“Great nursery, close to our home easy to access by walking but also great parking. Availability to wrap funded sessions into a full day to cover work and lack of family members to drop/collect if using one of the schools. Brilliant outdoor facilities, secure and safe gardens.”
About Castlegate
Our Ethos
We are influenced by a range of play theories, including those of Friedrich Froebel and the Reggio Emilia Approach. Froebel promoted child led learning approaches, including ideas that shaped what is known as free flow play. He valued the importance of outdoor play, using natural materials in the environment, and the importance of parental involvement in their child’s education.
The Reggio Emilia Approach originated in Reggio Emilia in Italy, where the community strongly influenced the development of a child led learning approach. The environment is classed as the ‘third teacher’ and children are given the freedom to delve into their own interests, supported by their peers and adults around them.
Both of these are reflective of our provision at Castlegate – a family and community based setting, where children and their learning interests and needs at at the forefront, and where our beautiful natural environment is used as a valued teacher and resource for learning.
What The Parents Say
Our History (Family)
Castlegate was established in January 1993, starting on day one with 3 children and 2 members of staff. At the time there was no other day care in the local area and only one school nursery out of town. Seonaid had recently qualified as a Nursery Nurse and wanted to create a space for children to learn and to have fun, and for local parents to have a reliable service available to them that would let them go to work or study. 29 years on and we have around 150 children attending on a regular basis and over 20 members of staff!
Our name Castlegate comes from our original location on Roxburgh Street, in view of Floors Castle’s gates. Simple as that, and very easy for directing people to find us! We moved to Spylaw Road in 2007 where we had fabulous outdoor spaces and room to grow inside, but we brought our name along with us as we loved it, and very importantly for us it reminds us of our roots.
Christine, Seonaid’s daughter, joined Castlegate in 2008 after spending the best part of a year helping to renovate our Spylaw Road premises, and all the time seeing the opportunities to grow Castlegate, and also to grow and develop professionally herself. While they brought very different personalities and skills to Castlegate, love and family values have always been at the core of Seonaid and Christine’s passion for early learning and childcare, and is what they worked together to nurture at Castlegate.
In late 2021 Castlegate changed ownership, and Tom and Lesley look forward to supporting Castlegate to grow and flourish in the same ethos started all those years ago.
Care Inspectorate
We are regulated by the Care Inspectorate and work closely with them to ensure
that we continue to provide a high quality service for all our families.
