Building a culture of professional development with Apprenticeships at St Gabriel’s Nursery
Katie Noonan is the Nursery Manager at St Gabriel’s Nursery in Newbury, an early years setting that she helped to set up in 2014 and shape on continuity, community, and learning. She describes what makes the nursery distinctive: it is not a standalone day nursery, but part of a wider school community, offering children a long, supported educational journey.
“We are different to a standalone day nursery because we are part of St Gabriel’s School. Children may join us at six months old, and then they can carry on their journey all the way through nursery, through the junior school, the senior school, and then into sixth form. We have that progression: they can stay right from the beginning all through their educational journey.”
Katie’s commitment to professional development is personal. She began her own early years training through Newbury College in 1998, achieving her NNEB and Diploma in Nursery Nursing, before returning to complete her Foundation Degree in Children's Development and Learning in 2011. More recently, Katie has even continued to upskill her practice through the College’s Study Online programmes in Understanding Distressed Behaviour in Children and Understanding Children & Young People’s Mental Health.
These positive experiences shaped how Katie supports apprentices now, choosing the same provider because she knows first-hand what good support looks like.
“I really do think that Newbury College is a great college to partner with. I’ve been part of Newbury College for a long time now, and I’ve always felt very well supported. The teachers and the tutors were very supportive. There was a really good atmosphere within the college, so I wanted that for my apprentices.”
Katie sees apprenticeships as a route that benefits the apprentice, the setting, and the wider team. Apprentices bring energy, new thinking, and current learning from the classroom into day-to-day practice.
“A lot of apprentices are quite young, so they are fresh-faced and they come with new ideas and new trends. If you’ve been in childcare for a long time, you might be used to different ways of working. When we have apprentices and they go to college, they come back with all of these nice new ideas that we might not have seen before, or that you might have forgotten about.”
She also highlights the breadth of practical learning apprentices gain from the start, skills that matter in any Early Years setting.
“Because they’re doing a hands-on job from the start, they’re learning the way that we would like them to learn in St Gabriel’s Nursery. They’ll learn the right processes, the right policies that they need to be following.”
Katie is clear that apprentices thrive when they are included, trusted, and actively guided. At St Gabriel’s, apprentices are developed as part of the team from day one and given structured opportunities to broaden their experience. That responsibility is never “sink or swim”. Apprentices are supported closely by experienced staff.
“They do work closely with a mentor who will be working alongside them, so they will support them on their journey. They’re normally based in one room, but they do move around into other rooms as well so that they can develop those skills within the different age groups.”
Katie also values the practical benefits of proximity and accessibility for apprentices, especially at the start of training. But what matters most is the quality of partnership: ongoing communication, shared expectations, and visible support in the workplace.
“Newbury College is a great partnership to work with. They will communicate with you. They will be with you on that journey. They will update you how the apprentices are doing. They will come out into the nursery. They will visit, they will observe the students. They will give feedback to the students, as well as ourselves as employers.”
She describes a relationship where support goes both ways, helping the nursery improve its practice, and helping apprentices succeed.
“If there’s anything that we can do differently, if there’s anything else we can support them with, then they’re with us as well. If there’s anything that we need support with, we know that we can just ask the tutors. They will come along for extra visits and have those extra meetings with us and the students as well, if we need that. The communication is very, very strong.”
With Katie’s leadership and commitment to development, St Gabriel’s Nursery is not only supporting apprentices to qualify, it’s building confident practitioners who understand the setting, its standards, and its community. She strongly recommends apprenticeships as a route that builds capability from the ground up, because apprentices are learning in context, every day.
“It is the best route to go down because they are with you from the start. I would say: definitely do!”