Creative Hands Childcare

Growing food, cooking with it and exploring outdoors give Creative Hands Childcare in Stapleford a recognisable character. Its Food for Life Early Years Award connects meals with practical food education, while Forest School brings hands-on exploration into a dedicated part of the preschool garden. These are useful details for families who want learning to extend beyond indoor activities.

At its March 2024 inspection, Ofsted rated the nursery Good, judged safeguarding effective and found that children with special educational needs and/or disabilities received good support through individual targets and help with school transitions. There were also two clear improvement priorities: consistent language support for children learning English as an additional language, and better-matched activities for babies.

The nursery accepts children from four months to five years, with separate services for school-age children. Hourly bookings and full days sit alongside term-time or year-round funded attendance, giving families several ways to organise care.

Rooms and Ages

The Baby Room combines sensory exploration with communication and movement activities, using toys selected for early development. Care follows each baby's feeding, sleeping and play routines, so the daily pattern can accommodate individual needs rather than expecting babies to follow a single timetable.

In March 2024, the toddler room placed its emphasis on recognising feelings and developing social skills, with yoga giving children a practical opportunity to copy movements and follow instructions. In the pre-school room that month, everyday independence included serving drinks, handling cutlery and clearing plates, alongside supervised fruit preparation and baking. These examples make the learning tangible: movement, conversation and ordinary tasks all had a place in the day.

Learning and Activities

The early years foundation stage sets the framework for children's learning, development and care. In everyday terms, this means supporting communication, physical skills and relationships through play and practical experiences.

Food for Life Early Years Award adds a concrete strand of food education through growing, cooking and exploring food. Children take part in food-related activities, and parents contribute ideas to seasonal, termly menus. That gives families a way to influence meals while children begin to understand the ingredients they eat.

In March 2024, preschool children explored fruit through its smell and taste before using it in baking. The value lies in connecting several experiences: learning about food, practising preparation and becoming more independent around meals. It also gives practical content to conversations about nutritious choices.

Outdoor and Community Life

Forest School means hands-on learning in a natural setting. Here, the nursery has its own Forest School area within the preschool garden, with sessions for children from around 18 months to five years. Activities include growing crops, investigating insects and plants, using garden tools with guidance and solving problems with other children.

The outdoor offer has a physical base, rather than depending entirely on outings. In March 2024, preschool children used a ride-on digger in the forest area, with adults helping them coordinate the movements needed to lift stones. This was an example of outdoor equipment becoming a practical learning activity, with support adjusted to the task.

Relationships and Communication

Each child has a key person, giving parents an identifiable practitioner who follows their development. Parents receive regular updates on their baby's progress and daily activities, and their routines are shaped with family input. For parents of very young children, that makes the relationship between home and nursery a practical part of care.

Termly parents' evenings provide time to discuss development, next steps and moves between rooms or into education. The management team is also present. A foyer notice board carries dates, newsletters and suggestions for learning at home, while children's artwork is displayed for families to see.

In March 2024, staff helped parents extend children's learning at home, including speaking skills and shared approaches to behaviour. This offered a way to keep responses consistent across the two settings, rather than leaving parents to guess how nursery staff handled a particular situation.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

A SENDCO role provides a named area of responsibility for special educational needs and disabilities, alongside the child's key person. In March 2024, additional funding was used for individual support, and children made several visits to their future school to become familiar with people and surroundings. These are specific mechanisms for supporting a transition, rather than an admissions advantage.

Millie’s Mark recognises paediatric first-aid arrangements in which all staff working directly with children are trained and assessed as competent. That is a concrete staff-training detail; the dated safeguarding judgement remains the inspection position set out above.

Food is prepared at the nursery, with hot lunches and desserts, lighter teas and menus shaped around the seasons with parent input. Cooking and growing also form part of children's food education, linking what they eat with activities they can take part in.

Sessions and Attendance

Creative Hands Childcare is at Haven Centre, Wadsworth Road, Stapleford, Nottingham, NG9 8BD. Opening hours are 7am to 7pm, Monday to Friday. It operates for 52 weeks, closing on Christmas day, Boxing day and New Years Day; other bank holidays are included in its opening arrangements.

Bookings can run from one hour through to a full day, with payment based on the hours booked rather than a fixed half-day rate. This suits both smaller blocks of care and longer working days. The nursery enquiry form takes the intended start date and required days and hours, giving families a direct way to specify the pattern they want.

For older children, Breakfast Club starts at 7am and includes breakfast in its fee. After School Club operates during school terms, from school collection until 7pm or earlier parent collection, combining reading and homework support with themed activities. Holiday Adventure Club serves children aged five to 11 during school holidays, with hourly or full-day bookings within its 7am to 7pm opening window and main activities between 9am and 4pm.

Funding and Paid Extras

Eligible children from nine months to school age can use the nursery's 15 hours or 30 hours funding. Delivery can be term-time over 38 weeks or stretched across 52 weeks. Additional private hours can be booked alongside funded attendance and are charged separately.

Standard private fees include nappies or pull-ups, wipes and sun cream, together with activities such as cookery, yoga and Forest School. Some visits or outings may carry an extra charge, communicated beforehand. Current prices come in the nursery's written quotation; the fees and funding information explains the charge structure.

Funded hours have different arrangements. Meals, nappies, wipes, sun cream and the specified additional activities are excluded from the funded entitlement itself. Families can choose a voluntary sustainability fee covering food, drink, formula, consumables and activities, pay for individual services, or supply their own food and care items. Some outings may still be charged separately, so the chosen arrangement matters as much as the number of funded hours.

• Language support. In March 2024, help for children learning English as an additional language was inconsistent, alongside baby activities that sometimes asked for skills children were not ready to practise. During a visit, ask how home languages are used and how baby activities are adapted to developmental stages.
• Funded extras. Funded attendance comes with a choice between the voluntary sustainability fee, individual purchases and supplying items from home. Compare the written quotation for the option you intend to use, including any separately charged outings.
• Baby routines. Care follows individual feeding and sleeping patterns. A bookable Nursery Tour lasts an hour, offering time to discuss how your child's routine would work and how settling would be organised.

Creative Hands Childcare suits families seeking short hourly bookings as well as full days, with term-time and stretched funded patterns adding further choice. Its strongest character comes from the garden-based Forest School offer and food education that connects growing, cooking and meals.

The March 2024 Good judgement provides a positive inspection baseline, balanced by specific questions about language support and baby activity planning. For families attracted to practical outdoor learning and flexible attendance, those are useful points to explore alongside the funded charge options.