Scallywags Nursery Chellaston

Weekly Field Forest Play and a baby playroom with designated sleep areas give Scallywags Nursery Chellaston a clear practical identity: outdoor experiences for older children, with space for the youngest to rest. This Rowallan Way nursery has capacity for 140 children, accepting children from 3 to 60 months. Its room structure separates different stages of early childhood rather than treating the whole age range as one group.

At the 24 March 2026 inspection, Ofsted judged achievement, behaviour and routines, curriculum and teaching, and inclusion to meet the expected standard, while children's welfare and wellbeing and leadership and governance needed attention; safeguarding standards were met. That is a mixed assessment. The learning offer has substance, but the care concerns deserve considerable weight in a parent's decision.

Music Time, garden access and daily Yoga and Mindfulness time give families concrete activities to weigh alongside those findings. The strongest reasons to consider Chellaston are its room environments and the variety of physical and language experiences. The strongest reservation concerns how consistently adults provide support when children need it.

Rooms and Ages

Lion Cubs, for children aged 3–16 months, has its own equipped playroom, designated sleeping areas and access to a secure garden, giving babies separate provision for activity and rest. Monkeys, for 12–24 months, combines an equipped playroom with a doorway directly into its own secure outdoor area, with an emphasis on movement, communication and growing independence.

Hippos, for ages 2–3 years, introduces experiences associated with the older rooms to make progression towards preschool more familiar. Crocodiles, for ages 2.5–3.5 years, uses resources and activity areas suited to that stage to develop independence and prepare children for preschool. Pre-School, for ages 3.5–4.5 years, combines preparation for Reception experiences with daily movement between the room and garden and both large and small physical play.

Overlapping age bands make room progression an important consideration alongside a child's care routines and developing abilities.

Learning and Activities

EYFS provides the shared foundation for learning through play, covering communication, physical development, relationships, literacy, mathematics, understanding the world and creative expression. Chellaston's curriculum puts everyday experiences alongside that foundation: finding out where food originates, exploring the community and experiencing a bus ride. These are practical starting points for talking, asking questions and understanding familiar life beyond home.

Development Matters supports planning by breaking broader developmental expectations into smaller learning steps. Activities combine children's choices with adult guidance. Staff aim to provide an adult-focused activity each day, appropriate to the children's age, and plan daily toy introductions. This gives interests a place in the day while retaining opportunities to teach a particular skill. The emphasis is on building learning from what a child can already do.

Music Time visits weekly, usually on Tuesday afternoons, for the Crocodile and Zebra preschool rooms, combining familiar songs and nursery rhymes with actions and props. Weekly PE for the Zebra preschool rooms adds planned physical activity and work on movement skills. Daily Yoga and Mindfulness time uses stories and movements inspired by yoga across the nursery. These are recurring parts of nursery life, rather than occasional entertainment.

Outdoor and Community Life

Field Forest Play is a weekly outdoor activity for the Crocodile and Zebra preschool rooms, using positive outdoor experiences to encourage independence, communication and awareness of others. The garden connections also matter: babies can use their secure outdoor area during the day, Monkeys has direct access to its own play area, and preschool children have daily free flow between indoors and outside.

Community experiences form another strand of the Chellaston curriculum, including visits connected with acts of kindness. Their value lies in making the wider world tangible: children can encounter everyday places and actions, then bring those experiences back into conversation and play. This sits alongside an emphasis on seasonal change and learning outdoors throughout the year.

Relationships and Communication

Each child has a key person in every room, providing a consistent contact for the family and planning experiences around the child's developmental stage. Taster sessions include a conversation with that adult about the child and the care parents want. That makes the family's knowledge of routines and preferences part of the starting point, rather than leaving staff to discover everything after attendance begins.

Parents have daily conversations with staff, receive monthly progress reports and receive an assessment across the learning areas every 6 months. Learning Journals record children's achievements. These different forms of communication serve different purposes: everyday exchanges cover immediate experiences, while the longer progress information helps parents follow development over time.

In March 2026, staff gathered information from parents to support settling and worked together on children's moves between rooms. Older children collected their meals and cutlery and poured water for themselves. Younger children's independence received less consistent encouragement, with adults sometimes doing manageable tasks for them, including putting on coats. For families, that distinction matters: practical independence depends on children having opportunities to attempt things themselves.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

Chellaston's curriculum includes work with a SENCo and an EAL Co-ordinator, alongside parents, when additional needs are identified. Individual Education Plans (IEPs) set smaller targets, reviewed termly and shared with families. Where further support is needed, concerns can be taken forward with parents to other professionals and additional funding sought. For children learning English, staff seek words from the family's first language to help connect home communication with nursery experiences.

At its March 2026 inspection, Ofsted identified inadequate adult deployment and inconsistent procedures during meals, delayed responses to distressed babies and children, uneven support for feelings and behaviour, and leadership checks that did not reliably identify weaknesses, although safe sleeping and hygiene practices were followed. These concerns affect ordinary parts of the day. They warrant more weight than attractive activity names or reassuring descriptions of care.

In March 2026, meals were nutritious and accommodated children's dietary needs. The required actions, with a completion date of 21 April 2026, addressed consistent support during meals and stronger monitoring of practice. Those dated requirements give families specific issues to discuss, rather than a vague question about whether the nursery has improved.

Sessions and Attendance

The nursery opens Monday to Friday, from 7.30am to 6pm. It operates across the year, closing for bank holidays and one week at Christmas. That opening window gives working families a useful starting point for assessing the day, while the Christmas closure needs to sit alongside their own leave arrangements.

Getting There

The address is Rowallan Way, Chellaston, Derby, DE73 5WX. Enquiries can be made through the enquiry form, by emailing chellaston@scallywagsnursery.com or by calling 01332 705070. These are the Chellaston contact details, useful for keeping correspondence with the branch a family is considering.

Funding and Paid Extras

Current prices should come in a written quotation from the nursery. A family comparing costs needs the proposed attendance arrangement and its associated charges considered together; an opening window alone does not establish what a particular booking will cost.

• Everyday care. The March 2026 findings concerned support during meals and responses to upset children, with actions due on 21 April 2026. On a visit, ask how adults now organise mealtimes, respond to distress and check that agreed practice is followed.
• Room progression. Lion Cubs and Monkeys have overlapping age bands, while the Chellaston curriculum gives some different room ages from the branch's room descriptions. Discuss which room your child would join and how the next move would be planned.
• Attendance and costs. The opening window is 7.30am–6pm, with bank holidays and a Christmas week closed. Ask for one written proposal covering the booking pattern, funded entitlement if applicable, meals, consumables and any additional charges.

Scallywags Nursery Chellaston is worth considering for families who value separate baby provision, direct garden access and recurring music and outdoor activities. Music Time and Field Forest Play give older children recognisable weekly experiences, while the curriculum connects learning with ordinary community life.

The March 2026 care and leadership findings prevent an unqualified recommendation. For parents of babies especially, timely comfort and attentive meal support are central considerations. This nursery's activities and environments provide reasons to explore it, but the response to those practical care concerns should carry decisive weight.