Towneley Park Children's Nursery

A Victorian house, a separate preschool Annex and gardens with space for growing food give Towneley Park Children's Nursery a recognisable shape. Babies have their own outdoor section; older children move between spaces for different kinds of play. This is a nursery with several environments to explore, rather than one room doing everything.

Based at Tarleton House on Todmorden Road in Burnley, it has capacity for 120 children from birth to five. At its 20 April 2022 inspection, Ofsted rated the nursery Good overall. That dated judgement sits alongside practical strengths in the current offer: age-specific departments, baby diaries, the famly app for sharing development, and a school readiness co-ordinator role for preschool children.

Attendance includes full days, mornings and afternoons, with separate arrangements for funded hours. The combination matters for families whose childcare needs change as their child grows: the physical setting, communication arrangements and attendance options all deserve attention, rather than the overall grade alone.

Rooms and Ages

Ladybirds, for children aged 0–24 months, occupies three ground-floor rooms combining play, a sensory/ sleep room and a messy/meal room, with access to an artificial-grass outdoor area. Separating these uses gives the youngest children spaces for different parts of their day. Their garden section is reserved for them, including babies who are crawling or not yet mobile.

For two- to three-year-olds, Caterpillars uses six upstairs rooms organised around EYFS areas such as literacy, mathematics, physical development and understanding the world, with children choosing between activities through free-flow play. EYFS is the framework for children's learning, development and care: here, that means play and planned experiences, with practitioners observing children's interests and helping them take the next step. Following the framework is the baseline; the room arrangement is the practical detail that gives this department its character.

Butterflies, for three- to five-year-olds, occupies four rooms in the Annex, including spaces for computers, meals and structured activities, and sensory play, with open access outdoors and a mixture of adult-planned and child-led learning. School preparation is part of this stage. Games and activities build independence, while the school readiness co-ordinator role concentrates on the skills preschool children need before starting school.

Learning and Activities

Movement has several forms here. Sticky Kids supports dance through the Interactive Classroom board, alongside aerobics, music-making with instruments and listening to music from different parts of the world. These give children ways to participate through movement and sound as well as through conversation.

Regular baking adds another kind of hands-on activity. Sand, water and role-play sit alongside an indoor Soft Playroom and Sensory room, so active play and quieter exploration have their own resources. The point for parents is the variety of ways children can engage: a child interested in making, moving or pretending has concrete activities to draw on.

In April 2022, conversation, songs and stories gave children opportunities to practise unfamiliar vocabulary. Older children were exploring letter sounds and writing their names, while babies had space to crawl, climb and practise walking. These are useful examples of the nursery day at that time, rather than a promise about the activities a particular child will do now.

Outdoor and Community Life

Three garden areas extend the indoor provision. The mud kitchen and allotment support messy play and growing fruit, vegetables and sunflowers, connecting children's activities with changes they can observe over time. Planting and harvesting give the outdoor space a purpose beyond physical play.

Visits to the park at Towneley take place occasionally and require parental consent. Community experiences also come into the nursery through visits from the police and fire brigade, plus regular visits by a travelling mini-farm and a Minibeast organisation. These introduce children to public services and living things through direct encounters.

Chinese New Year, Diwali and Christmas are among the events explored during the year. They add occasions for learning about the wider world to the everyday mix of gardening, movement, making and play.

Relationships and Communication

A key person is allocated to children, giving families a consistent practitioner involved in their care and learning. For babies, settling sessions include discussion of routines at home. That makes the handover of information practical: feeding, sleep and the child's usual day can inform the move into nursery care.

Ladybirds families receive daily diary books covering meals, nappy changes and sleep. The arrangement is useful when someone other than a parent collects the child, because the account of the day still travels home. Across the age departments, famly records photographs, development and achievements, giving parents another way to follow what their child is doing.

In April 2022, staff gathered information from families and other professionals about children's interests, needs and home lives. Additional funding was used for resources or training suited to individual needs. These examples show how information about a child influenced support at that date, rather than describing a single standard plan for everyone.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

At the April 2022 inspection, Ofsted found safeguarding effective, highlighted very strong SEND support through knowledgeable coordinators and prompt interventions, and judged that children were making good progress. Those findings are important, but they belong to that inspection date.

Current arrangements include paediatric first aid and safeguarding training for all staff, with advanced safeguarding and SENCO training among senior staff. Recruitment includes enhanced DBS checks and references. These are concrete care arrangements; they do not replace the dated inspection judgement on how effectively safeguarding worked.

Caterpillars staff support toilet training with supervised toilet visits and encourage children to wash and dry their hands themselves. This links personal care with growing independence, rather than treating the two as separate parts of the day.

A cook prepares food on site using a four-week rotating menu, and the nursery's dietary arrangements cover preferences including halal and vegetarian food as well as allergies. Younger children receive food suited to their age or stage of weaning, while vegan options can also be arranged.

Sessions and Attendance

The address is Tarleton House, 89 Todmorden Road, Burnley, Lancashire, BB11 3ES. Opening hours are 7.30am–6pm, Monday to Friday. The annual childcare offer specifies 51 weeks, with closure for bank holidays and Christmas week, so those breaks need to fit the family's care arrangements.

A full day runs from 7.30am to 6pm; the morning option runs from 7.30am to 1pm. Afternoon sessions and flexible childcare are also offered. Term-time-only attendance is subject to availability, and term-time places in the under-two room are capped. That is an attendance rule, rather than a statement about how many places are currently free.

Funded attendance has several clock patterns. The 8am–6pm day and 7.30am–1pm morning can be delivered either term-time or stretched. The 9am–2pm, 9am–4.30pm and 9am–3pm patterns are term-time arrangements. Families therefore need to distinguish the nursery's opening window from the hours attached to their chosen funded pattern.

Changing sessions requires four weeks' written notice. Enquiries can be made through the contact form or by telephone on 01282 416020. The nursery is within walking distance of the bus station and town centre.

Funding and Paid Extras

The nursery offers up to 30 hours of funding for children aged nine months to four years, with term-time and stretched delivery depending on the attendance option. Additional private hours beyond the daily funded entitlement are charged separately. Tax Free Childcare and Universal Credit Childcare are accepted across sessions.

Meals and snacks during funded sessions carry a separate charge. Parents can opt out by supplying packed food for every meal their child attends, following the nursery's healthy eating guidelines. This is an important distinction when comparing the cost of funded attendance: the funded hours and the food arrangement are separate decisions.

There is no separate charge for non-food consumables or extra activities in the childcare offer. A settling package charge applies once before starting for non-funded hours, and early drop-off or late collection can also incur a charge. Current prices come in the nursery's written quotation, allowing families to consider their actual attendance pattern and any applicable extras together.

• Challenge and changes of activity. In April 2022, children needed greater stretch in their learning, especially those already more able, and more warning before routines changed. Ask how staff now extend learning and help children finish an activity before moving on.
• Baby care across several spaces. Ladybirds combines play, sleep, meals and outdoor access across its department. During a visit, ask how practitioners organise supervision and how your baby's home routine carries into the day.
• Funded pattern and food choice. Some funded options can be stretched, while others are term-time only; funded meals and snacks are charged separately. Consider the complete attendance and food arrangement when comparing quotations.
• Dietary needs. The nursery caters for allergies and different dietary preferences. Families affected by allergies should confirm current kitchen practice and how individual requirements are communicated to staff.

Towneley Park suits families seeking full-day, morning or afternoon attendance, with funded patterns offering another layer of choice. Its strongest practical features are the separate age departments, baby communication arrangements and outdoor spaces that include gardening as well as physical play.

The April 2022 Good judgement provides a dated quality benchmark, with strong SEND findings and two clear development priorities. For parents, the most useful test is how these elements work for their child: the transition between spaces and activities, the support for individual routines, and the level of challenge as learning develops. There is plenty of concrete provision to assess.