Flexible Childcare Services Scotland (FCSS) has been awarded the NESCol early learning and childcare contract for a second term after another successful tender bid.
FCSS has been the early learning supplier at NESCol since 2019 and has now been awarded the service contract until 2026, with an option to extend until 2027; a great relief for staff, students and the children who all rely on the setting.
FCSS, is a national childcare charity with 21 registered settings in Dundee, Inverness, Kilmarnock, Aberdeen and across Aberdeenshire. The charity was created in response to parents who were unable to take up offers of employment, education or training due to a lack of high quality, flexible childcare services.
Susan McGhee, Chief Executive at FCSS said,
“We are delighted to have been awarded the contract at NESCol, it’s obviously fantastic for our team, but the children will also benefit from being in a familiar environment with familiar faces delivering a familiar model. NESCol Nursery also provides a fantastic service to the families who rely on our services to attend or work at the college. We also believe that there are lot of opportunities to create services for the local community during holiday periods, this is something we will be exploring in partnership with the college – hopefully we’ll have more good news soon!”
NESCol Nursery offers early learning and childcare for up to 30 children from 6 months to 5 years old. The service is open Monday to Friday throughout the term and offers funded childcare spaces to eligible 2’s and all 3-5 year olds. Although the nursery gives priority to the college students, members of the college staff and wider public can still use the setting if there are spaces available.
In NESCol Nursery’s most recent satisfaction survey, when asked how parents rated the service 100% said excellent or very good.
One parent said,
“I always recommended this nursery to other people, as the team truly have gone above and beyond for, not only my child, but for myself as well. Anytime I go and do a pick-up, no matter what time, the team are always engaging with the children, and they are always having fun.”
The nursery setting is bright and comfortable and, like all of the charity’s childcare settings, it follows a methodology developed by the Curiosity Approach where they use calm and natural play spaces and loose parts to create a rich learning environment where children harness their imagination to create their own learning experiences.
Loose parts encompass a range of ‘open-ended’ materials such as boxes, crates, pipes, poles, sticks, rocks, logs that children can adapt, move, design and transform in many different ways.
The nursery also has an outdoor space which provides children with a variety of different natural outdoor experiences and opportunities.
Kim Gairns, Service Manager at NESCol and her team, have spent a considerable amount of time and energy transforming the garden into a fantastic outside play area complete with sheltered dens, bug hotels and fairy gardens.
Kim said,
“We have wanted to put some life back into the garden for some time but the team are so busy supporting the children and helping them to meet their development milestones that we’ve just not had the time. Thankfully, the team agreed to spend a weekend over the holidays when we were closed and the garden, although a work in progress is looking fantastic, we look forward to the children’s and parents’ input when we reopen.”
