Little Hearts Nursery, Daisy Hill

Garden access from each room gives Little Hearts Nursery, Daisy Hill a practical outdoor emphasis: patio doors connect the indoor spaces with separate sections of garden, allowing play to move outside throughout the day. The setting occupies the ground floor of a detached building near Bradford Royal Infirmary. Its current age range is 2 to 5, with capacity for 53 children in total.

At its February 2026 inspection, Ofsted judged inclusion, leadership and governance, children's welfare and wellbeing, and behaviour, attitudes and establishing routines to be Strong standard, while achievement and curriculum and teaching reached Expected standard; safeguarding standards were met. That is a differentiated assessment, with stronger findings about care and relationships than about the consistency of teaching across every area of learning.

The address is 24 Pearson Lane, Bradford, BD9 6BE. Opening hours are 8am to 5pm, Monday to Friday, and Daisy Hill operates across the year.

Rooms and Ages

The baby room, toddler room and pre-school room have furniture and resources matched to developmental stages, with each room opening towards its own part of the garden. These room labels sit alongside the current accepted age range of 2 to 5; they should not be read as an offer of places for younger babies. The physical arrangement gives children access to outdoor play from their room rather than making the garden a separate destination.

Early Years Foundation Stage guides the learning here: children develop practical, social and creative skills through play, with daily activities suited to their stage of development. Sharing, concentration and learning to manage everyday tasks sit alongside more familiar early education activities.

Learning and Activities

In February 2026, children could choose resources for themselves, giving them a direct role in deciding what to explore. Activities included handling and cutting cooked spaghetti, working with play dough and using scissors. These are concrete ways to practise hand control, experiment with materials and develop independence through manageable tasks.

Books also formed part of the day. In February 2026, children returned to familiar stories, retold parts of them and anticipated what would happen next. Staff introduced vocabulary through play and activities, while children learning English as an additional language communicated using two languages. Staff modelled vocabulary during play and practical activities, connecting language with children's experiences.

At the February 2026 inspection, Ofsted found that staff did not consistently deepen children's mathematical understanding, with limited teaching about weight and measure, and called for more consistent delivery of a planned, sequenced curriculum across the areas of learning. This is the main educational reservation for families: counting opportunities alone do not cover the breadth of early mathematics.

Outdoor and Community Life

The garden extends the indoor learning space, with free movement between the two available during the day. Separate outdoor sections for the rooms give the building's layout a clear practical purpose: outdoor experiences can remain connected to each group's indoor activities.

In February 2026, children practised climbing, balancing and running outside, and staff planned for children who preferred outdoor learning. A bus journey to a local supermarket connected an outing with buying biscuit ingredients, making the biscuits and decorating them back at nursery. The sequence linked an everyday errand with making something children could recognise as their own work.

Relationships and Communication

In February 2026, staff and parents discussed children's behaviour and home circumstances so that they could agree consistent responses. Practitioners gave children time to reply and reduced the amount of spoken language when helping them understand feelings. For a child who needs time to process a conversation, that is a useful practical detail about how adults interacted.

Parents received developmental information through meetings and continuing communication. Leaders also adjusted attendance arrangements where appropriate and offered longer settling sessions when children needed them. These were individual responses to barriers to attending, rather than a universal booking promise.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

During February 2026, staff used assessments to plan the next learning steps for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities, referred children to health and education professionals, and sought advice and training from those professionals. Adaptations involved both activities and the environment. The mechanisms matter: support was organised around individual needs and coordinated with people outside the nursery.

Everyday care also provided opportunities for children to do things themselves. In February 2026, mirrors helped children attend to personal hygiene, while snack time involved pouring drinks and cutting fruit. Staff discussed care routines with parents, including sleep and nappy changes, so that the nursery's arrangements took family preferences into account. These observations describe practice at that time.

Sessions and Attendance

Daisy Hill opens Monday to Friday from 8am until 5pm and operates across the year. For families planning work around nursery care, the opening window establishes the outer limits of the day; the attendance agreement still needs to match the family's chosen routine.

Getting There

The nursery is at 24 Pearson Lane, Bradford, BD9 6BE, near Bradford Royal Infirmary. Its rooms occupy the ground floor of the detached building, with patio doors connecting them to the garden.

Funding and Paid Extras

Daisy Hill offers 30 hours of funded childcare each week during term time for eligible working parents. Eligibility remains a condition of the offer, so the entitlement should not be treated as an automatic allocation for every family. Current prices for paid childcare belong in the nursery's written quotation.

• Mathematics teaching. February 2026 findings identified inconsistent development of mathematical understanding, especially weight and measure. At a visit, ask how staff now teach these concepts through activities and build on children's understanding.
• Settling and individual care. Longer settling sessions and agreed responses with parents were used in February 2026. Discuss how those arrangements would work for your child's routines and communication needs.
• Attendance and funded extras. The setting opens across the year, while the 30-hour working-parent offer is term-time funding. Request one written attendance and charging agreement covering your intended pattern, meals and non-food consumables.

Little Hearts Nursery, Daisy Hill suits families seeking care for children aged 2 to 5, with direct garden access and an emphasis on practical independence. Its February 2026 assessment gives the clearest support to relationships, inclusion and wellbeing. The weaker point is the consistency of teaching, especially mathematics.

For families whose routines fit the weekday opening window, this is a setting to assess through two concrete priorities: how adults respond to the individual child, and how learning is planned beyond the activities themselves. The garden layout provides a tangible attraction; the curriculum follow-through deserves equal attention.