Westhill Corner Day Nursery & Pre-school

A garden for trikes and insect hunts, a room for children finding their feet, and settling sessions with no fixed limit give Westhill Corner its character. This Coundon nursery combines age-specific rooms with an emphasis on children's interests. The practical appeal is straightforward: babies can keep familiar feeding and sleep routines, while older children build independence before school.

Westhill Corner Day Nursery & Pre-school has 39 places in total and accepts children from two months to five years. Its address is 1 Westhill Road, Coventry, CV6 2AD. At the September 2022 inspection, Ofsted rated the nursery Good, judged safeguarding effective and found that children were progressing well. That dated assessment gives a useful starting point, alongside the current rooms, garden and settling arrangements.

Attendance includes full-day bookings and a term-time option for families using specified funded entitlements. The booking conditions matter as much as the opening hours, especially for parents fitting care around a shorter working week.

Rooms and Ages

The Baby Room, for children up to 12 months, combines sensory exploration and opportunities to develop movement with care organised around individual feeding and sleep routines.

For children aged one to two, the First Steps Room provides an open, bright space where walking practice, small-world play and role play support coordination and early relationships.

The Toddler Room serves children aged two to three, with an emphasis on growing independence and learning to share, cooperate and play alongside other children.

Children aged three to five use the Pre-School Room, where activities follow their interests while developing the independence, social confidence and learning skills needed for primary school.

These stages give the nursery a clear progression. The First Steps Room is especially relevant for a child whose needs have moved beyond those of a young baby but who is still developing mobility and confidence with other children. Its physical layout and imaginative resources provide a concrete reason for having that intermediate stage.

Learning and Activities

The early years foundation stage sets the common requirements for children's learning, development and care. Here, the day translates that into play, conversation, movement and experiences that help children practise new skills.

Alongside that framework, Westhill Corner uses Tommies Childcare's group-wide In the Moment approach: activities respond to what interests a child, with language and early maths woven into play. The useful distinction is the starting point. Children's curiosity helps shape the activity.

In September 2022, babies explored frozen food to encounter different textures and descriptive words; toddlers worked with dough and scissors to practise hand control. Simple signing supported communication across the nursery. These examples connect learning to something a child can touch, manipulate or express.

A lending library also operated in September 2022, extending shared reading into family life. Children had made a post-office outing to send letters to Buckingham Palace, linking an everyday errand with a purpose they could understand. Neither experience needs to be elaborate to give children something meaningful to talk about.

Outdoor and Community Life

The Garden supports outdoor play each day, including wet-weather days. Running, trike riding and insect hunts give children different ways to use the space: energetic movement sits alongside close observation of living things. For families who value time outside, this is a concrete part of the nursery day.

The outdoor offer also complements the indoor rooms. Children practising coordination can move beyond smaller resources, while those drawn to nature have something real to investigate. The garden therefore contributes to both physical activity and interest-led exploration.

Relationships and Communication

Unlimited settling-in sessions allow the beginning of nursery attendance to follow the child's pace. That matters most for families whose baby needs time to become comfortable with unfamiliar routines: the settling offer does not impose a fixed number of sessions. Westhill Corner also works with parents on babies' sleep and feeding patterns, making those routines part of the care discussion.

Famly, the app used for communication between families and the nursery, provides another connection with the child's day. It gives parents a channel for staying in touch with the team while their child is away from home. Its value here is practical communication, rather than a substitute for conversations about care.

In September 2022, parents contributed to the next steps planned for children's learning, and staff had offered workshops about child development. Older children took a bear home with a family activity connected to their learning. These arrangements brought home experiences into nursery planning and gave parents something specific to share with their child.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

At the September 2022 inspection, Ofsted found that children with special educational needs and/or disabilities received good support through individual plans, but staff needed to involve outside professionals sooner; staff also needed clearer intentions for some learning activities. Both findings matter: an engaging activity needs a purpose, and support within the nursery sometimes needs specialist input beyond it.

In September 2022, familiar stories helped children discuss emotions, consistent behaviour rules guided expectations, and group affirmations supported confidence. Older children practised everyday independence by clearing lunch items and managing small personal tasks. These were practical opportunities to take responsibility within an ordinary day.

Meals are cooked by Tommies Childcare's nursery chefs and brought freshly prepared to Westhill Corner each day. This gives families a food arrangement based on prepared nursery meals, while individual dietary needs remain an important part of the care discussion.

Sessions and Attendance

Westhill Corner opens Monday to Friday, from 7.30am to 6pm. The full-day session uses those same times. Standard bookings require at least two full days each week; where a child attends three full days or fewer, the pattern must include Monday or Friday. A full-week booking covers Monday to Friday.

The weekday condition is significant. A family wanting only midweek days needs to factor it into the pattern from the beginning, rather than treating the minimum as simply a number of sessions. The full-week option and smaller full-day bookings serve different working arrangements, but both sit within the same daily session window.

Year-round fees are spread into 12 equal monthly payments using 51 weeks of charges. Bills include bank holidays and a staff development day. The nursery closes for bank holidays and a Christmas week, so families need to distinguish the billing arrangement from the days on which care takes place.

Payment is due in advance on the first day of the month. Families can use Direct Debit, Tax-Free Childcare or a combination of the two. Cash and card payments are not accepted for childcare bills. Extra charges apply to late collection and overdue payment.

Getting There

The nursery occupies the corner of Westhill Road in Coundon, with access towards Coventry city centre and routes across the city. Enquiries can be made through its message facility or by telephone on 02476 591 767.

Funding and Paid Extras

Funded childcare includes 15 hours for children aged two receiving additional support, 15 hours for all three- and four-year-olds, and 30 hours for eligible working families. The working-family entitlement applies to eligible children from nine months. Funding can be stretched across 51 weeks, with additional paid care where a family's booking exceeds the funded hours.

A term-time option covers 38 weeks for families using either of the 15-hour entitlements. Those bookings exclude holiday care and are allocated in order of application, subject to the nursery's admissions policy. This is a different arrangement from stretching an entitlement across the year: the distinction affects both holiday cover and the distribution of funded hours.

Food and snacks are included in standard paid sessions; meals on funded days are charged separately, and term-time funded bookings may also involve a meal charge if the nursery supplies the food.

Funding administration uses Funding Loop, an online service for completing the required funding forms. Families must register after receiving their invitation so the nursery has permission to claim their entitlement. Working-family codes also need renewal every three months. Eligibility alone therefore does not complete the administration needed to apply funding to a booking.

A registration charge is paid when a family formally requests a place. If the requested attendance pattern cannot be offered and the family withdraws, that charge is refunded; it becomes non-refundable when a place is accepted. A separate acceptance payment is credited against the first month's bill. Current prices come in the nursery's written quotation, with the fees and booking terms setting out the charging structure.

• Weekday fit. Standard attendance starts at two full days, and bookings of three days or fewer must include Monday or Friday. A visit is the time to discuss how that condition fits the family's intended week.
• Purposeful learning and specialist support. The September 2022 improvement points concerned activity intentions and earlier collaboration with outside professionals. Ask how staff now explain a child's next steps and when they bring specialist advice into an individual support plan.
• Baby routines and daily supplies. The Baby Room works around sleep and feeding routines, with unlimited settling sessions. During a visit, discuss how the Baby Room accommodates your child's sleep and feeding routines.
• Term-time funding. The 38-week option applies to the two 15-hour entitlements and excludes holidays. Families need to weigh that calendar against the stretched arrangement and include any food charges in their budget.

Westhill Corner suits families wanting a smaller whole-setting capacity, separate developmental stages and daily garden play. Unlimited settling sessions and communication through Famly add practical appeal, while the First Steps Room gives newly mobile children a stage between baby care and toddler life.

Its attendance offer suits both families booking full days across the year and those using the qualifying term-time funded option. The weekday conditions deserve careful attention. The Good judgement from September 2022 is a positive dated assessment, balanced by improvement points about learning intentions and outside specialist involvement. The strongest decision rests on how the rooms, routines and booking pattern fit the individual child.