Our Dedicated Staff
Clare Wilkins (Company Director, Operational Manager and Teacher)
Phillip Wilkins (Company Director, Business Manager and Early Years Practitioner NVQ 3)
Clare and Phillip have over 25 years of experience each in schools and nurseries. They are passionate about helping children to be ‘school ready’ by ensuring they have the emotional resilience to cope, a growth mindset to know they can do anything they want to if they try hard enough and the self-confidence to believe in themselves.
Marika Groce (Manager,SENCO and safeguarding lead OD/KVH)
Marika has a BA degree in Childhood Studies and over 20 years’ experience in early years management roles. She is fluent using Makaton and loves to create a visually stimulating and language rich environment. Marika has a wealth of experience working with children with additional needs of every kind, supporting them so that they can reach their full potential. She works across both nurseries each week.
Danni Harrison (Deputy Manager and over 3s leader at OD)
Lucy Axten (Deputy Manager and over 3s leader at KVH)
Danni and Lucy both have an NVQ Level 3 in Early Education. They are both experienced, having worked at different nurseries. They run the nurseries in conjunction with Marika, Clare and Phillip, backed up by our senior practitioners below.
Charlotte Dobson (Senior Early Years Practitioner and under 2s leader KVH)
Charlotte is an experienced practitioners with NVQ Level 3 qualifications. Charlotte likes to cook with the children and made us a great cake for our 2nd birthday.
Josie Perkins (Early Years Practitioner and under 2s leader OD)
Josie loves working with the younger children and organising their play opportunities. She is also great at coming up with ideas for our messy play.
Kacey Prince, Izzy Lewry and Martha Farrall-Hyder (Early Years Apprentices)
Izzy (OD), Kacey (KVH) and Martha (OD) joined us in summer 2021 and are learning ‘on the job’ whilst completing their NVQ Level 2/3 qualifications. It is lovely to have them working and at the same time learning from our more experienced staff.
Rachael Neal (Early Years Assistant KVH)
Rachael has previously worked as a childminder and loves enhancing the learning of our Shooting Stars by playing alongside them and developing their vocabulary. She is full of great ideas to make learning fun. Rachael joined us in July 2022.
Katie Amos Mancino (Early Years Assistant KVH)
Katie has worked at previous nurseries but loves our planning-in-the-moment approach where we are led by the interests of the children. She joined us in July 2022.
Jemma (Early Years Assistant KVH)
Jemma is Rachael’s daughter and is very popular with the Shooting Stars. She joined us in August 2022 when she heard how much fun her mum was having at work! We pride ourselves on being a setting with high-quality and extremely experienced staff.
We are constantly looking for opportunities for further training to refine and rethink our practice in the light of current thinking and bearing in mind the needs of our children.