Sunflowers, St Annes

A forest, daily outdoor play for toddlers and visiting music and movement sessions give Sunflowers, St Annes a clear character. This Nantwich nursery sits within the grounds of St Anne’s Catholic Primary School, but operates as an independent charity. The school connection supports preparation for the next stage; the woodland gives children something quite different to explore during their nursery years.

At its 16 July 2025 inspection, Ofsted rated the nursery Good overall and judged safeguarding effective. The practical offer covers children aged 3 to 60 months, with 48 places in total. Baby Room, Toddler Room and Pre-School Room provide separate stages of care, while each child has a key person who maintains their learning journey.

Funded attendance includes school-day and full-day patterns, with a morning session forming part of the shorter entitlement. The important distinction is between the nursery’s year-round operation and its term-time funding: those are different arrangements, with different implications for the family budget.

Rooms and Ages

Baby Room combines sensory exploration and small-group care with individual feeding, weaning, changing and sleep routines, keeping each baby’s needs central to daily planning.

Toddler Room combines an open-plan layout and daily access to the Woods and outdoors with painting, water play and construction to support social skills and independence. Practitioners also support parents with toilet training and changing food preferences.

Pre-School Room uses interests such as puddles, dinosaurs and shadows to shape early literacy and creative play, with outdoor access and materials that let children investigate their ideas.

Learning and Activities

The Early Years Foundation Stage sets out requirements for children’s learning, development and care. Here, planned play and observations of individual development shape what children do next. It is the baseline for the nursery’s work. The additions are more concrete: visiting activity providers, music-making and access to woodland and other outdoor surfaces.

Jumping Beanz is a movement programme using imaginative games to practise coordination, balance and agility. Rhythm Time brings singing and music-making together with sensory materials such as scarves, lights and bubbles. Both providers visit through regular bookings. These sessions add different ways to participate, through movement or sound, alongside the play planned within each room.

In July 2025, practitioners joined children’s pretend play as wizards and introduced vocabulary through conversations about spells and potions. They also varied the pace of outdoor running games. Those examples show how an adult can extend a child’s chosen activity through language or a physical challenge, rather than immediately replacing it with another task.

Outdoor and Community Life

Woodland, grassed and all-weather play areas give children different surfaces to explore. Toddlers use the outdoors daily, combining nature exploration with building, painting and energetic play.

In July 2025, children talked enthusiastically about planting wildflowers to attract bees and other wildlife. They also negotiated whose turn it was to climb. The garden therefore supplied opportunities to discuss living things and practise cooperation in ordinary play.

The July 2025 improvement priorities included more writing opportunities outside. For children happiest learning in the garden, access alone did not provide the same opportunities to practise writing.

Relationships and Communication

A key person is assigned within each room and updates the child’s development profile, while care is shared with the wider practitioner team. This gives families an identifiable person connected to their child’s learning journey. Complimentary short stays form part of settling, arranged after the enrolment pack and non-refundable administration charge have been completed.

In July 2025, conversations and an online app carried updates about children’s experiences and development. Families could share information from home as well as receive nursery news.

At that visit, a picture timetable explained routines, coloured cards signalled tidying time and children sang while putting toys away. These visual cues helped explain changes between activities.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

At the July 2025 inspection, Ofsted found good progress across learning areas and support informed by speech and language specialists and local authority advice. Practitioners could draw on outside expertise for children’s needs.

Current collection arrangements require advance details when someone other than a parent or guardian will collect, including a description and password. The nursery door remains locked and staff control access. All staff hold paediatric first aid certificates, and recruitment arrangements include DBS checks alongside child protection and Prevent training.

Meals are cooked on the premises each day, with snacks and lunch included in the daily food provision. Families are asked to identify dietary requirements and foods to avoid when enrolling, so those details belong in the child’s care arrangements from the start.

School preparation includes links with nearby primary schools. The nursery describes links with St Anne’s Primary School and other Nantwich primaries; in July 2025, teachers visited and exchanged teaching ideas with practitioners. Attendance does not guarantee a Reception place, and families still use the local authority admissions process.

Sessions and Attendance

Opening hours are 7.30am to 6pm, Monday to Friday. Sunflowers operates for 51 weeks, closing for bank holidays and a week at Christmas. The funded booking patterns are more specific than that opening window and need to be considered separately.

For the 30-hour entitlements, the choices are five School Day Sessions, from 9am to 3pm, or three Full Day sessions, from 7.30am to 6pm. The 15-hour preschool arrangement combines two School Day Sessions, from 9am to 3pm, with one morning session, from 9am to noon. These are the nursery’s stated attendance packages; the full-day option should be read alongside its daily charge and any privately paid hours.

School-day and morning sessions can be extended to a full day through paid top-ups. Holiday attendance is charged at private session rates because funding is not stretched into the holidays. Breakfast and after-school care serve children attending St. Anne’s Catholic Primary School, while Holiday Club also accepts children attending elsewhere.

Getting There

The address is Wellington Road, Nantwich, CW5 7DA, within the primary school grounds. Nursery enquiries can be made by telephone on 01270 623 333 or by email to sunflowers@stannes.cheshire.sch.uk.

Funding and Paid Extras

Funding is offered for 38 term-time weeks: the entitlements include 30 hours from the term after an eligible child turns 9 months, and 15 hours for children aged three and four beginning in the term after they turn three, with an extended 30-hour entitlement dependent on eligibility. Where a funding code is required, parents apply through the Government childcare service and supply it before term starts.

Food and snacks carry a separate daily charge on funded attendance. Additional hours and holiday sessions are privately paid, so the funded entitlement and the total invoice are different things. Current prices should be obtained in a written quotation; the funding and fee information sets out the attendance packages and charge structure.

Billing is spread across 12 equal monthly payments using the 51-week operating year. Fees remain payable during a child’s illness, holidays or other absence, and reducing attendance or leaving requires one month’s written notice. Families therefore need to budget for their booked pattern, rather than only the days their child attends.

• Outdoor literacy and staff feedback. The July 2025 priorities were more writing opportunities outside and more frequent individual feedback for practitioners. During a guided tour, ask how both changes now work in the rooms and garden.
• Term-time funding within year-round care. Funded hours cover 38 weeks, while holiday sessions and extra hours are privately paid and funded food is charged separately. Request a written quotation for the exact pattern you intend to use, including food and any nappies, wipes or other consumables.
• Settling and daily care. Complimentary short stays follow enrolment and the administration charge. Use the visit to discuss your baby’s feeding and sleep routines or your toddler’s toilet training; families managing allergies should confirm current food-handling practice too.
• The school connection. Sharing grounds and maintaining teaching links can support preparation for school, but does not secure a Reception place. Keep the nursery decision separate from the local authority application.

Sunflowers suits families who value outdoor exploration, music and movement, with care organised across baby, toddler and preschool rooms. Its funded school-day and full-day packages serve different weekly routines, while the preschool 15-hour arrangement adds a morning session to school-day attendance.

The July 2025 Good judgement sits alongside priorities for staff feedback and outdoor writing. Families must also budget for term-time funding within a year-round service.