Key Steps Day Nursery

Growing food, meeting farm animals and exploring Westonbirt Arboretum give Key Steps Day Nursery a character that extends beyond its Cirencester gardens. Children help cultivate produce they will eat, cooking recurs in their nursery experience, and visiting animals bring the natural world closer. These are concrete ways to connect play with everyday life.

At its June 2023 inspection, Ofsted graded the nursery Good overall, with Outstanding behaviour and attitudes, and found safeguarding effective. That is a dated judgement rather than a description of today's practice. The nursery has capacity for 79 children, accepting ages from 3 months to five years, at 25 Ashcroft Road, Cirencester, GL7 1QZ.

Attendance spans standard days, an early-start option and funded-only term-time sessions, giving families year-round and term-time choices.

Learning and Activities

The Early Years Foundation Stage provides the framework for children's learning, development and care, with play giving them opportunities to explore and practise skills. Alongside that shared foundation, the Key Steps Approach emphasises children choosing and directing their learning through experimentation and discovery. It is a play-based approach, with experiences shaped around each child's development.

Growing and cooking make that approach tangible. Children cultivate their own produce and have regular opportunities to cook, linking ingredients with the food on their plates. The nutrition approach draws on Eat Better Start Better guidelines and work with the Soil Association. For parents, the useful detail is the connection between handling food, preparing it and eating it, rather than a curriculum name alone.

In June 2023, physical activity included tricycle riding and balancing outdoors, while older children practised cutting, making marks and forming their names. Dough work exercised the small movements needed for using writing tools. Toddlers' movement activities developed strength through larger movements. These observations give a picture of how practical play supported different stages of development at that time.

At the June 2023 inspection, Ofsted found children deeply involved in shared play, but identified a need to extend mathematical learning and allow longer thinking time during conversations. The mathematics concern covered more than counting: shape, measurement and spatial understanding also needed stronger teaching. The communication point was equally practical. Asking a question is only part of the exchange; children need time to formulate their response.

Outdoor and Community Life

The gardens are treated as another learning space, with outdoor activity encouraged across different weather conditions. Regular community trips include opportunities to learn about road safety. This adds experiences beyond the nursery grounds while keeping the everyday outdoor offer central.

Westonbirt Arboretum is a named outing destination. Other experiences include visits by police, firefighters and a dentist, alongside opportunities to meet alpacas, chicks or lambs brought into the nursery. These are examples of the experiences children may encounter, rather than a fixed weekly timetable. They bring people, animals and places into learning that children can recognise outside nursery too.

Relationships and Communication

Each child has a key person who provides daily care. That gives families a continuing relationship around their child's needs and gives children a familiar adult within the nursery day. Settling includes time for parents to remain while their child plays, with refreshments for the adults. The arrangement recognises that beginning nursery is a transition for both generations.

Famly is the online portal for learning updates and communication, and parents can also use it to request additional sessions and follow nursery events. Parent gatherings cover practical subjects such as weaning, phonics, changes in behaviour and beginning school. Social events provide a separate opportunity for families to meet each other.

In June 2023, staff exchanged information with parents through daily conversations and an online application. Babies received physical comfort and reassurance, while staff used signing alongside speech for children developing spoken language. These are inspection-era examples of communication and care, separate from the current Famly arrangements.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

Emotional wellbeing is part of the Key Steps Approach: children are supported to recognise feelings and consider how their actions affect others. In June 2023, staff responded calmly when children had difficulty regulating their behaviour and adapted their responses to the individual child. Children also practised everyday independence through choosing play materials and clearing up after lunch.

The nursery uses CCTV across its building and gardens, together with a video entry system. These are security arrangements, rather than a substitute for the dated safeguarding judgement. Recruitment procedures include suitability checks, references and an enhanced DBS check before a successful applicant begins work.

Private childcare fees include homemade meals using organic milk, free-range eggs and British farm-assured meat under the nursery's food-sourcing policy. Growing and cooking give children a role in preparing food.

Older children take part in a ready for school programme, intended to support the move from nursery to primary education, with a mini graduation marking the end of their nursery time. Parent events also address what to expect when school begins. These are preparation activities, not an admissions advantage.

Sessions and Attendance

The standard day runs from 8am to 6pm. An early-start addition covers 7.30am to 8am, by request and subject to sufficient demand. The nursery opens Monday to Friday for 51 weeks each year, closing on bank and public holidays and for one week between Christmas and New Year.

Early starts can be booked regularly or as an occasional addition, but require two weeks' advance booking through Famly. Requests for extra days can be made up to four weeks ahead and are subject to availability. The two-week rule sets minimum notice for early starts; the four-week rule limits how far ahead extra days can be booked.

An enquiry can be made directly to the nursery or through its contact form. Joining the waiting list requires an enrolment form, followed by an email acknowledging the family's inclusion. When a place is accepted, a prepayment is taken and credited against the first month's bill. Current prices come in the nursery's written quotation.

Getting There

The address is 25 Ashcroft Road, Cirencester, GL7 1QZ. On-site parking and secure, waterproof buggy storage support both driving and walking routines, with somewhere to leave a pushchair during the nursery day.

Funding and Paid Extras

Funded childcare is offered alongside private hours. Entitlements include 570 funded hours per year for children from the term after their third birthday and, for eligible working families with children over 9 months, the Extended Entitlement of 1140 funded hours per year. Funding is normally spread across 51 weeks, while funded-only sessions operate over 38 weeks.

The distinction between private and funded hours affects the bill. Private fees include meals, formula, nappies, wipes, sun cream, additional activities and local trips. For funded hours, food and non-food consumables and activities carry separate voluntary service charges. Parents can decline those charges and supply the required items from home, following the nursery's food, drink and consumables policies.

Hours beyond the funded allocation are charged privately. Families using an eligibility code must reconfirm it every three months and provide the required information by the relevant cut-off date. The fees page provides the funding overview; the Key Steps Approach explains the nursery's learning and care arrangements.

• Learning conversations. In June 2023, mathematical teaching and the time children had to think before answering needed development. At a visit, ask how staff now extend number, shape and measurement through play and make room for children's responses.
• Early-start planning. The 7.30am addition depends on demand and requires booking two weeks ahead. Families whose work begins early should establish how that arrangement would fit their regular attendance.
• Funded-session choices. Funding spread across 51 weeks and funded-only attendance across 38 weeks are different arrangements. Compare the written quotation for your intended pattern, including the voluntary service charges and the option to supply items yourself.

Key Steps suits families seeking full days (the Standard day), extended days with an Early start, or funded-only term-time sessions. Its clearest attractions are practical: growing and cooking food, gardens, community experiences and a key-person relationship supported by Famly communication.

The June 2023 judgement provides a positive inspection reference, but its teaching recommendations deserve attention alongside that grade. For parents, the decision rests on how the nursery's play-based approach fits their child and how its attendance and funding arrangements fit family life.