myself watching children arriving at Nursery next door! One after another the children bound in: some singing, some laughing, lots of chatter, we have marching, clapping, chasing and giggling one thing that strikes me is the childlike fun they are all having - they are simply playing!
3 November 2014
The buzz at Head Office today is all about Parental pressure at Christmas. The keep up with the Jones’s approach (no pun intended) to compete with friends in the overloading presents from Santa stakes can really become a problem for Parents and makes me want to call Santa and demand he cuts his credit cards up right now!
10 October 2014
This year our Founder and Owner Sue Jones was awarded the accolade of the ‘Power 20’ which is an award given to the 20 most influential people in the UK for their contribution to the Childcare industry. Sue attended a glitzy awards evening where she accepted the award from Barclays Bank and Nursery Management Today Magazine.
