Banana Moon Day Nursery Longford

A dedicated sleep room with natural wood cots, an outdoor adventure area and food cooked in-house give Banana Moon Day Nursery Longford a practical character: rest, movement and mealtimes have spaces of their own. This Coventry nursery on Bedlam Lane accepts children from 3 to 58 months, spanning early baby care through to preparation for school.

At its 9 April 2025 inspection, Ofsted rated the nursery Good overall and found its safeguarding arrangements effective. The useful detail lies beneath the grade. In April 2025, babies practised using spoons by scooping oats for toy animals, while older children worked together to construct an obstacle course and choose their route. Everyday play had a purpose, connecting physical coordination with independence and cooperation.

Full days and half days are offered, with both term-time and stretched funding arrangements. That gives families different ways to organise attendance rather than a single day-length option.

Rooms and Ages

The group-wide room stages used here distinguish mobility as well as age. Baby Moons starts at three months and continues until children move confidently, with sensory exploration of texture, colour and shape alongside attention to familiar home routines. That developmental boundary matters: a child's readiness to move on is part of the arrangement.

Teenie Moons serves mobile children up to two years, with painting, singing and messy play supporting their expanding exploration. Mini Moons covers ages two to three, encouraging children to choose activities and practise independence, including potty training. Full Moons takes children from three towards school age, combining child-chosen play with individual learning tracked by a key person. These are different emphases, rather than identical days divided by age.

In April 2025, furniture positioning helped babies beginning to walk, and a more spacious role-play area allowed children to bring toys from elsewhere into their games. The environment was being adjusted around what children could do. Those examples are more informative than a general promise of stimulating rooms.

Learning and Activities

The EYFS provides the framework for children's learning, development and care, including learning through play and building communication, physical skills and independence. Alongside it sits the group-wide Banana Moon Early Learning & Development Programme, which uses children's interests to shape playful teaching and open-ended resources. Its practical emphasis is on observing what a child already knows and building from there, rather than expecting every child to follow an identical activity sequence.

The programme brings parent communication into that planning. Information about learning at home can help staff choose experiences at nursery, while observations guide subsequent activities. The curriculum overview explains this group approach. The group programme complements the EYFS requirements for learning and development.

Communication deserves closer attention. In April 2025, storytelling, rhymes, songs and conversation were regular parts of the day, and additional programmes had begun for children with potential language delays. The improvement priority was to extend those tools more widely so that communication and language teaching became more precisely targeted. Families should weigh that specific development point alongside the overall grade.

Outdoor and Community Life

Outdoor play happens daily throughout the year. A secure playground and natural adventure area provide space for exercise and exploration, giving children a change of setting as well as room to move. This is part of the ordinary nursery day.

In April 2025, older children combined water with gathered natural materials in pretend cooking, drawing on experiences from home. Elsewhere, building an obstacle course required children to agree how it would work and take turns using it. Both examples connect imaginative play with decisions children make together.

Relationships and Communication

Settling is organised around the individual family, with parents attending introductory sessions and discussing routines or particular needs with staff. For babies, continuity with home routines is an explicit part of the care arrangement. The flexible settling policy gives staff and parents a way to establish that understanding before attendance begins.

The group-wide Parent App connects daily care with learning updates. It records sleep, snacks and activities, shares photographs and supports personalised learning journals; families can also send comments from home and give named relatives access. For parents, that means practical information about the day sits alongside observations of development, rather than arriving as separate fragments.

In April 2025, staff gathered information about children's earlier learning when they started, then used interests and observations to plan subsequent experiences. Parents also received online updates and discussed care and learning at collection. The connection between home information and nursery planning was visible in daily practice.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

At the April 2025 inspection, Ofsted found that children with SEND or additional needs received appropriate help through work with parents and other professionals, including alternative communication methods for children who were not yet speaking, and made progress from their starting points. That is a dated finding about how support operated, rather than a blanket promise about every future need.

Sleep has a separate setting: the dedicated sleep room uses soft lighting and natural wood cots, with individual bed linen washed on site. Staff make regular checks alongside CCTV monitoring and aim to follow established sleep routines. Separating sleep from active play gives babies a quieter place to rest.

Fingerprint access controls entry, while unregistered visitors wait for staff admission. CCTV also operates around the nursery.

Two group initiatives have physical equipment at this branch: Little hearts, bright futures brought a CardiAid defibrillator to reception, while Big moments, bright futures added a LifeVac anti-choking device. The former is accessible to the wider community through the local ambulance service; the latter sits alongside attention to food preparation and supervision at meals. Equipment provision is one part of the arrangements, rather than an assurance about outcomes.

Sessions and Attendance

The address is 3 Bedlam Lane, Longford, Coventry, CV6 6AR. Opening hours are 7.30am to 6.30pm, Monday to Friday, with year-round operation and closures for bank holidays and Christmas. Enquiries can be made through a callback form or by telephone on 02476 685669.

The paid full day runs from 8am to 6pm. Half days run from 8am to 1pm or from 1pm to 6pm, and funded sessions use those same three windows. Early care covers 7.30am to 8am; late care covers 6pm to 6.30pm. The distinction between opening hours and the core booked day matters when planning work or travel.

Attendance of two half days or one full day each week is recommended, rather than stated as a compulsory minimum. Fees remain payable during sickness and holidays, with charging across 51 weeks, including bank holidays. Families therefore need to consider the ongoing booking commitment as well as their chosen session length.

Funding and Paid Extras

Funded entitlement hours are offered subject to the child's eligibility, with either term-time delivery or funding stretched across the full year. Private paid sessions and additional hours are also offered. Current prices come in the nursery's written quotation; the fees information is the starting point for its charge structure.

Meals are charged separately: children over two have a per-meal charge, while under-twos have weekly meal-and-snack packages associated with funded hours. Consumables are also charged separately through weekly charges that include breakfast and snacks; families wishing to supply particular consumables themselves can discuss the next steps with the nursery. Funded hours therefore need to be considered separately from these associated costs.

A non-refundable registration charge applies, except where a child attends only for funded hours excluding meals. No deposit is charged. Early care, late care and late collection have separate charges, so the core session is not the whole cost structure for every booking.

Food is cooked in the nursery's own kitchen, with two hot meals each day, snacks and a separate weaning menu for younger babies. Menus rotate frequently, and the nursery's dietary policy is to cater for allergies and other individual requirements.

• Language teaching and staff development. The April 2025 priorities were wider use of communication tools and more opportunities for staff to evaluate their own practice. At a visit, ask how both changes now shape activities and staff support.
• The funded-hours bill. Meals and consumables carry separate charges, with different meal arrangements for under-twos and older children. Request a written quotation for the exact session pattern and discuss any consumables you intend to supply yourself.
• Baby routines and room moves. Baby Moons uses confident mobility as its transition point, and care aims to follow home routines. Use settling discussions to explore how sleep and movement between stages would work for your child.
• Dietary needs. There is a separate weaning menu and a policy of accommodating allergies. Families affected by allergies should confirm current food preparation and mealtime practice before starting.

Banana Moon Longford suits families seeking either full-day attendance or morning and afternoon half days, including those considering term-time or stretched funded hours. The separate sleep room, daily outdoor play and app-based communication give the care arrangements useful substance.

The April 2025 Good judgement sits alongside clear improvement priorities in language teaching and staff reflection. For families, the decision turns on how those priorities have developed and how the separately charged meals and consumables fit their chosen booking. The room stages and settling arrangements offer concrete points for that conversation.