Welcome to
Rocking Horse Childcare
Enquire for spaces at Southend
Hello, and welcome to Rocking Horse Childcare. We're delighted that you're interested in our nursery. We are a small, family-run nursery that is invested in our families, children, and local community. Please feel free to look over our website, social media or, better still, come and see our lovely setting in action.
As an accredited Healthy Early Years Setting, we take pride in our safe and nurturing rooms, outdoor learning experiences such as beach schools, and engaging activities including qualified yoga and dance sessions. Our commercial kitchen features an in-house chef preparing delicious home-cooked meals. Wondering if we're the right fit for your family? Don't just take our word for it — see what our wonderful families have to say!:
The top 2 reasons for me choosing ROCKING horse childcare were how on point the safeguarding is and the delicious home-cooked meals they receive. Knowing my son is safe, well-fed, and cared for gives me enormous peace of mind. The dance, yoga sessions, and other activities are also a much-welcomed bonus.
We are very lucky to have found Rocking Horse to look after our baby. They are professional, knowledgeable, and the level of passion they show for building a nurturing environment for children is impressive. It's obvious to us that the management as well as the practitioners, truly care about childcare. Children also benefit from cooked-from-scratch nutritious meals, which we get updated about every day via the app.
My son has been attending Rocking Horse since 2023, and I cannot rate them highly enough. Every day, he goes in happy and leaves smiling. All the staff are amazing, nurturing, and truly caring about the children. My son has multiple allergies, and their chef personally caters to his needs with home-cooked meals. Management has done a fantastic job creating a nursery that maintains such a personal touch.
As most parents we spent a lot of time looking for a suitable place for our child to attend. After finding Rocking horse and speaking with them, we have been blown away. Not only do they provide top-notch childcare and push the children's development they have also helped us when needed. Amazing place and equally amazing staff, and our child is always buzzing every day she gets to go there.
News
We update our social media places frequently, but below are some important news stories about our settings.
We are expanding to Shoebury
16 Oct 2025Enquiries are officially open for a January Start at our Shoebury setting located on Delaware Road, SS3 9NS. Once we have the keys, we will open the building for tours. In the meantime, please feel free to ask any questions via email or telephone.
5-star Food Hygiene rating
24 Sep 2025Our chef and I had a routine visit from Environmental Health today, and we’re thrilled to say we have a 5-star rating. It’s been a great week on the health front here at Rocking Horse Childcare Ltd. First, our Healthy Early Years Accreditation, and now a top-notch Food Standards Agency rating.
We’re Officially a Healthy Early Years Setting!
24 Sep 2025We are delighted to announce that our nursery has been awarded the Healthy Early Years Setting Certificate of Accreditation. This means our nursery has been officially assessed, recognised, and awarded this accreditation by Southend-on-Sea’s Early Years and Public Health team for promoting children’s health, wellbeing, and development. This accreditation recognises settings that go above and beyond to support children’s health, wellbeing, and development. It looks at everything from the food we serve and the way we encourage active play, to how we promote emotional wellbeing and help children build lifelong healthy habits.
Ofsted Inspection rating "Good"
07 May 2025We are delighted to announce that we received a "Good" rating from Ofsted following our first inspection.
Rocking Horse Childcare Southend opens!
21 Apr 2023Rocking Horse Childcare Southend is registered with Ofsted and now open.
Vision and Aims
Our vision is to provide a safe, stimulating and nurturing environment through high quality care, where all children thrive. Our setting works closely with our community, local agencies and families to ensure children are supported, cared for and grow into happy, successful individuals. We follow a child-centred approach with a curriculum closely linked to Froebelian principles, where we aim to instil a love of learning and creativity, whilst ensuring that the children's well-being is central to everything we do. We aim to:
- Provide equal opportunities for all, allowing every child in our care the opportunity to thrive.
- Work closely with our families, staff and community to ensure all children are safe and supported, not just whilst in our care, but in their home environments too.
- Ensure all staff feel valued and have the appropriate training, engaging regularly in continual professional development, to ensure children are consistently receiving the highest possible care.
- Prioritise and nurture positive relationships with children, staff and families.
- Support children in developing life skills such as: independent thinking, communication, imagination, creativity and self-regulation.
- Establish multi-agency links, network and share good practice.
- Are adaptive to the ever-changing needs of children based on community changes and government initiatives.
- Have a solid understanding of current environmental challenges on our planet and adopt an eco-friendly approach, to protect our children’s future.
- Value the importance of play with an ethos of interaction, not interfering, providing opportunities for intense interaction.
- Ensure our environments are always enabling, including outdoors, to facilitate children’s exploration and natural curiosity.
Values
Our 'We Rock' core values are at the heart of everything we do:
W - Well-being: we feel safe, happy and
comfortable.
E - Enjoy: we are engaged in our activities and 'have
fun' whilst learning.
R - Respect: we have a culture of tolerance,
understanding and equality.
O - Opportunity: we are provided with experiences to
explore and grow.
C - Communication: we have the tools we need to share
and receive
information.
K - Kindness: we care for ourselves, the environment
and those around us.
About Us
Rocking Horse Childcare is a family-run day nursery in the heart of Southend. We are a mother and daughter team, from childminding and teaching backgrounds, with over 40 years of experience in Early Years, between us. We are passionate, enthusiastic, and knowledgeable about children’s care, learning, and development. Having gained years of experience individually, we attended University together and both gained our BA (Hons) in Early Years Education. Since then, Lisa (Owner and Mother) went on to open a childminding business that becomes the start of the Rocking Horse Childcare nursery journey. Whilst Aimée (Manager and Daughter), continued in education, completing a QTS and PGCE, gaining valuable experience teaching children in Primary School.
Our staff strive to ensure that environments are enabling for all children that attend. They do this through carefully planning and arranging the space to meet the needs of the children. By following the key-person approach, staff build positive relationships with their key-children and families to better support learning and development and provide consistency. We recognise that every child is unique, and our dedicated team of staff works closely with our SENDCo (Special Educational Needs and Development Coordinator), ENCo (Equality Needs Coordinator), Family Liaison Coordinator and local agencies, including the setting health visitor, to ensure the children and families receive the best possible support.