Kate visited Foxcubs Nursery in Luton which has been rated as outstanding by Ofsted.
18 January 2023
The Princess of Wales became the masked lady when she joined children learning through play at a nursery she described as “vital” for parents.
Kate has been championing the importance of the early years development of children for many years and when she visited Foxcubs Nursery in Luton to highlight the issue found herself laughing when upstaged by one little boy.
She first sat down at a tiny table where three and four-year-olds were making face masks and she helped a young boy complete his project and when he held it up to his face said “I think it’s very good – good job.”
Helping a Foxcubs staff member called an educator who sat at the table, she stuck a thin handle to a little girl’s mask and asked “can you look through it?” then waved as the youngster held it up to her face.
At one point Kate looked through a mask and laughed as she did so.
The children could dress up from a rail filled with outfits from superheroes to princesses and one little boy was a construction worker and ran around the room determined to get in the photographs and footage of the media covering the visit.
When Kate joined a group of children playing in a sandpit the three-year-old boy called Ezaan, wearing a hard hat and carrying a plastic hand drill and a large toy pneumatic drill, stood between the princess and the press with his arms outstretched and made her laugh.
Rated outstanding by Ofsted, Foxcubs Nursery run by the Early Years Alliance which offers 70 places for local children aged between two and five years old.
The princess later sat down to chat with Neil Leitch, chief executive officer of the Early Years Alliance, and Foxcubs staff and praised the children: “They’re great kiddies I had a nice little chat with them.”
She quizzed the staff about their experiences and speaking about the importance of nurseries told them: “I think we really saw that highlighted during the pandemic, I think families realised and communities realised, (when) these spaces were closed down for the majority of the time, I think everyone realised how vital they were.
