Sherwood Green Nursery

A Farm Shop for pretend play, a Bug Hotel to investigate and a garden set aside for babies give Sherwood Green Nursery a recognisable outdoor character. This Eccleshill setting combines named baby, toddler and preschool rooms with activities that change across the week, from music and movement to cooking. There is plenty here for children who like to explore with their hands.

At its January 2025 inspection, Ofsted rated the nursery Good, judged safeguarding effective and found that children made strong progress, with focused key-person support helping children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). The positive judgement came with two clear improvements: protecting uninterrupted play during care routines and extending older children’s mathematical understanding.

Children attend from 3 months to 5 years at 22 Sherwood Place, Bradford, BD2 3DX. Full days, morning and afternoon sessions, and earlier starts give families several attendance patterns to consider.

Rooms and Ages

The baby, toddler and preschool rooms have different activities and emphases.

Caterpillars Baby Room, for children aged 3 months to 2 years, combines a reading space and contrasting black-and-white pictures with opportunities for tummy time, crawling and supported self-feeding.

Ladybird Baby Room also serves children aged 3 months to 2 years, with an emphasis on sensory exploration and choosing activities independently.

Butterflies Toddler Room, for ages 2 to 3 years, has a kitchen for pretend play alongside books, sand, water and small-world resources, with sharing, taking turns and toilet training among its practical priorities.

Busy Bees Pre-School Room, for ages 3 to 5 years, brings construction, phonics and mark-making together with everyday objects that children can use to shape their own imaginative play.

Dragonflies Pre-School Room also serves ages 3 to 5 years, emphasising early writing, stories and growing independence as children prepare for their next stage.

Learning and Activities

The early years foundation stage provides the framework for children’s learning, development and care: play builds communication, physical skills and relationships alongside early reading, mathematics, creativity and understanding the world. Sherwood Green adds the Curiosity Approach in Busy Bees, using ordinary objects and opportunities for children to direct their play.

Monday’s Show and Tell invites children in the participating rooms to share an object or a story. Shake, Rattle, and Boogie adds instruments, dancing and rhythm, giving children another way to express themselves.

Tuesday brings Mindfulness, where children discuss feelings and listen to one another, alongside Baby Yoga’s guided movement and stretches for Caterpillars, Butterflies and Ladybirds. Friday’s Cookery Classes introduce food preparation and new tastes across the rooms.

Friday’s Moo Sensory Classes give Caterpillars children sounds, movement and textures to investigate, tailoring sensory exploration to the youngest children.

In January 2025, toddlers used vegetables and fruit to print with paint, linking the activity to a story about food and growth. Preschool children experimented with building blocks, comparing sizes and reconsidering designs that did not work. These examples show learning through doing. However, older children needed more help to develop ideas about position, measurement and time; practical activity alone was not enough to extend those concepts.

Outdoor and Community Life

Three gardens provide different settings for outdoor play. The Main Garden supports movement and sensory activity, while the Baby Garden gives younger children their own outdoor space. In the Sherwood Green Farm Garden, the Bug Hotel and Butterfly Cycle bring close observation of living things into play.

The natural-wood Bike Area, Farm Shop and Natural Obstacle Course provide riding practice, pretend play and physical challenges.

Busy Bees and Dragonflies make library outings each term, with books and storytelling extending reading beyond their rooms. Their care-home visits are termly too, giving preschool children contact with older people outside their immediate families. In January 2025, these exchanges included games, songs and stories, with residents also joining children for afternoon tea at the nursery.

Each year, children observe butterflies developing and watch chicks or ducklings hatch. Visits from a dentist, firefighters and police officers introduce people whose work children may encounter in the community. Animal visitors, including owls and a petting farm, add another kind of first-hand experience.

In January 2025, planned transitions helped children settle and build relationships with staff and other children. Practitioners patiently supported emotional regulation, an important part of adjusting to nursery life.

In January 2025, children with SEND had targeted key-person activities and support involving other professionals. Additional funding supported music and movement experiences.

In January 2025, a lending library supported reading at home, and Top Tips covered play and toilet training. Workshops let parents of children with SEND exchange concerns and strategies, connecting nursery support with family life.

Oral health featured in play, with packs sent home so children could continue practising toothbrushing. Communication support included encouraging families to use both English and their home language, rather than treating one as a replacement for the other. Staff introduced simple vocabulary to babies and extended more able children’s spoken language into fuller sentences.

For current day-to-day contact, the nursery’s parent app shares photographs, activity information and progress updates. An on-site chef cooks meals fresh each day, and the meal arrangements depend on whether attendance is privately paid or funded, as set out below.

Sessions and Attendance

Eccleshill opens Monday to Friday, 7.30am to 6pm, across 51 weeks of the year. Its standard Full Day runs from 8am to 6pm. Morning attendance is 8am to 1pm, and afternoon attendance is 1pm to 6pm. These shorter patterns are also described as Half Day sessions.

Early Bird Start runs from 7.30am to 6pm or 7.30am to 1pm. Care before 8am requires this earlier-start arrangement.

The nursery offers both term-time funding over 38 weeks and stretched funding across its longer operating year. That gives families a choice about how to distribute their entitlement, alongside the choice between morning, afternoon and full-day attendance.

Getting There

The address is 22 Sherwood Place, Eccleshill, Bradford, BD2 3DX, and there is parking on site. Families can make an enquiry through an online form or contact the Eccleshill team by telephone or email.

Funding and Paid Extras

Funded childcare includes the Working Parents Entitlement, 15 Hours for Some 2‑Year‑Olds and Universal 15 Hours for 3‑ and 4‑Year‑Olds, subject to the relevant conditions. The working-parent entitlement provides 30 hours per week for 38 weeks a year from the term after a child reaches 9 months until school starts; Eccleshill also offers a stretched arrangement.

Meals and snacks are included in private session fees. For funded attendance, food and drink are offered through a separately charged optional package, and families can instead send a healthy packed lunch; the nursery asks families to avoid foods containing nuts.

Funded early education, activities and learning experiences remain included whether or not a family buys the meal package. Additional private hours and an Early Bird start can be purchased separately. Current prices come in the nursery’s written quotation, with the funding and fees page explaining the session and meal structure.

• Uninterrupted learning. In January 2025, care routines sometimes stopped children’s concentrated play.
• Older children’s mathematics. Extending understanding of time, position and measurement was a January 2025 improvement point. Ask for examples of how Busy Bees and Dragonflies now take these ideas beyond counting and construction.
• Funded meals and allergies. The funded meal package is optional, with packed lunches an alternative and a request to avoid nuts. Allergy-affected families should confirm current food-handling practice and agree their child’s arrangements before starting.
• Your child’s room. Caterpillars and Ladybird share the same published age band, as do Busy Bees and Dragonflies. Ask how the nursery chooses a room and plans the move between stages for your child.

Sherwood Green suits families seeking full-day attendance, morning sessions or afternoon sessions, with earlier starts adding another practical option. Its strongest character comes from the named gardens, room-based activities and preschool connections with the library and care home. Babies have their own outdoor space and sensory sessions, while older children encounter cooking, music and opportunities to explain their ideas.

The January 2025 judgement supports a positive assessment, but the two improvement points deserve attention when choosing. Families who value hands-on play and community experiences have substantial reasons to consider this Eccleshill nursery, alongside a clear set of questions about uninterrupted learning and more demanding mathematics.