Alex started her career in Early Years after graduating university with her degree in Early Childhood Studies. After working in a couple of different settings in Brighton Alex knew she wanted to offer something more to children, space and nature!
Coming from a family who run many successful businesses, Alex sought advice from her dad Doug, and the nursery dream began.
It took over a year to find the location of Rabbit Patch Day Nursery and by chance while making the trip from Brighton to Lower Beeding to visit her then boyfriend, Alex drove past a house up for sale and after a bit of research, decided this was the right place to create the vision. Getting to know my in-laws who raised their family up just across the road, I heard the stories of them walking their dogs in the woodland next to our new property and they would refer to it as the rabbit patch.
There is was! the name for our new nursery, Rabbit Patch Day Nursery.
It took just over 10 months to create the setting you see today. During the build project I decided to visit the Loris Malaguzzi International Centre in Reggio Emilia in Italy to learn about the Reggio Emilia approach. I found this side of Early Years fascinating and wanted to mimic it in my own setting. The build was completed in the Summer of 2017 & by September we were registered with Ofsted and ready to go. We started off as a Reggio setting, but over time we have developed our own appraoch, using the best of a variety of child-led approaches.
Rabbit Patch was originally created to provide care for children aged 2 years and up, but over time we were asked to expand and lower our age range to provide care for younger children and siblings. The building has had to adapt accordingly and it amazes me to see how it has kept up.
In 2019 we were able to acquire the woodland and now Rabbit Patch Day Nursery actually includes the original ‘rabbit patch’.
Alex has since had two of her own children, who have both attended Rabbit Patch and are now at school and she lives on site with her family
. 
