Themed play and crafts for kids in a relaxing, welcoming space for parents.

Inclusivity • Creative Play • Support • Parent Network • Social Enterprise • Rooted in Community

Cafe and Pre-School Group

Weekdays

(Including school holidays)

Suitable for ages 0-5 years

£3.50 per child

(Sibling discounts available)

Who are we?

About Us

The Owl Tree Children’s Café CIC was registered with Companies House as a ‘Community Interest Company (CIC) in October 2018.

We are a company limited by guarantee and have three lovely Directors who oversee the work of the company.

A Community Interest Company is run like a business, generating profit, paying salaries, bills etc and must be profitable in this sense to continue trading.

The difference is that we are ‘asset locked’ in that we don’t take personal profit out of the company on top of salaries, but rather plough these back into the business with the aim of achieving our social objective.

Social Objective

The Social objective of the company is to address the issues faced by parents and carers of pre-school aged children, when accessing age appropriate activities. We have a particular focus on addressing the potential for social isolation in early-years parenting and understand the need for quality, flexibility and affordability.

Our Mission

Our Mission at the Owl Tree Children’s Café is to provide a safe, fun, welcoming and affordable environment where children can grow and parents can socialise with other parents.

Our Vision

Our Vision is to provide a space where relationships can foster and peer support can be encouraged.

Our Values

Affordability – we want our venue to be accessible to all
Value for money – we want to provide quality produce at reasonable prices
Community – we want to foster an environment where parents can meet, socialise and learn alongside their children.

What we do at the Owl Tree

Themed Role-Play

Each week we change our theme to ensure variety in the activities and experience we offer. Within these themes, we often nurture role play by providing toys and activities to encourage this.

In addition, we usually have a ‘café corner’ with a play kitchen and mini café area. It’s a café within a café!

Sensory Play

A large part of our activities includes sensory play as this is key to the learning experience of a child in their formative years.

We experience the world through our senses and play that encourages this both engages children and teaches them key sensory attributes such as cold, slimy, sticky. We try to include a range of substances in our activities including homemade playdough, water, sand, coloured rice, pasta, oats.

Messy Play

Some of our activities include messy play, although given that we are a food establishment, this is relatively contained! Messy play activities have included edible mud, jelly, shaving foam and rice / pasta.

We are not encouraging all out mess but we request parents don’t put their children in their Sunday best when attending our café!

Crafts and Songs

Each week we have a minimum of two crafts in line with the weekly theme. We aim to pitch these so that most age groups can participate, with an easier craft and an slightly more intricate one for older toddlers.

A key part of our day is song time, with an interactive session using puppets at least twice a day (usually between 10.30-11am and 12.30–1pm. Song time is a great way to engage the younger children and babies.