The Ascot Day Nursery

A library in the same building, a playground with a mud kitchen and private access to a local play park give The Ascot Day Nursery a day that extends well beyond its main room. Its Victorian premises in North Ascot combine high ceilings and natural light with a hall used by toddlers.

The nursery welcomes children from birth to three years and has 60 places in total. At its 15 January 2025 inspection, Ofsted rated it Good overall and found safeguarding effective, while identifying teaching and mealtime supervision as areas requiring improvement. Those qualifications matter alongside the appealing physical setting.

Hourly bookings allow families to choose their attendance hours, subject to a minimum of three sessions. There is also an option to move on beyond three to The Old School Day Nursery, a separate business sharing the building. This offers another childcare option beyond three.

Rooms and Ages

The main room is spacious and bright, with much of the day organised around shared space rather than a sequence of named age-band rooms. Painting, sensory experiences, songs and stories can happen here, while the adjoining hall provides an additional setting for toddlers. Themes introduce animals, cultures and people, giving their activities something concrete to explore.

Direct access from the main room to a smaller outdoor area lets children use resources outside during the day. Resources change with their interests.

Learning and Activities

The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) shapes the day through play, exploration and activities supporting children's development. Planned experiences sit alongside opportunities arising from what a child is doing at that moment. Children can choose activities as well as join those adults have prepared, so their interests help determine how an activity develops.

Birth to 5 Matters also informs the learning approach as developmental guidance. The nursery uses the Three I’s, Intent, Implementation and Impact, to organise learning goals: what an experience is intended to achieve, how it is delivered and what follows from it. Parents receive information about their child's learning intentions through Famly, connecting the activity itself with the developmental purpose behind it.

Movement has a named place in the offer. Baby Gym supports balance, strength and movement, and a weekly gym session uses the adjacent hall. Music, puppets and dance accompany stories and singing; messy and sensory play take place inside and outside.

In January 2025, younger children explored textured craft materials and fabrics, while magnetic blocks provided opportunities to introduce counting during tower-building. Older children followed a Gruffalo nature trail and practised climbing the steps to a slide.

Outdoor and Community Life

The playground has several different purposes. A mud kitchen supports pretend cooking and shared play, while a musical area invites experimentation with sound. Water play introduces cause and effect, and the large sandpit accommodates digging, building and small-world play. An area for growing fruit, vegetables and plants adds another use for the outdoor space, alongside a summer house accessible during play.

Community outings extend those experiences. Children take local walks and nature trails and visit the duck pond to feed the ducks. The library within the building offers small-group story visits and Rhyme Time sessions for babies and toddlers.

Relationships and Communication

A key worker helps children and parents settle, then follows each child's development and keeps in regular contact with the family. The complimentary settling period lasts two weeks, and the Welcome Pack gathers developmental, dietary and health information.

Home visits can be arranged on request. The Open Door Policy also allows parents to visit and talk with staff, making contact broader than scheduled meetings alone. In January 2025, staff gathered information about children's interests and familiar routines before they started and used that knowledge during settling.

Famly carries daily information about activities, naps, bottles, meals and nappy changes, with messaging in both directions. Verbal feedback at collection complements the app, and two parent evenings each year provide time to discuss development.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

The registration form gives families a choice about support for a home language other than English. It also gathers medical and allergy information.

Under the Safe Sleep Policy, children are placed on their backs; an alternative position requires consent, with a doctor's medical waiver for babies aged six months or younger. Practitioners hold current paediatric first-aid certificates and receive safeguarding training. These are care arrangements, while the dated safeguarding judgement belongs to the inspection above.

A full-time chef prepares food on site, taking dietary requirements and allergies into account. Babies' feeding routines are discussed with parents, including support for Baby Led Weaning, and high chairs are used with practitioners nearby.

Sessions and Attendance

The address is North Ascot Community Centre, Fernbank Road, Ascot, SL5 8LA. Opening hours run from 7.30am until 6pm on weekdays, with closure on bank holidays and between Christmas and New Year. Parents select their attendance hours within this opening window.

A minimum of three sessions applies. Full-time pricing applies to bookings of 37 hours or more, with part-time pricing also offered; funded charges are organised by half-day session.

The contact form and telephone enquiry route provide direct ways to get in touch. Registration includes a requested start date and attendance hours. Changes to registered hours or the agreed start date and termination require a full calendar month's notice. Payment in lieu applies to changes to hours or termination. That notice period is relevant for families whose work arrangements may change after booking.

Funding and Paid Extras

Government-funded childcare is offered on a stretched basis across 51 weeks. The funding information includes eligible families' 30-hour entitlements from nine months and from age two, plus the universal 15-hour entitlement after age three and a possible additional 15 hours according to circumstances. Age-specific funding begins in the following term, subject to eligibility; the nursery's childcare offer itself runs from birth to three.

For privately paid hours, the hourly fee includes nappies, snacks, drinks and freshly cooked meals; parents supply breast milk or formula when needed. Funded sessions have separate meal-and-snack and consumables-and-extras charges, described as voluntary, with an opt-out arrangement under which families receive instructions about what to supply and how to store it. Additional hours beyond the funded allocation are privately charged.

Current prices come in the nursery's written quotation. The fees and funding page explains the distinction between paid hours and funded sessions, which matters more to budgeting than the opening window alone.

Beyond three, families have the option of joining The Old School Day Nursery in the same building. The two nurseries are separate businesses.

• Teaching and mealtime practice. The January 2025 inspection asked for teaching that extends children's existing knowledge more consistently and better staff deployment and supervision during meals. On a visit, ask how these two areas have been addressed, including how adults organise themselves while children eat.
• Attendance and notice. Hourly flexibility comes with a minimum of three sessions. Changes to registered hours or the agreed start date and termination require a full calendar month's notice, with payment in lieu for changes to hours or termination. Consider those commitments alongside a changing work rota or a planned move to the neighbouring nursery.
• Funded extras and feeding. Funded sessions carry voluntary charges separate from the entitlement, whereas private hourly fees include meals and nappies. Allergy-affected families should confirm current food-handling practice and discuss the supply arrangements if opting out of funded extras.

The Ascot Day Nursery suits families seeking flexible hourly attendance as well as those arranging funded half-day sessions, particularly where access to stories, outdoor play and movement matters. The library, hall and varied playground give its shared-room model useful breadth, while Famly and a key worker provide clear channels between home and nursery.

The Good judgement comes with two concrete improvement priorities, so the attractive setting should be weighed alongside teaching consistency and mealtime supervision. For children approaching three, the neighbouring nursery offers another childcare option within familiar premises. It is a practical possibility to consider alongside the attendance contract and funded-charge structure.