Windmill Nursery & Montessori... 20 years of nurturing young minds

Windmill Nursery & Montessori is marking a major milestone in their history by celebrating 20 years of nurturing young minds in the community.

Located in the heart of Yellow Furze the purpose built childcare facility opened its doors in 2004 with just two staff members. Tracy Moore's venture proved fruitful and, before long, enrolment numbers grew along with its staff and now the child led service has a team of ten dedicated educators.

“We are extremely proud to be celebrating 2o years of Windmill Nursery & Montessori,” said Tracy who thanked her husband, Joe for the support and building skills that have helped make make Windmill what it is today.

“We have survived a recession and pandemic, it wasn't easy at times but our commitment and passion for caring and nurturing children always won out,” she added.

The purpose built facility to the back of Tracy's home offers a family type atmosphere and that follows through with the amazing standard of care the team of childcare professionals provide.

Describing how curiosity-led tasks and games are at the core of their service, Tracy said that it was extremely important for a preschool child to be engaged through social interaction, and to offer them both indoor and outdoor spaces for learning and development.

“We have a toddler room for one to two year olds, a pre Montessori room for two to three year olds and the Montessori room for three years plus,” said Tracy.

“The staff spend their day doing activities, keeping the children stimulated and making sure that all of the activities are for all areas of development like social, emotional and physical development,” she added.

“The team are committed to help the children become confident learners in their own development fostering self help skills and independence, being able to do things for themselves and being able to regulate their emotions. They learn social skills like turn taking, engaging in activities and concentration skills. The encourage the children to develop their language so they are able to verbalise their feelings.

“Our biggest physical feature is our massive outdoor green area and in each playroom we have rubber matting and a sheltered cover so the children can go outside all day every day regardless of the weather.”

Despite her huge success, running a childcare service wasn't always in the plan for Tracy who had a very different job prior to this.

“When I left school I worked in accountancy for 12 years,” said the Windmill Nursery & Montessori owner.

“I had two small children and my elderly parents were living in a granny flat at our home and I really wanted to work from home,” she added.

“Unfortunately there wasn't an opportunity to work from home back then so I worked full time during the day and went to college at night time and I studied Montessori Teaching.

“My original plan was to open a Montessori school but I got great advice from a family friend who told me that future was full day care because that the government were giving funding at the time to the early learning sector to get women back into the work place.

“Three hours in the morning or afternoon isn't much good to somebody working full time.”

Tracy's planning permission originally only allowed her to offer ten places but over the years she developed her service and now the nursery and Montessori cater for 40 children.

Explaining what makes Windmill Nursery & Montessori stand out from the crowd, Tracy said: You can have the most state of the art building in the world but at the end of the day, it is all about the staff. My staff are so committed to the children's development and their learning.

“Our ethos is to treat every child like our own.

“We have a really good open and respectful relationship with the parents as well which is really important.”

Contact Windmill Nursery & Montessori here