Parkfield Nursery in Carlisle celebrates 40 years

Parkfield Nursery opened its doors in January 1984 and has seen thousands of youngsters through its doors over the past four decades.

“When Parkfield opened I had 3 members of staff including myself working in 2 classrooms, we catered for children from 2 years old to school age and were only open during school term times,” said founder Anne Hooper-Brown.

“Move onto January 2024 we have with 21 staff, 120 children aged 6 months to 5 years and open all year round with five classrooms and two exciting outside play areas – It’s just an incredible story.”

The staff at Parkfield Nursery (Image: Parkfield Nursery) Over the years Parkfield has had to change with the times and recently had to overcome one of the largest challenges of all – Covid.

“When we came back from COVID we basically reset the nursery,” said Nursery manager, Julie Laidlaw.

“People's expectations were completely different, and the children's needs were totally different because they've lost all those social interactions, so we had to basically bring the nursery right back down to the beginning and just get these children playing with each other and get them off their screens.”

The nursery was amongst the first of its kind in Carlisle and Anne has seen the changing demographic of the city over the past 40 years.

“What we're finding is that we have a much larger contingent of babies,” said business manager, Barbara Mason.

“We think that that is down to parents having to go back to work and the grandparents, who would perhaps normally look after the children, are still working so we're finding that there's more need for children to come in younger.”

Parkfield is now a household name throughout the city and the nursery is now well accustomed to welcoming the children of former pupils and many former pupils have worked at Parkfield.

The nursery is currently rated ‘outstanding’ by the inspectorate, OFSTED is a former winner at the News and Star’s Golden Apple Awards.

Staff and Students celebrating their Outstanding Ofsted in December 2022 (Image: Isaac Cooper) “It’s really such a lovely, family atmosphere here,” said Nursery manager, Julie Laidlaw.

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“Everything we try to do here is to create a warm, welcoming environment and the fact people are coming back is testament to everything we do.”

Former pupils, parents and staff have been invited back to Parkfield on Saturday, September 14 between 11am and 2pm for a celebration and to look back on their time at the nursery.