About Us

Our group started in the village hall as a Mother and Toddler group way back in 1973. There was nothing locally for the children of the village so two mother’s (who still live in Lydden) got together and began to sow the seeds for what has become a popular childcare establishment. The playgroup (then called Lydden Under Fives), opened in 1974 and was open for 2 hours twice a week.

After nearly 15 years of running from the village hall we decided to make ourselves more central to the village. Lydden School very kindly let us use their hall to run the group from and we began another 2 hour session. (If your child attended full time in those days they would have been there for 6 hours a week!).

A couple of years later in 1990 and after much campaigning and fundraising we managed to obtain our own building which was erected on the site that we are on now. The building came from one of the disused coalfields and as you can imagine came with its fair share of coal dust. The small team of staff that we had at the time along with some parents scrubbed, cleaned, painted and kitted out the building to make it into a bright and cheerful nursery. The group was going from strength to strength so we started a five day week, opening both mornings and afternoons. We now had more children and had outgrown our building so another building was obtained and attached to the side of the first one. We saw a need for out of school care so began the holiday club and before and after school clubs. The name Lydden Under Fives was now not appropriate so it was at this time we changed our name to Tots 2 Teens. The mother and toddler group closed as there was no longer any interest in this side of the group.

Well as anyone who has worked in a mobile building knows they don’t last forever and by 2002 we had patched up the building so many times there was no more we could do to it. It had clearly come to the end of its life. So, again after much campaigning and fundraising another building was purchased. Staff were sad to see the old building go, but happy with our lovely new purpose built building.

And here we are, in the 21st Century, providing full day care for children 5 days a week, 10 hours per day!