We were delighted to learn that our recent application to the Cambusbarron Community Fund was successful and we have been awarded a £10,000 contribution to developing our shelter in the woods 🎉🎉🎉
Slowly but surely we are making progress 💪🏻
November Newsletter
Please click the image below or follow this link to read our latest newsletter.

Rope Play
We have been busy in the woods marking out a boundary on our woodland site and learning how far we can roam when we are playing. Over recent weeks our children have all been very engaged in tying knots with rope and last week with wool in our spider web. This week they practised enthusiastically with a new material, boundary tape.








LEGO Education
We were pleased to receive an email telling us we had been successful in applying for a free LEGO® Education Build Me Emotions set. It arrived this week and our children have been making up figures with a variety of emotions to match their own faces.




Hallowe’en Fun
We’ve had a very busy first week back at nursery following the October holiday. We’ve been very pleased to welcome Lisa to our staff team and she has very quickly settled in and is getting to know all of our children and families. We had a visit from another Lisa, this one our friend from Childsmile and she brought along some of her puppet friends and our children took turns to practice their toothbrushing skills. Lisa also brought along some toothbrush cases for us so we will be able to take our toothbrushes to the woods with us.
We celebrated Hallowe’en with pumpkin soup, ghoulish slime, pumpkin bashing, spider webs and other spooky things in the woods!
We finished our week welcoming Eliza and Lorna from Early Years Scotland to join us for an extra session in the woods.


















Co-op Community Fund

We’re delighted to let you know that, from today, you can support CVN via the Co-op Local Community Fund!! CVN has been selected to be one of the Co-op’s “causes” and will receive a contribution every time one of our supporters shops in the Co-op.
If you shop at the Co-op (any co-op) and have a members card you can choose CVN as your “cause” and, every time you shop using your member’s card, CVN receives a donation.
If you have a member’s card PLEASE go to our page (https://membership.coop.co.uk/causes/87676) and click “choose this cause”
If you don’t yet have a member’s card please consider getting one and choosing CVN as your “cause”.
CVN will be an Co-op “cause” until 18 October 2025 so there will be plenty of time and opportunity to help us raise much needed funds to support the running and development of our nursery.
The more members that choose CVN as their “cause” , the more money we will receive.
We are 5!
What a beautiful day to celebrate our 5th birthday! It was lovely to have so many of our families come back to join us for this special day.
Hard to believe that it is already 5 years since Judy Edwards (then head of Early Years and Early Intervention) raised our flag and declared Cambusbarron Village Nursery CIC officially open 🎉🎉🎉
Thank you to everyone who came along to help us celebrate!











Planning Permission
We are delighted to say that, at long last, we heard today that we have been granted planning permission for our shelter in the woods!!!
Our team of architects are now working on the next stage which is to submit an application for a building warrant. Meanwhile CVN’s board is working on securing the outstanding funding and working with the Care Inspectorate to ensure we have everything we need in place to change our registration and become a fully outdoor service.
We still have a way to go but today marks a big step forward 🎉🎉🎉



Education Scotland Inspection
We are pleased to announce that the results of our inspection by Education Scotland in June of this year have now been published. The inspectors highlighted our strengths as:
- The leadership, drive and passion of the manager to deliver quality early learning and childcare through an outdoor nursery approach. As a result, children learn daily within and from the natural environment.
- Children’s woodland experiences and the responsive approach practitioners have to children’s interests. This results in motivated children who are adventurous, curious and demonstrate creativity in their play.
- The importance placed on the wellbeing of all. As a result of the clear focus on emotional and physical wellbeing, children develop resilience.
- The community partnerships and investment to support and sustain the outdoor nursery. Ongoing support and contributions from partners are supporting children to become responsible, active citizens within their local community.
The Inspectors suggested the following areas for improvement :
- Continue to develop approaches to evaluate the work of the nursery. This should help plan for continued improvement within the unique outdoor context.
- Develop further planning for children’s learning. Practitioners should provide a better balance of responding to children’s interests and planning for learning. This should ensure suitable levels of challenge for children to help them make the best possible progress
We have incorporated their recommendations into our improvement plan for Session 2024/2025.
The letter for parents and the Summarised Inspection Finding (SIF) are attached below.. They can also be viewed on Education Scotland’s website.
We’re Celebrating our 5th Anniversary
19th September 2024 is the 5th anniversary of our official opening ceremony. We will be celebrating our 5th birthday with cake in the Community Centre Garden at 3:30pm.
We would love for as many of our “former pupils” as possible to join us as we celebrate this fantastic milestone.
Please let us know if you can come!

