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About Us

NOTE: Please note this is the childminding profile for Little Beans Balham Boutique Nursery, part of the Lucky Beans Childcare Ltd family. If you are interested in childcare from the ages of 3 months - 5 years in the Balham, Norbury or Tooting area please visit our website for more details on our nurseries Growing Beans Streatham Nursery - Prentis Road, Growing Beans Streatham Preschool - Mitcham lane, Little Beans Tooting Boutique Nursery - Brudenell Road, Growing Beans Norbury Nursery - London Road, Growing Beans Norbury Preschool - London Road and Growing Beans Tooting Nursery and Preschool - Mitcham Road.



The Lucky Beans Family

I am Dr. Caroline Curtis and I founded the Lucky Beans family in September in 2016 when I started my childminding business from my house. Since then Lucky Beans Childcare have had nothing but happy parents and a record of helping children develop by operating a forest school ethos within our settings. This means we focus more on learning outdoors and developing children’s curiosity. As a positive psychologist I also places a lot of emphasis on children personal and emotional development.

From the outset, I had a clear vision of providing excellent care, positive parenting and strengths based methods for nurturing children and enabling them to thrive, gain life-skills and be happy.

Due to the success over the past 7 years and the growing demand from parents for places at Little Beans Balham Childminding, I was able to grow the business. I now have seven additional nurseries:


-Little Beans Balham Boutique Nursery - Not to be confused with childminding at my home, this is a boutique nursery around the corner I opened to offer a similar type of home from home care in a small setting. It opened in September 2021. - THIS SITE

- Growing Beans Tooting on Mitcham Road is a nursery and preschool catering for children aged 0 to 5 years, which opened it's doors in September 2020.

- Little Beans Tooting is a boutique nursery, similar to the childminding setting in Balham offering childcare in Tooting. This was opened in January 2019 and caters for children from the age of 0 to 2 years.

- Growing Beans Streatham is a nursery, which was opened in September 2018 and caters for children from the age of 0 to 3 years.

-Growing Beans Streatham Preschool is a preschool that care for children aged 3-5 years old, which opened in January 2023

- Growing Beans Norbury is also a nursery which caters for children from 0 to 3 years, this setting opened in January 2020.

- Growing Beans Norbury Preschool is a preschool which provides care for children aged 3-5 and opened in January 2022



Each of our settings in Norbury, Streatham, Balham and Tooting have dedicated, hard-working staff who are all passionate about creating a home away from home, all our children are thriving and excelling, but most importantly they are all loved and treasured by myself and my team.

If this sounds like what you need please don’t hesitate to contact me for a chat or visit our website which has more information about Lucky Beans Childcare.


Lucky Beans Childminding

“I want my child to be treated as part of the family”

Then you’ve found the right place! We're not like every other child carer/nursery - we're not the childminder you’ve had who’s always late, or off sick, or who your children grow to love but who has to leave after 6 months. We are a stable and growing family of nurseries who will be here for many years and if once in a while you’re a bit late because a meeting overran, you’ll know they’re safe and happy with us.

My staff have a philosophy of childcare that incorporates the full EYFS curriculum but which is about much more than box ticking – it’s about creating a safe, secure and loving home from home for your child. We look after children from 6 months to 5 years old Monday-Friday 7.30am-6.30pm. Please note that we welcome children with special needs.

I am a Chartered Psychologist, PhD and was a working mother for many years so I understand the needs of busy parents who need the peace of mind that their children are being well looked after. Having sent my children to nursery, a child minder and had nannies/au pairs, I fully understand the variety of options available and the value that such a service can provide. I know how important it is for parents to go to work knowing that their children are well cared for. I also understand the need to provide parents with the information and support they need to feel satisfied and supported by their childcare provider – I want to involve you as much as possible!


Here's some of things your child will be doing at the nursery:

Learning

Circle Time – I use singing and finger rhymes to develop children’s vocabulary

Free Play – with nudging and encouragement, this allows the children to explore their own interests and instincts

Messy play - working with water, cornflower etc discovering textures and shapes

Story Time – by following along with the pictures they begin to grasp the fun of written words

Spanish teacher - this gives the children a different perspective, even if they're not speaking yet

Phonics lessons - we offer phonics lessons to all children in order to help develop their speaking and pronunciation.


Nurturing

Caring For Others– I put a great emphasis on learning to appreciate other people, their space, wants and needs, through play and example.

Gardening –tending to plants helps inculcate a gentle nature

Arts & Crafts And Musical Instruments – by giving children encouragement to develop their artistic side and to have fun and be messy we nurture the soul as well as the mind


Life-skills

Cooking – learning to associate cooking with pleasure early stands children in very good stead later on in terms of their health

Books Everywhere – the love of reading is probably the most valuable life skill a child can have, and it all starts with associating simple books with fun stories

Sport – games in the garden and the park help them learn to cooperate with others



Our greatest strength - our child-carers

The staff that I have assembled have a huge range of childcare skills and have been trained and developed extensively by me and my management team. They are as committed as me to caring for your children and you will see that your child will have a lot of attention from a dedicated, caring team.

We also bring in outside providers suggested by our parents to run classes, including music, singing and dance. They add a real extra dimension to our care.



A little about this nursery

Little Beans Balham Boutique Nursery has been operating since 2021 and as well as a lovely playroom in the main building there is a kitchen to allow freshly cooked food to be served daily. We have a great garden and a separate Garden Room for the children to develop and explore (please see pictures for all of these areas).



Local amenities and being outdoors

I am a great believer in the benefits of learning and play outside as well as inside of the playroom. As well as the spacious garden, we make frequent trips to local amenities including:

Tooting Bec Common

Tooting Library

Triangle Playground


We also sometimes go on longer excursions to places like Battersea Zoo. We are also well served by public transport, which puts all the educational possibilities of London within reach!


Food and nutrition

The importance of good nutrition to children can't be overestimated. Quite apart from the fact that it's necessary for healthy physical development a healthy balanced diet gives them the energy and concentration to learn and play well. The food I provide is healthy and nutritious and mostly organic, and I work with you to accommodate any allergies or intolerances your child has. If it would make you feel more comfortable you are of course also welcome to bring your own food for your child when you drop them off in the morning. We have rotating weekly menu’s that change throughout the year.

And how do we manage all this? With our little helpers of course! You can involve young children in cooking in many different ways by letting them help you mix things, measure out ingredients, add herbs and spices and ice cakes, to name but a few. My first concern is obviously safety so we never allow children near knives or hot pots and pans.

I am also very aware of allergies and so my staff will take great care to work around any allergies that your child has. If it would make you feel more comfortable you are of course also welcome to bring your own food for your child when you drop them off in the morning.

Our cooks and staff who serve food are all appropriately trained and qualified in food safety.

There is also water available all day of course. If your child is weaning don't worry, we have a great deal of experience with this.



Involving you

I mentioned earlier I want you to be as involved as possible. Apart from liaising with you about any health/dietary issues and chatting when you pick up your children there are several others ways our staff will endeavour to get your input:

See what your little one is doing in their My Learning Story folder - Every child gets a folder with pictures that documents the progress they make and the things they enjoy. Through this you get a good idea of what your child is enjoying and how they are making those daily little breakthroughs. By going through this with your child's key worker at your catch up sessions (see below) we can work together to reinforce your child’s progress.

Regular catch-up/development meetings - While I would be delighted if you wanted to come and have a quick chat with our staff when picking up your children if you have any particular idea or concern, we will be having regular catch-up meetings every couple of months to review your child's progress, work on their individual development plans together and ensure that you are happy and make sure that we’re all on the same page.

Meet everyone at our parents parties - Your child will be interacting daily with other children we are caring for, as well as my own family, so why not come and meet us all? We will hold occasional casual get-togethers so we can all get to know the other important people in our children’s lives .

A Whatsapp group - for each family we have a Whatsapp group for you and me where I can keep you up to date with your little ones triumphs and accomplishments and so you can quickly let us all know anything important for that day you forgot to mention at drop-offs.


Some comments from our parents (children's names withheld)

“Thank you, thank you, thank you, for looking after [child], me and [partner] could not be happier with the loving, caring and supportive environment [child] has been part of.”

“[partner] and I love being able to drop her off everyday and know that she will be so well looked after, she has so much fun taking part in all the activities you provide.”

“Finding Lucky Beans has made my return to work (which I was dreading) an absolute doddle and I have all of you to thank for that, so THANK YOU x1000 for making [child] (and in turn me) very happy.”

“Thank you for your continued love and care for [child], we are thrilled with how well she has adapted.”

“Thank you so much for all your amazing care of [child]. It came at such a crucial and important time and made the transition back to work so much easier. ”

“Thank you for all your efforts over the past few weeks with [child], you and the team have been wonderful and she seems to be settling in well”

“Thank you Caroline for looking after me when mummy is at work, you are now my second mummy, I love all your cuddles and hugs. I also look forward to all your tasty lovely food you prepare for me”

“Since joining Lucky Beans, I have noticed a significant improvement in [child]. She may not be able to articulate and express how she feels verbally, but her actions depict pure happiness and joy from the moment I unbuckle her car seat belt to the point when you and Milo (the dog) open your front door to greet her she is full of smiles and squeals and claps in great anticipation.”