At Overbury Grasshoppers, nature is not something for children to occasionally visit. It is part of everyday nursery life.
Children might visit newborn lambs, see what is growing in the kitchen garden, watch eggs develop and hatch, investigate insects and wildlife, or simply notice how the landscape around them changes through the year.
For young children, these are adventures. They are also opportunities to ask questions, build confidence, use their senses and begin to understand the connections between nature, farming, food and the world around them.
That has been at the heart of Grasshoppers for nearly 20 years.
Now, as the nursery looks towards its next chapter, Overbury is searching for an exceptional early-years leader who can protect what makes Grasshoppers special, and see the possibilities for what it could become.
A nursery shaped by the world around it
Grasshoppers is a small, independent nursery in the Cotswold village of Overbury, with close links to the surrounding farm and wider rural community.
Outdoor learning sits at the heart of the nursery. Its gardens, orchards and fields give children space to explore, move, discover and experience the seasons first-hand, while the wider Overbury environment opens up possibilities that simply cannot be recreated within a conventional nursery setting.
When there are lambs to meet, the children can head over to the sheds. A tractor arriving can prompt questions and lead to measuring, counting and plentiful conversation. Growing fruit and vegetables creates an opportunity to understand food before it arrives on a plate. Birds, insects, trees, soil and weather all provide their own starting points for learning.
The point is not to turn very young children into farming experts.
It is to encourage curiosity.
As Overbury Farms manager Jake Freestone puts it, children at this age have naturally inquisitive minds. Give them the opportunity to engage with sheep, crops, seeds, trees, water, wildlife and food, and questions follow.
Grasshoppers wants to make the most of those questions.
Understanding food and farming from the start
The relationship between Grasshoppers and the countryside is perhaps most tangible through food.
Children can see fruit and vegetables growing around them and visit the kitchen garden. Meals are prepared on site, creating a natural connection between growing, preparing, tasting and eating food.
Elsewhere across the farm, the seasons provide a constantly changing backdrop. Lambing, planting, harvest, wildlife and changing crops all create reasons to look again at what is happening beyond the nursery gate.
Sometimes the experience is memorable precisely because it is so simple: holding or feeding a lamb; sitting on a tractor; comparing yourself with the size of its tyre; planting a seed and returning to see what has happened.
These encounters help make abstract ideas real.
They also reflect a longstanding belief across Overbury that agriculture has a role to play in helping people understand where their food comes from and how the countryside is managed.
Grasshoppers brings that connection right back to the beginning.
Created with a wider purpose
Grasshoppers' roots are also closely connected to the community around it.
The nursery grew from a wider ambition to help sustain a thriving rural village: supporting local families, helping strengthen the neighbouring village school and making it easier for people to live and work in the area.
Nearly two decades later, the nursery is an established part of that community.
It sits alongside a family partnership of rural businesses, including Overbury Farms, and benefits from the knowledge, activity and people around it. Children are not separated from village life: they are part of it.
That might mean visiting the neighbouring school, going to the monthly community coffee morning, meeting people who work within the village, discovering what is happening on the farm or learning from the gardeners and others whose working lives are connected to the countryside around them.
The result is a nursery with a strong sense of place.
While much has changed over the years, the original driver behind Grasshoppers remains highly relevant: rural communities need children and families if they are to remain vibrant places in which people can live, work and build a future.
Strong foundations and more possibilities to explore
Grasshoppers already has much to build on: an established nursery, a committed team, a distinctive setting and an environment rich with opportunities for learning.
But Overbury believes there is more potential to unlock.
That does not mean growth for growth's sake, nor changing the character of the nursery.
It means having someone at the helm who notices opportunities.
Someone who works with our longstanding managers and asks what is happening on the farm this month and whether the children could learn from it. Who sees something new in the garden, village or wider countryside and starts thinking about how it could become an experience. Who is interested in new approaches to early-years learning and brings ideas back to the team.
And someone who can lead an independent nursery with the judgement and confidence that independence requires.
The next stage of Grasshoppers therefore depends as much upon the person as it does upon a plan.
An opportunity to lead, not simply manage
Grasshoppers needs an appropriately qualified and experienced early-years professional. The responsibilities of leading a nursery - safeguarding, quality, compliance, staffing, parent relationships and the EYFS - are fundamental.
But qualifications alone will not identify the right person.
Overbury is looking for someone who takes ownership.
A leader who can inspire a team while also being willing to get involved. Someone practical and solutions-focused, who is comfortable making decisions and taking responsibility rather than waiting to be told what to do.
They will need to be good with people and able to build: confidence within the team, strong relationships with parents and connections with the people working across Overbury.
And they will need to be curious themselves.
An agricultural background is not essential. A genuine interest in the countryside is.
The right person might already know a great deal about farming and nature. Equally, they might arrive wanting to learn. What matters is having the confidence to ask questions, seek out expertise and then turn what they discover into opportunities for the children.
This is a nature based nursery. Mud, rain, animals and changing weather come with the territory. So does a culture of getting involved, adapting and finding a way forward.
For someone who shares that mindset, Grasshoppers offers something unusual: the chance to lead an established early-years setting while having genuine scope to influence its future.
Could this be you, or someone you know?
The person Grasshoppers is looking for may not currently be searching for another nursery manager role.
They might be an experienced manager looking for greater ownership and purpose. They might be an excellent deputy ready to lead. Or they may simply be someone whose passion for early years, nature, food and the countryside makes this opportunity impossible to ignore.
What matters is the combination: early-years credibility, strong leadership, curiosity, practical judgement and a desire to make the most of a very special setting.
Overbury Grasshoppers is looking for a full-time, fully qualified Early Years Nursery Manager to lead the nursery into its next chapter. A property may also be available to rent for the right candidate.
If this sounds like the opportunity you have been looking for, or it immediately makes you think of someone else, we would be delighted to hear from you.
For further information or to apply, please contact Penelope Bossom at pjb@overburyenterprises.co.uk.
Or find out more here