Baby Sensory

St Paul's Church Centre on Novi Lane is a multi-purpose building used throughout the week by local community groups — which gives it a warmer, more lived-in atmosphere than a hired sports hall or clinic. It is the Leek venue for Baby Sensory Staffordshire Moorlands, run by Katie Potts.

Katie has form across the Moorlands area: she also leads Toddler Sense sessions in Cheadle, Dilhorne, and Leek, so she knows many of the families locally. Before setting up her franchise she spent seven years as a primary school teacher — background that shapes how she reads a room of parents and very young babies.

The class is open from birth up to 13 months, across two developmental stages: birth to six months and seven to thirteen months. Sessions draw on a bank of 40 core lesson plans plus seasonal specials, so the programme changes across terms. Within a session you might find music (original songs composed by the programme's founder Dr Lin Day, alongside traditional rhymes), sensory signing, tummy time, massage, movement, and visual exploration — with displays arranged at the distance a young baby actually focuses on, and instruments whose decibel levels have been measured to stay within a safe range. The session is structured around a baby's natural play-rest-play cycle, so there is room to breathe between activities. Parents are welcome to feed or cuddle their baby at any point.

For newborns from birth to three months, there is also Hello Baby — a companion strand looking at reading your baby's behavioural cues, comfort techniques for colic, and touch through massage and reflexology. It suits parents who want more practical grounding in those first, sometimes bewildering, weeks.