Victoria Primary School Nursery

Holmes Miller were appointed by the Council to create designs for the new primary school and nursery. The buildings have been designed to promote independent, child led learning and play and meet the area metric set by the capital investment grant. 

The designs incorporate lessons learned from the 2014 ELC expansion from 475 hours to 600 hours, the Council’s operational requirements, regulatory requirements from the Care Inspectorate and the Scottish Government’s Early Learning Childcare design guidance ‘Space to Grow’

The nursery design with natural wood floors and furniture and neutral decoration follows the Early Years thinking that the children bring the colour to the space. Low dividers partition the room into activity areas and are designed to be playful and homely.

Large floor to ceiling windows and doors make the rooms bright and airy, allowing children to have a visual connection with the outdoor space. This is enhanced by the practice of allowing the children to choose to go outside when they want to making the two spaces feel like one.

The nursery has a beautiful “home corner”, all activity furnishings and storage for the children are accessible by them and pin boarding is also at their level so they can celebrate their own work by adding it to the display.

Soft furnishings, rugs, lamps and plants create a really homely comfortable environment to improve wellbeing making the space a nice place to be.

The nursery also has its own kitchen for food prep which includes adult and child height sinks.

Outdoor space

The outdoor space for the nursery was designed by ERZ Landscape Designers and includes the features we believe create a wonderful outdoor learning and play environment. The nurseries offer a free flow approach for children to choose whether they want to be inside the classroom or outdoors. Providing them with space to ride bikes/scooters, explore with water, mud and sand, play with loose parts and be surrounded by nature.