Redhill Day Nursery

A separate cot room for babies, a garden built for exploration and a preschool with direct outdoor access give Redhill Day Nursery a clear practical character. This Northbourne setting has capacity for 44 children aged three months to five years. Its appeal lies in how care and play are organised for different stages, rather than in a branded learning programme.

At its 20 August 2025 inspection, Ofsted rated the nursery Good and found safeguarding effective, with positive findings on communication, children's progress and support for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities. The improvement priorities were educational: making better use of resources connected to children's interests and widening experiences beyond familiar activities.

Ruby Room, Emerald room and Diamond room separate the baby, toddler and preschool stages. Morning, afternoon and full-day attendance sit alongside a term-time option, giving families several ways to organise their week.

Rooms and Ages

Ruby Room caters for babies from three months to approximately two years, combining sensory exploration with a main playroom, a separate cot room and direct access to its private garden. The separation of sleeping and playing spaces is a useful consideration for parents whose baby still needs daytime naps. Home sleep and feeding routines guide care here.

Emerald room, for children approximately two to three years old, supports choice and independence through open-ended materials, a sensory tray and outdoor resources that children help select. Its resting and book area gives toddlers somewhere quieter to pause, while separate hard-floor and carpeted spaces accommodate different kinds of play.

Diamond room serves children aged three to five, pairing conversations and increasing independence with natural light and direct outdoor access. Photo-labelled storage helps children choose resources themselves. Name cards and pictures introduce recognition of their own names, while group discussions give them practice in listening and taking turns.

These rooms occupy a single-storey building. The layout gives each stage its own base while retaining access to the wider outdoor provision; it is a more useful picture of daily life than the whole-setting capacity alone.

Learning and Activities

The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) provides the framework for learning and care: children develop language, movement, social understanding and early mathematical ideas through play and everyday experiences. Staff observe children's interests and plan what they will learn next. The curriculum page describes activities involving stories, music, imagination, investigation and practical problem-solving.

Choice has a concrete role in the toddler day. Children select boxes of equipment to take outside, making decisions that affect their play and practising cooperation with others. Preschool children also contribute to their learning journals, looking at photographs and adding their own observations. That gives them a part in discussing what they have done, rather than leaving the journal entirely to adults.

In August 2025, learning included dinosaur footprints pressed into dough, patterns made in flour and paint explored with hands and stampers. Construction play introduced ideas about dimensions and shape, while cardboard creations became vehicles for imaginative journeys. These examples show different routes into early mark-making and thinking, suited to different developmental stages.

The limitations deserve equal weight. In August 2025, some planned activities needed additional materials to connect more effectively with children's interests. The curriculum also needed broader experiences to extend children's understanding of the world. Enjoyable play was established; the next task was to make its educational connections more consistent and its horizons wider.

Outdoor and Community Life

Secret Garden is the name given to the outdoor environment, which includes a sandpit, climbing frame, mud kitchen and construction area. A sheltered space accommodates the youngest children, while older children use the tarmacked playground for wheeled toys. The different surfaces and play spaces allow movement, building and sensory exploration to sit alongside one another.

The preschool's garden access makes outdoor play part of its room arrangement. Toddlers use the garden and playground too, and babies have both their own outdoor area and access to the wider grounds. For a child who enjoys moving between indoor activities and physical play, this is an important part of the offer.

Relationships and Communication

Settling begins with at least two complimentary sessions, each lasting an hour, with additional sessions possible when needed. Families use this time to introduce routines, interests and medical or dietary requirements to the assigned key person. The practical benefit is continuity: staff start with knowledge of the child's home life rather than learning everything after attendance begins.

In Ruby Room, feeding, changing and settling to sleep are organised around the child's key person and individual routine. Daily records cover meals, naps, changes and activities. Emerald room shares comparable diary information through Blossom, the parent app; preschool learning photographs and observations are shared through it too.

Daily conversations are complemented by twice-yearly parents' evenings with the key person. The online Learning Journey records development over time, while everyday diaries deal with the immediate questions parents have about their child's day. Those are different jobs, and both matter.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

At the August 2025 inspection, Ofsted found that staff worked effectively with families and other professionals to support children with special educational needs and/or disabilities, and that calm routines helped children manage feelings and behave considerately. The mechanism matters: cooperation between the adults involved helped maintain a consistent approach to individual needs.

Current security arrangements include controlled entry, accompanied visitors and procedures for collection by an unfamiliar adult. A no-mobile-phone policy operates within the setting. These are specific arrangements, separate from the dated safeguarding judgement.

Meals are made by the nursery's chef, with menus changing on a four-week cycle and produce grown by children contributing to the ingredients. Dietary and religious requirements are discussed with the manager; the nursery also provides somewhere to breastfeed and can store breast milk.

Sessions and Attendance

The address is 200 East Howe Lane, Northbourne, Bournemouth, BH10 5JQ. Families can enquire by telephone on 01202 577788, by email at info@redhilldaynursery.com or through the online enquiry form.

Full Day attendance runs from 7.45am to 6pm, Mornings from 7.45am to 12.45pm and Afternoons from 1pm to 6pm. Full Time follows the full-day hours from Monday to Friday. The usual minimum booking is two sessions each week, so even a shorter attendance pattern needs to meet that commitment.

Term-time attendance has a different minimum: three full days each week or the equivalent. Its breaks follow BCP Council school terms, covering two weeks at Easter, up to six in summer and one at Christmas. For other attendance, weekday opening excludes English Bank Holidays and a closure over Christmas and New Year.

Flexible session times are also offered subject to availability. Families considering flexibility therefore have a different arrangement to weigh from the fixed morning, afternoon and full-day windows.

Getting There

The nursery occupies a residential road accessible from the A341 Wimborne Road. Off-road parking accommodates up to eight cars, a practical benefit for families collecting children with bags or baby equipment.

Funding and Paid Extras

Funded childcare includes 15-hour and 30-hour arrangements, alongside two-year-old funding for families receiving qualifying benefits. Funding can run over 38 term-time weeks or be stretched across 51 weeks, and the nursery allows up to 10 funded hours in a day. Eligibility and the attendance arrangement remain separate questions.

Hours beyond the funded allocation and additional services attract supplementary charges according to the sessions attended. The sessions and fees page states that fees include meals and refreshments, while also listing separate food packages and consumables charges for sunhats, suncream, a water bottle and an all-in-one wet suit. A current written quotation is important for understanding the total commitment.

Fees are paid in advance. The deposit required when registering is non-refundable and is applied to the final invoice. These terms affect both the initial payment and how the account ends, so they belong alongside the attendance decision.

• Curriculum breadth. August 2025 improvement priorities concerned stronger links between resources and children's interests, plus broader learning experiences. During a tour, ask for examples of how these changes now shape activities.
• The total childcare bill. Meal-inclusive fee wording sits alongside separate food packages, while consumables also carry charges. Request a written breakdown for your particular mix of funded and private hours, separating food, non-food items and additional services.
• Baby feeding and allergies. Baby-care arrangements refer to milk and weaning food supplied by parents, while the funding information gives an allergy-related policy against food and drinks from home. Families with babies or dietary needs should confirm the current feeding arrangement before joining.
• Term-time commitment. The term-time option requires three full days a week or equivalent, compared with the usual two-session minimum. Ask how the proposed pattern fits that rule and the school-term breaks.

Redhill suits families seeking morning or afternoon sessions as well as those organising full-day or term-time attendance. The separate baby sleep space, staged rooms and varied outdoor areas give concrete reasons to consider it, while key-person settling and daily diaries make the care arrangements easy to understand.

The August 2025 judgement provides a positive baseline, with clear educational work still identified. For families choosing between attendance patterns, the decisive details are the differing minimum commitments and the written breakdown of funded hours, food and consumables.