Overall, the company’s activities remain focused on providing high quality early years care and education for children aged 0–5 years old. We currently operate across 6 rooms focused on provision for babies, toddlers and pre-school children and support over 200 children and families, with approximately 60 children transitioning to school each year. We place significant value on the quality, stability and development of our staff team, as we believe this directly impacts outcomes for children and families. During the year the team grew to approximately 45 employees and includes qualified teachers, Early Years Teachers, Level 6 practitioners, Level 5 practitioners, Level 3 practitioners, Forest School Practitioners, apprentices and support staff. We continue to maintain a highly qualified and stable workforce with strong retention levels and have received recognition and awards for practice at both local and national level. NBDN has continued to invest heavily in staff development and quality improvement. We have our own internal training and quality team which is developing a personalised training programme for all child-focused staff to strengthen quality of delivery, support staff progression and improve the tracking of children’s learning and development. Alongside this we continue to bring in external expertise and specialist providers including yoga, music and movement, sensory provision, sports and behaviour management support. During the year we also strengthened our support for children with additional needs and emotional regulation difficulties, recognising the significant increase in low-level SEN and behavioural support requirements post-Covid. We recruited a dedicated SEN specialist role operating outside of standard staffing ratios to work alongside our training and quality lead. This role supports staff with emotional regulation approaches, behaviour management and early intervention strategies to prevent escalation of difficulties and improve outcomes for children. The role also supports parents and families directly by helping connect strategies and activities used within the nursery to activities that can continue at home, improving consistency and strengthening family support networks. In addition, our sensory room and sensory-based provision have increasingly been used to support children and families with additional needs, including opportunities for families outside normal nursery sessions to access sensory experiences, connection opportunities and supportive activities in a safe and regulated environment. Alongside our core focus on delivering high quality daily care, education and experiences for children and families, we made significant progress during the year in strengthening our long-term infrastructure, curriculum and future development potential. In terms of infrastructure and capacity, we built a new log cabin classroom (40sqm) alongside new grassed outdoor areas, planting and an allotment space. While the additional classroom does increase flexibility and future capacity, the main benefit has been the enhanced use of existing spaces and the ability to offer smaller group sessions, breakout activities and enriched curriculum experiences. The classroom has been equipped to provide enhanced opportunities for role play, art, music, reading, sensory exploration and small world learning, with a dedicated classroom manager able to create focused activities and learning experiences throughout the week. The space is also used for parent sessions, meetings, family events and wider community engagement activities including our Christmas grotto and annual art exhibition. The new build project was completed using local materials and suppliers where possible and delivered in a highly cost-effective way. This enabled us to maximise the impact of capital grant funding and invest more heavily into internal resources, furniture and curriculum experiences, delivering a significantly enhanced learning environment for children and families. During the year we also dedicated a full staff development day to reviewing and strengthening our ethos and curriculum approach. This process involved the whole team to ensure ownership, consistency and long-term sustainability across the nursery. We also brought in former Ofsted consultants to support quality development, compliance and strategic direction. The resulting curriculum and ethos work focused heavily on the quality of the child’s experience, individual learning opportunities and relationship-based practice. Key curriculum areas included nature and the natural world, sensory exploration, art and science, music, wellbeing and relationships, reading/storytelling and mathematics. Draft versions were shared with parents and professionals before finalisation to ensure broader consultation and involvement. Following this work, investment and training decisions throughout the year were targeted to strengthen delivery across all rooms and age groups. We also increased our focus on parent engagement and introduced new approaches to sharing children’s learning, celebrating smaller achievements and recognising individual “wow” moments and progress. Throughout the year we continued to provide large-scale nursery and family engagement events designed to strengthen relationships, inclusion and community connection. This included our Christmas grotto event across three evenings involving Santa, donkeys, storytelling, music, crafts, refreshments and a full nursery garden light display. During the summer we also held a nursery-wide art exhibition and garden party where families could explore children’s work, access the full nursery environment and participate in shared activities and celebrations. During the year we also continued to develop our relationships, knowledge and impact across the wider early years sector. This included seeking expert guidance in the areas of IT, business development, early years consultancy and innovation through attendance at conferences, workshops and sector events. Through this work we identified opportunities to explore the future use of AI and technology within early years education as both a staff training and learning support tool. This includes improving staff development, enhancing assessment and learning systems, reducing administrative pressures and strengthening communication with families. International and national visits and consultancy input supported this development work. This included learning from approaches connected to the Reggio Emilia philosophy in Italy, alongside consultation with specialists in AI innovation, business systems and training development. These relationships have helped identify opportunities for future sector-wide collaboration, innovation and development within early years education and training. Overall, alongside continuing to deliver high quality daily care, education and support for children and families, the company has continued to reinvest heavily into staff development, infrastructure, inclusion, innovation and long-term community benefit. The company remains committed not only to improving outcomes within its own setting, but also to contributing positively to the wider early years sector through collaboration, training, inspiration and sharing of good practice.

Please indicate who the company’s stakeholders are: Our core stakeholders are the children who come into our care. We take responsibility to provide exceptional early years opportunities to enhance their development, life experiences, learning and care. By extension, a second core stakeholder group is the parents and extended family of the children in our care. They place trust and funds to us with the aim of ensuring their children is in the best environment possible surrounded by skilled caring staff whilst they are at work. Our staff and employee’s we support not only through wages and employment but with excellent working environment and wide-ranging resources for them to deliver a role that they have passion for. We also support with training, professional development opportunities, wellbeing schemes and initiatives from teambuilding events to Christmas bonus. Local community and local schools’ benefit from children who move on to primary school with a high level of school readiness. We collaborate closely with local schools and have developed our own rigorous school readiness programme and assessment to ensure the children leaving s have the best chance of success and we pass all relevant information to new education providers. Wider local community and local authority benefits as a stakeholder in a local early year’s provision that provides high quality staff, consistently high standards and initiatives that keep competitors having to deliver whilst providing parents with options. We also work in partnership and where needed to support local authority Early Years Department, the Family and SEND team and early years business team. At an even wider level Ofsted and National Government are stakeholders via the funding provided to parents for places and guidance provided in terms of the EYFS framework and standards. Other stakeholders who are responsible for reputation and business sustainability include the Directors and management teams. Please indicate how the stakeholders have been consulted: We have used a variety of methods and technology to consult with stakeholder groups this has included: Surveys and feedback forms via surveymonkey and Famly app. We also designed our own internal feedback form for parents evening. The feedback over the year was exceptional with the highest percentage of top marks across more categories than ever before. Our surveys also allowed for free comments or new ideas / menus to assess. We used our staff development and training day for intensive consultation and group work with our staff team – this focused on our curriculum and ethos. We then communicated our findings with parents for any further comment or feedback. Staff are also consulted routinely via team and room meetings alongside personal staff well-being reviews. We have an open-door policy for staff and parents in relation to any concerns or questions. Children are routinely involved in feedback also via observation, conversations or sometimes games as they direct activities according to interests, resources based on interaction or influencing menus through games and tasting sessions. In summary we use a range of direct and indirect consultation methods, alongside some formal or informal – giving us qualitative and quantitative data to reflect on and track. We also harness new technology where possible for more direct feedback, comments or survey tools. What action, if any, has the company taken in response to feedback from its consultations? If there has been no consultation, this should be made clear. As discussed, we are continually engaging and listening to various stakeholder groups in different ways sometimes making minor tweaks and sometimes ensuring they feel ownership of changes. The review and finalisation of curriculum and ethos was a classic example of involving all key stakeholder groups to both contribute or reflect prior to anything being finalised. The conclusion was a group effort that encompassed a wide variety of perspectives and ideas. Our use and programme with the new classroom were also consulted on and refined according to staff and parent feedback and needs/ priorities. The development of training and use of AI has continued to reflect the feedback and needs or key groups who will use and benefit. Each event and at every parents evening we continue to get feedback regarding parental and child benefits. At a more simple but subtle level we post daily about the activities and experiences of the children and every post allows for comments or suggestions that are always reflected on by individual staff or room teams.

The total value of Directors' Remuneration is £192,461

No transfer of assets other than for full consideration