The Nursery At Canterbury College

A college campus gives this nursery a character beyond its play spaces. In 2025, nursery children joined college learners and local care-home residents for an intergenerational event involving stories, sensory games and animal handling. The Nursery At Canterbury College, also known on campus as EKC Canterbury Nursery, combines that setting with age-specific learning areas and opportunities for children of different ages to play together.

It has capacity for 42 children, accepting babies from 3 months through to children aged 5 years. Ofsted rated it Good at its June 2021 inspection. That is a dated judgement, rather than a description of today’s daily practice.

Attendance spans funded morning and afternoon sessions, term-time school days and paid extended days across the year. The choice matters: families can select a shorter nursery day or combine funded hours with additional care.

Age-specific learning areas sit alongside mixed-age interaction. Children have opportunities to share play and build relationships across ages, while activities can also be organised around their stage of development. A spacious play area and indoor and outdoor play provide the physical setting for this combination.

Organised activities sit alongside free play, giving children opportunities both to join an activity and to make choices about how they spend their time.

The campus connection has produced concrete experiences. In 2025, children from EKC Canterbury Nursery took part in an intergenerational event at Streetside with local care-home residents. College learners helped with stories, colouring and sensory activities. Animal Care learners also introduced guinea pigs, insects and snakes through animal-handling activities. This was a particular event, rather than a weekly nursery programme, but it illustrates how the college setting can bring children into contact with people and experiences beyond their usual play group.

Shared experiences extend beyond children of the same age. At the Streetside event in 2025, reading and sensory games brought nursery children and care-home residents into activities together. For families drawn to community contact, that is a concrete example of the campus relationship in action.

Food arrangements give parents a choice. Snacks carry no extra charge across sessions; children attending afternoons or school days can bring lunch from home or have an optional, separately charged hot lunch. Breakfast and tea form part of the paid whole-day session price, while funded wraparound attendance carries a separate extended-day meal charge for those meals.

The packed-lunch arrangement comes with health and safety guidance. Families choosing food from home therefore need to plan around the nursery’s rules, rather than treating the lunch choice as simply a price decision.

Sessions and Attendance

The nursery is at Canterbury College, New Dover Road, Canterbury, CT1 3AJ. Nursery enquiries go directly to 01227 811108 or canterbury.nursery@eastkent.ac.uk.

Funded mornings run from 9am to noon, and funded afternoons from noon to 3pm. Under the 15-hour offer, parents can choose up to five sessions each week. The working-family 30-hour offer uses school-day sessions from 9am to 3pm. These fully funded patterns run during term time for 38 weeks, with a nursery calendar identifying the funded weeks.

Paid whole days run from 8am to 5.30pm across the year, with a choice of one to five days each week. Families can also combine funded entitlement with that extended day. A separate paid, term-time school-day option runs from 9am to 3pm for families without funding.

Funding and Paid Extras

The 15-hour offer covers the universal entitlement for three- and four-year-olds and funded places for two-year-olds. The 30-hour offer is for eligible working families with children aged nine months to four years. Fully funded sessions require neither extra purchases nor additional paid hours.

Extended-day attendance works differently. Funded hours are used first, with charges for attendance beyond the entitlement and applicable meal charges. Funding can be stretched for extended-day wraparound places where applicable. This makes the distinction between a fully funded school day and a funded contribution towards a longer day important when comparing costs. Families should obtain current prices in the nursery’s written quotation.

The extended-day funding example explains how some entitlement can be used during term time and the remainder allocated to holiday weeks. Parents pay the extended-day top-up monthly, while the holiday allocation helps keep monthly costs consistent across the year. That is useful for budgeting, but it remains a combination of funded attendance and paid extensions. A family comparing it with the fully funded term-time offer needs to distinguish the hours covered by entitlement from the additional care and meals being purchased. The two arrangements serve different calendars as well as different lengths of day.

• Short sessions or extended days. The funded morning, afternoon and school-day patterns differ from the year-round whole-day offer. At a visit, discuss which pattern fits your working week and how funded hours would be allocated.
• Lunch choices. A packed lunch avoids the optional hot-lunch charge, but must follow the nursery’s food guidance. Families managing allergies should confirm current food-handling practice.
• Mixed-age play. Children interact across ages while also using age-specific learning areas. Ask how that balance works for your child’s stage, especially for a baby joining older children.

This nursery suits families seeking funded mornings or afternoons, term-time school-day sessions or paid extended days across the year. Its campus setting adds a tangible community dimension, illustrated by the Streetside event. The strongest practical advantage is the clear separation between fully funded sessions and paid extensions: parents can compare genuinely different attendance patterns, with lunch choices and extended-day meal charges kept in view.