Kids Capers Day Nursery

Woodwork with real tools, a garden pizza oven and children choosing between indoor and outdoor play give Kids Capers Day Nursery a practical, exploratory character. At The Pavilion in Crawley, the day combines opportunities to make things, investigate nature and practise everyday skills. The outdoor space matters here. It extends the learning beyond a change of scenery, with growing, cooking, climbing and water play built into the surroundings.

Children can attend from 3 months to 5 years. At its 31 March 2023 inspection, Ofsted rated the nursery Good and found safeguarding effective, with children progressing well through a carefully planned curriculum. That judgement sits alongside two useful cautions from March 2023: staff needed to introduce unfamiliar vocabulary more consistently and improve how activities held younger children's attention.

Morning, afternoon and day sessions give families different attendance options. The strongest reason to consider Kids Capers, though, is its combination of hands-on learning and spaces where children can choose, experiment or take a quieter moment.

Rooms and Ages

Little Rays provides the youngest children with sensory toys, soft play areas and comfortable corners, supporting early movement, communication and social development through familiar routines and exploration. For a baby starting nursery, those physical resources offer different ways to investigate without relying on a single organised activity.

Sunshine Room combines a comfy den, construction and mark-making resources with access to the sensory room, an undercover outdoor space and the main garden. Its arrangement gives active younger children opportunities to switch between making, building and outdoor play. Covered space also makes the outdoors a practical part of the day.

Rainbow Room has areas for creative arts, construction and role play, alongside places to relax and direct garden access; its emphasis includes cooperation, problem-solving and independence with meals and toileting. Preparation for school therefore includes ordinary routines as well as learning activities. Managing a meal or personal care is part of becoming more independent.

These rooms provide different environments rather than one repeated layout. The sensory room adds another option across the nursery: it is used for relaxation, mindfulness, yoga and helping children settle. That gives quieter experiences a physical place alongside the busier play spaces.

Learning and Activities

The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) guides planning and assessment, covering children's learning and development through experiences such as play, creative work and exploring their surroundings. Kids Capers adds the Curiosity Approach, using open-ended activities and children's interests to shape what they do. Practitioners observe play and introduce further opportunities, so a child's choice is a starting point for learning rather than simply free time.

Accreditation in the Curiosity Approach accompanies a routine that lets children choose indoor or outdoor play. The practical value is agency: children have opportunities to follow an interest and make decisions about their activity. It also puts a responsibility on adults to recognise when a child needs help or a different invitation to join in.

Woodwork brings authentic tools into supervised activities, with attention to safe use, boundaries and techniques. Children practise coordination while making something themselves. Forest School, the nursery's nature-based learning sessions, adds shelter building, responsible gathering of natural materials and learning about plants and wildlife. It operates throughout the year, rather than being confined to fair-weather outings.

In March 2023, babies were encouraged to develop standing skills through activities placed on low tables, while children cut fruit and prepared fruit tea. These examples show how everyday materials can become learning opportunities. The same dated account identified occasions when adults missed signs that younger children were struggling to participate or had lost interest. That is an important qualification to the emphasis on child-led play.

Outdoor and Community Life

The garden has wooden climbing and balancing apparatus, a large walk-in sand pit and water play equipment, including a water cascade. In the mud kitchen, weighing scales and utensils sit alongside natural materials. These are concrete opportunities to pour, measure, build and test ideas, with physical play sharing space with imaginative activity.

Growing food connects the garden with the kitchen. Children help cultivate and harvest produce including lettuce, apples and pears, which the chef then uses in food preparation. The vegetable patch makes the connection between a plant and a meal tangible, while giving children responsibilities they can return to as things grow.

The fire pit area includes a pizza oven and a Kelly Kettle, used for outdoor food and warm drinks with adult guidance. Collecting wood and preparing snacks make cooking a shared activity rather than something children only encounter at the table. Beyond the garden, regular visits to nearby fields and woodlands involve gathering materials and observing nature.

Relationships and Communication

Each child has a key person, backed by a second practitioner through a buddy arrangement when the main key person is away. Personalised transition schedules support starting nursery and changing rooms. Together, those arrangements give families a clear relationship to build while allowing settling to proceed at the child's pace.

Communication has several distinct channels. Footsteps carries observations and allows parents to contribute information from home; Daycare provides routine logs covering food, sleep and nappy changes. The Insights newsletter supplies activity and event updates. Keeping developmental observations separate from daily care logs helps parents understand both what their child is learning and how the day has gone.

Development conversations can take place by telephone or Teams, including around the 2-year check. Stay and Play sessions let families participate in nursery life during the year, while an annual graduation marks the move towards school. Staff also complete transition forms for new teachers, passing on information to support that next step.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

The SENDCO develops individual action plans with families and practitioners, drawing on an Early Years advisor or external agencies when specialist input is needed. Routines, activities and outings can be adapted to support participation. These are useful mechanisms for families whose child needs additional help: planning, parental involvement and routes to specialist advice are all part of the arrangement.

In March 2023, a dimly lit calming room gave children opportunities to rest and talk about feelings, while staff sought children's consent during nappy changes. Those observations connect emotional wellbeing with ordinary care routines. They are dated examples of practice, rather than a description of every child's current day.

An on-site chef makes fresh meals and accommodates dietary preferences, intolerances and allergies; babies who are weaning can receive puréed food. Breakfast, snacks, lunch and tea depend on the session attended, so food provision follows the child's attendance rather than a single meal pattern for everyone.

Sessions and Attendance

The address is The Pavilion, Loppets Road, Crawley, RH10 5DP. Opening hours are 7.30am to 6.30pm, Monday to Friday, and the nursery operates for 51 weeks of the year.

Families can book morning, afternoon or day sessions, with session lengths ranging from 4 to 11 hours. That provides a choice between part-day attendance and a longer day. Enquiries can be made by telephone on 01293 612221, by email to nursery@kidscapers.co.uk or through the contact form. Onsite parking is provided.

Funding and Paid Extras

Funded childcare includes the 15-hour entitlement for children aged 3 to 4, the 30-hour offer for eligible working parents from the term after a child turns 9 months until they start school, and 15 hours of early learning for eligible 2-year-olds receiving specified forms of support. Eligibility conditions still apply. Kids Capers spreads funded hours across its 51-week year, rather than delivering them solely over 38 weeks.

Families do not have to use their full entitlement, but the number of funded hours taken cannot be increased during a term because claims are made termly. This is an important planning rule for parents expecting their working hours or childcare needs to change. Additional private hours sit outside the funded allocation, and nursery payments are made monthly by bank transfer.

Funding covers childcare rather than snacks, meals, certain nursery-supplied consumables or additional services and activities. On funded attendance, food and those consumables are charged separately from the childcare entitlement. Families should obtain a current written quotation covering their attendance pattern and extras.

• Younger children's engagement. In March 2023, activities did not consistently sustain younger children's involvement, and adults needed to extend vocabulary more reliably. Ask how practitioners now adapt an activity when a baby or toddler loses interest, and how new words are introduced during play.
• Food allergies. The chef accommodates allergies and intolerances. Families managing an allergy should confirm the current arrangements for preparation, serving and communication between the kitchen and their child's room.
• Funded hours across the year. Entitlements are stretched over 51 weeks, and take-up cannot increase mid-term. Match the proposed attendance pattern to your expected needs and include food and consumable charges in the written quotation.
• Settling and room changes. Personalised transition schedules and a second key person provide continuity. During a visit, discuss how those arrangements would work for your child and how information moves between Little Rays, Sunshine Room and Rainbow Room.

Kids Capers suits families seeking morning or afternoon attendance as well as those needing day sessions, especially where outdoor exploration and practical activities appeal. Its garden, woodwork and Forest School give substance to the child-led approach; the sensory room and key-person arrangements provide a quieter, relational counterbalance.

The March 2023 Good judgement is encouraging, but the cautions about vocabulary and younger children's engagement deserve attention. The decision rests on how well the hands-on day, settling arrangements and stretched funding pattern fit the individual child and family.