Who Are Purple Jay Nurseries?

Purple Jay Nurseries is a small, but growing South East London based nursery group (Peckham Rye, Lambeth, East Dulwich, Lewisham and Herne Hill Dulwich).

Find out about our vision, mission and values and what makes us special. Taken together, we call this “The Purple Jay Way”.

Our Vision

We aim to nurture and create compassionate innovators.

Our children will use their imagination to discover
new possibilities and create something special.

Our Mission

We provide a safe space with high emotional intelligence
for children to explore, discover and create.

Families and communities are important
to child development, so we provide support to all.

Our Values

Transparency

Keep it simple

Nature is great

Wellbeing is paramount

Our Vision, Mission & Values

Our Vision

We aim to nurture and create compassionate innovators.

Our children will use their imagination to discover

new possibilities and create something special.

Our Mission

We provide a safe space with high emotional intelligence
for children to explore, discover and create.

Families and communities are important
to child development, so we provide support to all.

Our Values

Transparency – Transparency is the only way we can be trustworthy.

Keep it simple – Keep it simple so all can understand and be included.

Nature is great – Nature is great, we want to keep it that way!

Wellbeing is paramount – Children’s wellbeing is paramount, Underperformance, Misconduct or Negligence is not tolerated.

Transparency

Transparency is the only way we can be trustworthy.

Keep It Simple

Keep it simple so all can understand and be included

Nature Is Great

Nature is great, we want to keep it that way!

Wellbeing Is Paramount

Children’s wellbeing is paramount, Underperformance, Misconduct or Negligence is not tolerated.

A Word From Our CEO…

A few words from our CEO, Jarrod Ayling, talking about our Vision, Mission & Values. Why they exist and why they are important to us.

Our approach to our children, parents and staff

Approach to Childcare

Central to our approach is creating “compassionate innovators”. Curious? Find out more!

Approach to Parents

We offer some unique things to parents that most nurseries don’t. Intrigued? Find out more!

Approach to Staff

How do we keep our staff team supported, trained and engaged? Curious? Find out more!

Our approach involves providing the best quality environment possible for children to explore, discover and create – allowing them to follow their own curiosity, intuition and interests with support from our trained staff.

We place a special emphasis on developing emotional intelligence, innovation and creativity within a natural environment in a manner that fits within the EYFS framework to ensure all key milestones are met.

Purple Jay believes in holistic child development, borrowing the best from a number of popular childcare approaches and placing a consistent focus on emotional and physical wellbeing.

We believe happy parents are as important as happy children and strive to provide parents with all the information and support they need to feel comfortable and satisfied.

We provide granular updates of your child’s day, giving you full visibility, monthly observations of your child so you can see how they are doing alongside milestones, regular parents events (education and social), a parents community group, and regular parent surveys so you can communicate your likes/dislikes so we know what to do more/less of, for your satisfaction.

We take communication very seriously and encourage regular two-way dialogue between parents and staff, providing you with multiple ways of getting updates and getting in touch with us . We use these conversations to continuously improve, for you and your children.

We hire carefully and invest heavily in our people. They are crucially important to the quality of the Purple Jay Nurseries experience.

There are regular training and development opportunities, monthly awards with prizes, away days, and company lunches. Further, our people receive a generous benefits package which includes comprehensive healthcare coverage and a day off for their birthday, plus much more.

We routinely carry out staff surveys to find out what we are doing well and can do better for our people, and ask our parents about our staff too. We use this data to continually improve our staff approach, which benefits them, you and your children.

What Makes Us Different?

1. Creating Compassionate Innovators

2. Integrating
Nature

3. Prioritising
Communication

What Makes Us Different?

1. Creating Compassionate Innovators

2. Integrating
Nature

3. Prioritising
Communication

Central to our approach is creating “compassionate innovators” a phrase we have coined to encapsulate the Purple Jay way of childcare that has been developed through hard research, decades of cumulative childcare experience across our team, and detailed parent surveys.

The approach is “to help nurture children that can innovate and create the life they want in a way that is compassionate to themselves, others around them and the planet”.

“Compassionate Innovators” puts the development of emotional intelligence and creativity/innovation at the very heart of things.

See here for some of the research supporting our approach.

Nature is integrated into every one of our Purple Jay Nurseries.

Whether that is through continued investment into our gardens and prioritisation of outdoor play, working harder to ensure more of the children’s activities take nature into account, or working with trusted and vetted external parties to deliver enriching nature based experiences for the children.

We seek to give children an awareness, understanding and appreciation of the natural world and the impact their actions can have on it, for better or worse.

Our experience shows, and mounting research supports, that making nature a bigger part of children’s lives has numerous physical and mental health benefits for them.

See here for a summary of research on the benefits of nature for children.

Great communication with our staff, parents, and children allows for calm, clarity, consistency and greater satisfaction overall.

Purple Jay Nurseries continues to invest significant time and resources to help ensure our parents have all the information they need, when they need it, in a way they are most receptive to so they feel as connected as possible to their children while they are in our care and get the vital peace of mind they deserve.

We have multiple open communication channels for parents to utilise and have a dedicated customer care staff member, which, more than anything, demonstrates how important communication is to us.

What makes our nurseries special?

Holistic Development

We believe in developing physical, emotional and mental well being of children

Child Led

Letting children explore, discover and create with staff providing support, not setting direction

Focus on Nature

Big focus on nature based play and learning with ongoing investment in natural resources, activities and environment

EI Focus

Big focus on developing childrens emotional intelligence and wellbeing

Creativity Focus

Large focus on developing creativity and innovation to unlock expressiveness and individuality of children

Fantastic Facilities

Building, rooms, facilities and gardens that are second to none with continued heavy investment

Our People

We hire very carefully and invest heavily in our staff so they can deliver the very best care possible

Safe & Secure

All elements of the nursery, interior and exterior, are secure, and staff are first aid trained

Nutrition

High quality, healthy, fresh, nutritionally balanced meals are prepared daily on site by our trained cooking staff

What makes our approach special?

What makes our “The Purple Jay Way” so special is that it is data-based and research-based. Everything we do for our children, team, or parents is either as a result of conversations, surveys or research, with the final filter being our VMV’s (vision, mission and values).

We have a continuous improvement approach. We are constantly asking questions to find what we are doing well/where we can improve, devising strategies and plans of action based on this feedback, taking action, and then asking again.

This ensures the quality of every element of our service for our children, parents and people continues to get better and better.

Have a question? Want to book a viewing?

If you have a question for us or would like to book a viewing, get in touch!

Our Management Team

Please click the relevant button below to see the management team.

Jarrod Ayling
CEO

Lynn Attoe
Operations Manager

Mary Walters-Collett
Senior Nursery Manager

Emma Koroma
Nursery Manager
Lambeth

Irene Pinto
Nursery Manager
Peckham Rye & East Dulwich

Mary Walters-Collett
Nursery Manager
Lewisham