Whaddon nursery celebrates 20th birthday with party for staff and children of key workers

The owner of Bumpkins in Whaddon has praised her staff supporting families during the coronavirus crisis, as they celebrate the nursery’s 20th birthday today.

Michaela Vaux and the team were planning a big celebration for their milestone year, but it was postponed and instead they had a smaller party with staff and children of key workers.

Ahead of the big day, she told the Crow: “We’ve stayed open since the pandemic began for key-working parents and have between 10 and 12 children every day, we’re not going to be celebrating as we planned to but it’s still going to be great.

“We’re really proud of serving the local community for 20 years and we never shut, the team are doing the most amazing job as key workers.

“We made the decision not to close. It was absolutely instinctive to want to support our families.

“I know it’s a cliché, but we are a family. Our message to our families from day one was ‘tell us what we need to do to support you’ and the ones who are at home we are emailing with ideas of things to do. We’re supporting them in all different ways.

“We just had to look out how we could make this work to safely protect our staff and the children.

“We said we wouldn’t charge families not using the nursery at this time. We thought we’re going to buckle up and get through this, and by supporting our families we know they would come back to support us.”

Michaela started Bumpkins Nursery, situated on a working farm with a second site for preschoolers also in the village, after feeling unhappy with the childcare provision she had for her first child Frank. She began planning while pregnant with her daughter Maddy.

She said: “I planned it all on the back of a piece of paper one Friday night, I had the idea in the October and we opened in the April.

“It’s all about getting children outside to grow their own fruit and veg, and have rabbits and chickens. We say there’s no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing!

“It is strange for the children, we’re making sure we’re giving them special days.

“The team are coming in every day and holding and playing with the children. You can’t socially distance babies and toddlers, What they’re doing is amazing and I’m so proud of them all.”