Turville Forest School Nursery

Windmill Meadow gives this nursery its character: an on-site thicket, grassy clearings and a rope ladder turn outdoor learning into something children can explore with their hands and feet. Turville Forest School Nursery combines that woodland setting with care for children from 3 months to 5 years, with capacity for 36 children in total. The single-storey building also has a large play area. Outdoors is a substantial part of the offer.

At its 23 June 2025 inspection, Ofsted rated the nursery Good overall and found safeguarding effective. The detail gives parents a useful balance: children practised independence, staff extended vocabulary through conversation, and outdoor play included climbing and exploring textures, while activity planning and learning about communities beyond their own needed more attention.

Robins, Owls and Kites Preschool organise the age stages, although the older two share a room and have separate activities. Opening hours run from 7.30am to 6pm on weekdays, across 51 weeks of the year. Funded childcare is stretched across that operating year, with minimum attendance patterns attached to each entitlement.

Rooms and Ages

Robins caters for children aged 3 months to 2 years, combining soft play and sensory resources with an emphasis on early communication, movement and relationships. Its story corner, small role-play area and separate space for messy activities give babies different ways to explore, while resources they can choose themselves introduce early independence. Outdoor provision includes a baby play area where younger children can watch the older ones.

For children aged 2 to 3, Owls supports language, motor skills and increasing independence through play, with sensory activities, soft furnishings and spaces for quieter moments. Kites Preschool, for ages 3 to 5, shares the Owls room but follows separate activities, including planned lessons and PE to prepare children for school. That shared space matters when considering how the older age groups spend their day together.

Learning and Activities

The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) provides the common framework: children develop language, movement, relationships, early literacy and number understanding through play and everyday experiences. Stories, songs, role play, threading and mark making translate those areas into things a child actually does. Adult-led activities sit alongside children's own choices, and observations help practitioners plan their next steps.

Forest School adds weekly outdoor sessions to that framework, using nature-based exploration and supervised challenges. Windmill Meadow is reached through a secure gate and includes a thicket and grassy clearings; children visit regularly, with activities adjusted for their ages. The rope ladder, made together, is a concrete example of that practical learning.

In June 2025, children's interests helped shape activities: an enthusiasm for pirates led to treasure-map crafts, and dinosaurs were added to tower building to sustain engagement. Staff also explained unfamiliar vocabulary during conversation. These examples show how play and language could work together, rather than being treated as separate parts of the day.

Outdoor and Community Life

Extended outdoor periods take place in all weathers, and exploration also reaches into the surrounding Chiltern Hills.

In June 2025, babies explored sand and water in their separate garden, while older children used ride-on toys in the playground and ran and climbed in the wooded area. Physical learning also happened indoors through spoon work with play dough and careful paintbrush use. The activities covered both large movements and the smaller hand movements children need for everyday tasks.

Relationships and Communication

Settling starts with an allocated key person who organises introductory sessions and begins getting to know the child. The All about Me form gathers home routines, preferences and developmental information, so care can start from familiar habits rather than a standard timetable. Sessions build towards the first day, with the key person involved in that transition.

Comfort objects, including a teddy, dummy or blanket, can come from home and remain accessible when needed. Parents receive a handover at the end of each session. Tapestry, the nursery's app for observations, assessments and messages, provides another way to follow the day; parents can also contribute information from home to help staff understand a child's changing interests.

Parents' evenings take place through the year, alongside opportunities to attend Christmas concerts, Mother and Father's Day events and summer fun days.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

At the June 2025 inspection, Ofsted found the key-person system effective, described strong communication with parents and recorded SEND adjustments, including a sensory room with calming resources and prompt referrals for professional advice. This is concrete support: relationships, adaptations and access to outside expertise, rather than a general promise that every need can be met.

Daily independence was visible in June 2025 through children changing shoes, serving fruit and helping clear up after meals or messy play. Staff reminded children about taking turns and helping each other. These small routines gave children opportunities to practise managing themselves and sharing a space.

An on-site chef prepares homemade food from seasonal menus, with breakfast, hot lunch, high tea and snacks spread through the day. The nursery publishes a nut-free policy covering food and items brought on site, and discusses feeding routines, dietary requirements and allergies with parents before children start.

Sessions and Attendance

The address is Turvill Village Nursery, School Lane, Henley On Thames, RG9 6QX. Care runs Monday to Friday, with opening hours of 7.30am to 6pm, and the nursery operates for 51 weeks annually. Bank holidays and a Christmas week are closures. The long opening window gives families a useful starting point for fitting nursery around work and other commitments.

The 15-hour entitlement is stretched to 11 hours each week across 51 weeks, with attendance on at least 2 days; the 30-hour entitlement becomes 22 hours each week over the same period, with at least 4 days.

Visits can be booked, and enquiries can be made through the nursery's contact route. At the June 2025 inspection, the summer-holiday arrangement was provision at Turville Village Hall in Northend under a separate registration. That location needs to be treated separately from the School Lane setting when planning a child's year.

Funding and Paid Extras

Funded childcare is offered, including 15 hours for children aged 3 to 4 and 30 hours for eligible working families with children aged 9 months to 4 years. Eligibility conditions still apply to the working-family entitlement. The nursery stretches funding across its operating year rather than delivering it only over the government-funded 38 weeks.

Paid childcare fees include meals and snacks, formula when needed, and nappies and wipes for babies and toddlers. Weekly Forest School, PE, special events and access to Tapestry also form part of the fee package. For funded sessions, meals, snacks, extra activities and consumables are supported by a separate extras and consumables charge, so funded hours and the full attendance package have different charging arrangements.

Current prices come in the nursery's written quotation. The fees and funding information explains the stretched entitlement and minimum attendance days.

• Learning beyond familiar interests. In June 2025, activities sometimes repeated knowledge children already had, and planned opportunities to explore other cultures were inconsistent. Ask how next steps and learning about other communities now shape the children's activities.
• An outdoor-heavy day. Forest School sessions are weekly, and children spend extended periods outside in all weathers. A visit is a useful opportunity to discuss how that routine works for your child's age and comfort outdoors.
• Summer-holiday organisation. The summer-holiday arrangement recorded in June 2025 was provision at Turville Village Hall in Northend under a separate registration. How would summer-holiday care be organised for your child, including the location and continuity of care?
• Food allergies. The nursery's nut-free policy includes items brought on site as well as its own food. Families affected by allergies should confirm current practice and their child's individual feeding arrangements before starting.

Turville's strongest reason for consideration is the combination of woodland access, weekly Forest School and care organised around a familiar key person. Windmill Meadow supplies the practical detail behind the outdoor emphasis, while Tapestry and session-end handovers give parents ways to stay involved.

It suits families who want nature to feature regularly in nursery life, whether they use paid childcare or stretched funded attendance across the year. The funded options serve different patterns, with minimum attendance of 2 or 4 days. The June 2025 priorities remain useful questions: activities need to extend existing knowledge, and children's understanding should reach beyond their immediate community.