Our nurseries
We’re an award-winning group of 39 London nurseries! Browse our nurseries and find out more about our teams, our Pedagogy and more.
The LEYF Pedagogy is our teaching and learning model and reflects our social enterprise approach, which ensures all children are given a strong start, regardless of their background. It is inspired by a wide range of international research into young children’s learning and development, including long-established approaches like Froebel and Montessori alongside emerging knowledge from the field of neuroscience.
Our Pedagogy has seven interwoven strands, each of which are of equal value and importance. It is underpinned by an ethos of inclusion, equality and empathy, and gives our children a voice in their learning and care.
Our Pedagogy is our teaching model, so children become enthusiastic, inquisitive learners.
Seven strands of the LEYF Pedagogy
These are the seven strands:
1. Leading for a culture of excellence
We believe in what we do and live our values every day.
2. Spiral curriculum
Extending and supporting children to reach their potential.
3. Enabling environments
Using the nursery space, indoors and out, to create exciting learning opportunities.
4. Harmonious relationships
Building loving relationships between staff, children and parents.
5. Safe, fit and healthy
Nutritious home-cooked food, encouraging our children to be active, healthy and keeping them safe.
6. Home learning
Conversations with parents to extend and enrich children’s development between home and nursery.
7. Multi-generational approach
Connecting with the local community so families grow together and find their place in a changing world.
The LEYF Pedagogy Rope
The LEYF Pedagogy Rope represents how teachers at LEYF lead learning to provide the very best outcomes for our children.
Setting strong foundations
The LEYF Pedagogy is designed to set strong foundations to help children achieve in all areas, by widening their network of social relationships and expanding their cultural horizons.
By attending a LEYF nursery, children will build social capital through the friendships they make with people from different backgrounds and their involvement in the local community.
Their cultural capital is expanded through a rich language and literacy approach, as well as trips to the theatre, museums, parks and libraries.
At LEYF, we provide children with the freedom to explore their interests and follow their own lines of enquiry. We encourage our children not only to answer questions, but to ask them, and provide them with the tools to explore and discover the world around them at their own pace.
We see children as competent, creative and curious beings, and encourage them to lead their own learning.
LEYF teachers highly value the child’s opinions, views and voice. We recognise the uniqueness of every child, their individual strengths, learning styles, knowledge and experiences. We use this information to ensure children are able to learn at their own pace and in a way that is meaningful to them.
We see children as competent, creative and curious beings, and encourage them to lead their own learning.
We, like Froebel, believe that play is the best vehicle for children’s learning and is ‘not trivial, but highly serious with deep significance’. Play is vital for children’s development and welfare. It is how they express strong feelings, rehearse experiences and interact socially. Play is the main medium through which we teach. This includes a daily balance between child-initiated free flow play and planned activities which engage children and stimulate creativity, wonder, enthusiasm and enjoyment.
