Little Barn Owls Nursery, Brookfield

Children making seesaws from available resources, exploring their reflections and talking through their feelings give Brookfield its clearest character: everyday objects become starting points for learning. At its March 2025 inspection, Ofsted rated the nursery Outstanding and judged safeguarding effective. The useful detail lies in the small interactions behind that judgement.

Little Barn Owls Nursery, Brookfield serves children aged 3 to 60 months in Lowfield Heath, Crawley, with capacity for 65 children. That is the whole nursery’s capacity, rather than the size of a room or the number attending together. Its London Road address places the practical decision alongside the educational one: families need an attendance arrangement that fits their working week.

Learning and Activities

The early years foundation stage sets the requirements for children’s learning, development and care. For children, this means developing communication, understanding feelings and practising independence through play and everyday routines.

In March 2025, children made seesaws from the resources around them and experimented with toy cars rocking backwards and forwards. Staff followed children’s interests, including using a child’s exploration of a mirror to introduce differences and similarities between people. These were small, concrete starting points. They gave children something they could see and investigate before moving towards a more abstract idea.

Conversation also grew out of practical activity. During papier-mâché work that March, adults encouraged children to describe changes in the mixture and practise new vocabulary. The activity gave a word an immediate meaning: children could connect what they said with what they were making. Exchanges went backwards and forwards, giving children space to contribute rather than simply receive instructions.

Nature and natural materials formed part of staff training and curriculum delivery in March 2025. Adults received coaching and mentoring to help put the curriculum into practice. For parents, the relevant connection is between the resources children use and the adult attention around them: an interesting object becomes more useful when someone helps a child investigate it.

Relationships and Communication

In March 2025, staff gathered information from families and other agencies to shape children’s care and teaching. Moves between rooms included handovers between adults and settling sessions adjusted to the child. A room change therefore involved preparation, with time for a child to become familiar with the next environment.

Relationships were expressed through ordinary care routines. That March, adults sought children’s permission before helping with personal care or changing nappies, while modelling courteous language themselves. This gave children opportunities to express preferences during tasks that adults otherwise might simply carry out for them.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

Discussion times in March 2025 invited children to look back over their day and explain how experiences had made them feel. Children waited for a turn and listened while others spoke. The practical value was twofold: a chance to put feelings into words and a routine for hearing someone else’s perspective.

Independence began with manageable tasks. In March 2025, even younger children used mirrors when learning to clean their faces after eating; older children prepared snacks with equipment suited to their age. Self-care was something children practised, with adults providing the means to attempt it themselves.

Staff also included children in group activities and responded promptly when concerns arose in March 2025. These are useful mechanisms for parents weighing how their child’s needs will be understood across different parts of the nursery day.

Sessions and Attendance

Opening hours are 7.30am to 6.30pm, Monday to Friday. Brookfield operates across the year, closing on bank holidays and for one week at Christmas. Those closures matter when arranging cover around work, even for families whose usual childcare runs throughout the year.

Getting There

The nursery is on London Road, Lowfield Heath, Crawley, RH10 9TR. Brookfield’s direct contact details are 01293 535300 and brookfield@littlebarnowls.co.uk; these provide a straightforward enquiry route for this branch.

Funding and Paid Extras

In March 2025, Brookfield received funding for free early education. Families should obtain current prices in the nursery’s written quotation, keeping their proposed attendance and any funded hours together when considering the overall arrangement.

• Your attendance pattern. The weekday opening window runs from 7.30am to 6.30pm. At a visit, what booking pattern would fit your required days and collection time?
• Moving between rooms. In March 2025, room changes involved adult handovers and settling sessions shaped around the child. Ask how that preparation would work for your child’s next move.
• The written quotation. Brookfield received early education funding in March 2025. Which funded arrangement would apply to your proposed attendance, and how would meals and consumables be treated?

Brookfield merits consideration by families who value children having a voice in learning and personal care. Its March 2025 examples are persuasive because they are specific: investigating a changing mixture, discussing feelings and practising self-care. For families needing childcare across the year, the weekday opening window is a useful practical starting point. The choice rests on bringing that educational character together with the attendance arrangement your family needs.