At Hope, we believe that well-designed environments are key to nurturing curiosity, creativity, and a lifelong love of learning. In this blog, we’re sharing the story of our recent partnership with Kids Planet at Ashbourne House Nursery, where we supported a full nursery fitout following their integration into the Kids Planet family. From initial planning through to delivery and installation, this project showcases how thoughtful design and close collaboration can result in inspiring, functional spaces that support early years pedagogy and practice.
Context & aims for your project:
This was a full nursery fitout including resources and furniture. Our aim was to support Ashbourne House nursery through the integration into the Kids Planet Family, supporting curriculum delivery and implementation of the Kids Planet pedagogical roots.
How would you describe your overall experience working with us?
From order phase through to delivery, the service with Hope has been nothing short of exemplary. This delivery took careful planning and consideration due to the busy location and parking restrictions in place. Through coordination with our key contact, we worked together to strategically plan delivery times and coordinate couriers to ensure that children and families didn’t feel the impact of this busy day.
Tell us about the day of the delivery – how did it go?
Our direct contact at Hope, met us on site in advance of deliveries arriving, going through a plan for the day- this helped to reduce any impact for children and family’s nursery days.
Which products/areas of the room do you like the most?
The baby room resources and set up. The nursery is a beautiful Georgian building, the careful consideration for the right furniture and resources to compliment these spaces, resulted in a beautiful, homely environment for children to feel safe, secure and valued. The beautiful environments provided invitations to play, sparking children’s natural curiosity and creatively to explore.
The toddler room in this nursery is a large space; by carefully selecting resource and furniture we created bespoke places for children to explore. For example, creating cosy reading corners to provide a space for quiet reflection, whilst creating larger areas for block play and construction, stimulating children’s desire to create and design.
What has been the impact of this nursery installation on learning?
The impact of this newly developed rooms was evident immediately to both the children and the nursery teams. As soon as children arrived back in newly enhanced spaces, their faces shown their delight as they explored with curiosity. Team members and parents shared their feedback about the thought and consideration that had gone into planning these spaces and have since shared that children’s engagement in purposeful play has increased.
Author: Alison Hobbs (Training and Integration Director)
Nursery: Kids Planet, Ashbourne House
