The Nursery School Charlwood

A Tudor country house, 4.5 acres of gardens and woodland, and an On-site Forest School give The Nursery School Charlwood a substantial outdoor setting. Forest School brings learning into a natural environment through exploration and practical activity. The house retains original windows, fireplaces and a Horsham stone roof; outside, a sensory garden and an all-weather rear garden offer different spaces for play.

The nursery serves children aged 3 to 60 months and has 110 places in total. At its March 2025 inspection, Ofsted judged it Good overall, found safeguarding effective and praised the support for children with special educational needs and disabilities, including individual learning targets. That judgement needs to be read alongside later, repeated supervision concerns and the corrective action described below.

Full-day, morning and afternoon bookings serve different family routines. The grounds are a major attraction, but the way children are supervised between different areas deserves equal attention.

Learning and Activities

The early years foundation stage sets the requirements for children's learning, development and care: in everyday terms, play, conversation and practical experiences help children develop their skills. In March 2025, learning followed a clear sequence, with staff using children's interests and next steps to shape their interactions. The examples were tangible rather than abstract.

Babies explored fabric textures and watched moving bubbles and stars inside tubes. A peek-a-boo game with transparent material combined sensory exploration with interaction. Staff also showed babies how to knock bricks together, giving them an action to imitate and repeat. These small experiences connect looking, touching and movement with another person.

For toddlers, a musical activity in March 2025 involved listening to instructions, moving ribbons with the rhythm and reaching to burst bubbles. Older children practised climbing on a small frame, using demonstrations drawn from other children's movements to try again. The emphasis was on participation: children had something to do, an example to follow and opportunities to persist.

Stories also prompted conversation in March 2025. Staff used questions with more than one possible answer, and children responded with questions of their own. Parents were invited to share stories or puppet performances in languages used at home, bringing family experience into the nursery's activities.

Outdoor and Community Life

The On-site Forest School gives outdoor learning a space within the nursery grounds. Alongside it, the sensory garden and all-weather rear garden offer alternatives to the woodland setting. For families who value outdoor experiences, this combination is more useful than a single play area: different environments can support different kinds of exploration.

In March 2025, staff linked outings to children's interests. One cooking activity led to a supermarket visit to obtain pizza ingredients, followed by making the pizzas back at nursery. The value lay in the connection between the activity and the trip. Shopping became part of making something, rather than an excursion detached from the children's learning.

The same month's daily experiences included activities in the forest school area and other outings. These observations establish what children were doing then; the current physical offer includes the woodland, gardens and outdoor play space.

Relationships and Communication

In March 2025, children approached staff when they wanted comfort and involved them in their play. Babies smiled during shared games, while staff responded kindly to children and encouraged courteous behaviour. Those examples give parents a concrete picture of relationships at the time, rather than relying on a general promise of warmth.

Staff also used a shared system to understand children's interests and learning needs in March 2025. This helped information about a child inform interactions across the team. Leaders sought parents' views, but the improvement priority was to find additional ways of helping parents understand how to extend learning at home. Communication about the nursery day and useful guidance for home are different tasks; both matter.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

Individual planning was part of the March 2025 approach to additional needs. Staff identified possible gaps in learning, set targets and received support from leaders to use appropriate strategies. This is a specific mechanism families can discuss, rather than a blanket assurance about every child's future experience.

In regulatory calls on 3 March and 4 June 2026, Ofsted found requirements had not been met and recorded corrective action. The notification preceding the March call concerned staffing ratios and whether the nursery's premises, surroundings and equipment were safe and suitable. The June call followed notifications about ratios, risk assessments and understanding and supporting children's behaviour. Both outcomes recorded action already taken to improve supervision during movement between nursery areas; the June action included stronger risk assessments, further staff training and more leadership support within rooms. They do not establish a new inspection judgement.

The repetition matters because movement between spaces is part of daily nursery life. The gardens and woodland remain an attraction, but their practical value depends on the arrangements for supervising children as they use them. Families should weigh the physical setting and the later supervision history together.

Sessions and Attendance

Three booking patterns are offered: a full day runs from 7.30am to 6pm, a morning from 7.30am to 1pm, and an afternoon from 1pm to 6pm. The opening window is 7.30am to 6pm, Monday to Friday. Morning and afternoon sessions are separate options, so the nursery can suit routines that do not require a full day.

Admissions operate throughout the year, with a minimum attendance of four sessions. Full-time requests take priority over full-day requests, and full days take priority over sessional bookings. An existing child, a sibling of an attending child and a child transferring from another company setting also have priority before the waiting-list request date is considered.

The nursery opens for 51 weeks annually, excluding bank holidays and its inset day, and closes between Christmas and New Year for one week. Cancelling a place or changing attendance requires two months' written notice. A registration charge and deposit apply; the deposit is refundable on leaving, but neither is refunded if the child does not start.

Getting There

The address is Charlwood Road, Lowfield Heath, Crawley, RH11 0QA. Parking is provided, and the nursery has a parents' lounge. Enquiries can be made through its contact form or by telephone on 01293 664133.

Funding and Paid Extras

Funded early education includes the 15-hour entitlement for three- and four-year-olds from the term after their third birthday, with an additional 15 hours subject to eligibility. Private childcare is also offered. Families should obtain current prices in the nursery's written quotation and consider the attendance commitment alongside the funded hours.

• Repeated supervision concerns. Corrective action on 3 March and 4 June 2026 addressed supervision during movement between areas. During a visit, ask staff to explain the arrangements now used between rooms and outdoor spaces, including how leadership checks them.
• Four-session commitment. Morning, afternoon and full-day bookings are offered, but the minimum attendance is four sessions and fuller bookings receive priority. Consider whether that pattern fits your week before accepting a place.
• Learning beyond nursery. In March 2025, the improvement priority concerned helping parents support learning at home. Ask for an example of the guidance families now receive and how it relates to their child's next steps.
• Quotation and cancellation terms. Two months' written notice applies to attendance changes or cancellation, and the registration charge and deposit are lost if a child does not start.

The Nursery School Charlwood suits families seeking morning or afternoon sessions as well as full-day care, provided its four-session minimum fits their routine. The Tudor house, sensory garden and woodland give it a recognisable character, while the March 2025 experiences connected sensory play, music, stories and outings with children's learning.

The balance is less straightforward on supervision. Corrective action was recorded twice in 2026 around movement between areas. Understanding how those arrangements work now should be central to a family's decision, alongside the setting's outdoor appeal and Good inspection judgement.