Westwards Nursery School

Woodland exploration and a Victorian house give Westwards Nursery School a clear character: children can investigate outdoors, then return to rooms arranged for reading, imaginative play and hands-on discovery. The Loughborough setting has capacity for 42 children and takes children from 3 months to 5 years. Its garden adds a water wall, mud kitchen and sensory path to the everyday possibilities for play.

At its 13 November 2024 inspection, Ofsted rated Westwards Good and found effective safeguarding, good progress in learning and positive relationships between children and staff. There is a useful balance here between following children's interests and helping them become more independent. The practical offer includes year-round attendance and term-time arrangements for teaching staff, with different day lengths according to age and booking pattern.

Rooms and Ages

Sunshine Room, whose room description covers 6 months to 2 years, combines ground-floor play areas, a separate space for changing nappies, sleep pods or cots and a designated baby garden area, with sensory exploration shaping the day. Home routines are carried into nursery life, making familiar patterns part of the transition. Blackout blinds and soft music support rest, while messy play and outdoor time give babies different ways to investigate their surroundings.

For children aged 2 to 3, Rainbow Room brings together a conservatory, creative space and exploration area with a light box, alongside direct access to the canopied garden and an emphasis on imaginative and sensory play. Its stated staffing ratio is one adult to four children, compared with the statutory minimum of one to five for this age. That is a meaningful staffing difference. Potty training is approached with parents, linking the room's routines with what children are learning at home.

Little Stars Room, for ages 3 to 5, occupies two bright first-floor rooms with a kitchen and toilet area, where sound-and-letter activities, construction, role play and independent choices support preparation for school. Real objects, including old telephones and kitchen equipment, give imaginative play something tangible to work with. A fish tank also gives children a living thing to help care for.

Sensory Room adds a calmer space for child-led investigation, using loose parts, sensory lighting, mark-making resources and a library area. It gives exploration a different pace from the busier activity spaces.

Learning and Activities

The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) provides the framework for learning through play, including communication, physical development and relationships alongside early literacy and mathematics. Westwards uses In the Moment Planning to respond to children's interests as they arise, rather than treating the same prepared activity as the starting point for every child. Children choose some activities and also take part in tasks guided by their key person.

Music, dance, yoga, storytelling and gardening feature across the rooms. These experiences connect movement, language and practical discovery: children can explore an idea through a story, a physical activity or something they grow. For the youngest children, communication, movement and social and emotional development take priority.

In November 2024, story sessions included opportunities for children to complete sentences, predict what pictures might reveal and act out a sensory bear hunt. Signs and visual prompts helped communication during play and routines. At the same inspection, Ofsted asked staff to improve how they engaged children in activities because interest sometimes faded before learning could develop further. The issue was sustaining involvement, an important distinction for parents considering a curriculum built around children's interests.

Outdoor and Community Life

Forest School adds hands-on learning in a natural setting, with children exploring, making choices and taking supported risks. Westwards uses woodland belonging to Loughborough University, and activities include building dens, investigating wildlife, paddling in streams and using tools. Practitioners respond to children's discoveries outdoors, extending the same interest-led approach used indoors.

A minibus supports trips throughout the year. Rainbow Room children also make regular outings to Queen’s park, the library, museum and shops. These take learning beyond nursery resources: familiar community places become things to explore together.

Closer to the rooms, the garden canopy supports outdoor activity alongside the play tower, mud kitchen and water wall. The separate baby area gives the youngest children their own outdoor space. There is substance to the outdoor emphasis here, both within the setting and beyond it.

Relationships and Communication

A key person provides continuity between home and nursery. Settling sessions begin around 2 to 4 weeks before the start date, and parents remain with their child for the first two sessions. The All About Me information helps staff understand preferences, dislikes and ways of comforting a child. That makes the initial conversation about daily care as well as developmental milestones.

Tapestry, the app used for communication, lets parents see activities and share photographs or updates from home. Baby care diaries include sleep, meals and nappy changes. Daily conversations at handover sit alongside termly meetings with the key person and progress summaries every six months, so communication has both an immediate and a longer-term rhythm.

Staff have paediatric first-aid and food-hygiene training, with further learning through internal and external training. The team includes degree-trained practitioners and qualified teachers. These are details of the team structure; the inspection judgement remains the basis for assessing the quality of practice.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

The inclusion and SEND policy provides for reasonable adjustments so children can access nursery services. In November 2024, staff used information gathered from parents to plan activities and worked with other professionals when children needed support. This connects the child's experience across home, nursery and additional services rather than treating each separately.

Rest is built into the baby-room arrangements, with home routines informing the nursery day. In November 2024, staff responded to signs of tiredness and allowed children the sleep they needed; older children practised washing their hands, managing tissues and serving food for themselves. Everyday care also became practice in independence.

A chef prepares food on site, and the four-week menu changes with the seasons, with provision for weaning and dietary requirements. Staff eat alongside children, making mealtimes a shared activity as well as a care routine.

School preparation includes conversations about what school will be like, alongside the preschool room's practical independence and early sound-and-letter work. Children are helped to understand the next stage, rather than school readiness being reduced to formal learning tasks.

Sessions and Attendance

Westwards is at 8 Burton Street, Loughborough, LE11 2DT. The setting also uses a building on Gray Street, connected to the main nursery through adjoining gardens. Enquiries can be made by telephone or online contact form, and tours can be booked before joining.

Attendance has a minimum of two days each week. Children under 2 in Sunshine Room can attend a six-hour day; for older children the minimum pattern is two eight-hour days. Nine-hour days and a ten-hour full day are also offered. These are booking lengths, with the agreed sessions determining attendance and billing.

Year-round care runs across 51 weeks, excluding bank holidays and the Christmas closure. Term-time sessions are reserved for teaching staff. The separate fully funded package uses term-time afternoon sessions, subject to availability. These routes serve different routines, so the package and attendance pattern need to work together.

Funding and Paid Extras

Westwards accepts the 15-hour entitlement and 30-hour entitlement, subject to eligibility, and stretches funding over 51 weeks for year-round attendance. Term-time arrangements also exist; for children attending term-time sessions shorter than nine hours, funding is capped at 7.5 hours per day. Funded hours and the length of a booked day are therefore separate parts of the arrangement.

Package One uses optional daily charges for meals, snacks, consumables and additional activities, including Forest School. Package Two offers fully funded term-time afternoons, subject to availability, with families able to supply food under the packed-lunch policy; taking Package One is not required to access funded childcare. Meals therefore differ by package, while consumables sit within the optional additional charge.

Package One includes four settling sessions of one hour each and administrative setup; Package Two incorporates settling into the attended sessions. Current prices come in the nursery's written quotation. The fees and funding page sets out how the packages work.

• Collection time. One set of opening hours ends at 5.30pm and another at 6pm, both beginning at 7.30am on weekdays. This unresolved difference matters for work schedules: establish the collection deadline for your agreed pattern before booking.
• The first weeks. Parents stay for the first two settling sessions, while the funded packages handle settling differently. Discuss how your child's introduction will fit the chosen package and your own working arrangements.
• Sustained engagement. The November 2024 improvement point concerned keeping children involved long enough to deepen learning. During a tour, ask how practitioners now extend an activity when a child's interest begins to drift.
• Funding and food. The packages differ in their food arrangements and additional charges. Review the written quotation against the attendance pattern you need, including how dietary requirements will be managed.

Westwards suits families who want children's interests to shape the day, with substantial outdoor experiences and rooms that support different stages of development. Woodland sessions, community outings and practical independence give that approach concrete form. The dated Good judgement supports the overall picture, while the improvement point about engagement remains a useful question for a visit.

The attendance offer serves families seeking shorter baby days as well as longer booked days, and includes term-time routes for teaching staff and funded afternoon sessions. The strongest fit is between the child's stage, the family's weekly routine and the chosen funding package. Getting those details aligned matters as much as the appeal of the woodland and garden.