Fledglings Day Nursery

A baby garden with sensory planters, weekly preschool football and a separate sleep room give Fledglings Day Nursery in Dunscroft a recognisable character. This is childcare with space for both movement and retreat. Children can explore outdoors, return to quieter play spaces and build familiarity with the people looking after them.

At its June 2025 inspection, Ofsted rated the nursery Good and found safeguarding effective, with positive findings about children's relationships and the emphasis on communication. The nursery accepts children from 3 months to 5 years at 157 Station Road, Doncaster, DN7 4JP. Its Dunscroft setting combines age-related rooms with daily outdoor access, practical self-care and a programme of contact with families.

Full-day and half-day bookings sit alongside hourly childcare, with funded hours offered either during term time or spread across the year. That gives families several attendance patterns to consider, rather than a single daily commitment.

Rooms and Ages

The Nest Room takes babies from 3 months, combining sensory exploration, treasure baskets, music and physical play with a separate sleep room and nappy-changing facilities. Sleep has its own space. Individual routines are agreed with parents, so the organisation of the baby day starts with the child's habits rather than expecting every baby to follow the same timetable.

From 18 months, depending on development, children can move into The Tree Room, where activities follow their interests and materials invite exploration rather than a prescribed finished result. The sky room usually welcomes children before their third birthday, with planned experiences drawn from conversations, observations, seasons and celebrations. Moving between rooms therefore involves developmental readiness as well as age.

Learning and Activities

EYFS provides the framework for children's learning and care, with play, communication and physical exploration forming part of the day. Fledglings' curriculum places additional emphasis on language: familiar picture books and rhymes are revisited over several weeks, while objects and story sacks help children connect words with their meanings. Repetition gives children another chance to understand and join in.

Daily stories, singing and rhymes provide regular opportunities to hear and use language. Vocabulary from the chosen texts also reaches families through chalkboard displays outdoors and word mats sent home. The curriculum connects those shared texts with children's interests, allowing practitioners to adapt activities as play develops rather than relying entirely on advance plans.

Each term, every child has a focus child week: the key person gathers parents' views beforehand and meets them afterwards to discuss development. This gives the family a defined point for contributing observations and discussing next steps. Home learning menus, also supplied each term, offer age-related activity ideas that parents and carers can try together with their child.

In June 2025, toddlers joined storytelling through actions, while frequent singing gave children opportunities to practise vocabulary. These examples help explain the language emphasis in practical terms: listening, moving, remembering and speaking were brought together in familiar activities.

Outdoor and Community Life

Three outdoor environments serve different stages of development. The baby garden has crawling space, a sensory walk way and sensory planters; the toddler garden uses tyres and substantial role-play resources to encourage movement. Older children have a separate outdoor area with more demanding materials. Natural and recycled resources give children things to rearrange and investigate, rather than only fixed equipment to use in one way.

Outdoor access is daily, including in different weather conditions. Children aged two and upwards are encouraged to choose between indoor and outdoor provision during the day. That makes outdoor learning part of the normal rhythm, rather than an occasional change of setting.

Preschool football takes place weekly, led by practitioners who play for Dunscroft Warriors Ladies Team. It adds a recurring movement activity to the preschool week. The emphasis is on an activity children can take part in regularly, alongside the less structured physical exploration available in the gardens.

Relationships and Communication

The key person approach gives each child a familiar practitioner who follows their interests and development. For babies, one-to-one attention and conversations with parents about routines sit alongside exploratory play. The group-wide hygge approach adds quieter places where children can withdraw and get comfortable, with small lights and limited artificial lighting shaping the play spaces.

Transitions are considered at several points: starting nursery, moving between rooms and preparing to move on. The hygge approach includes attention to the child's individual needs at those changes. This matters because a room move is also a change of people, expectations and daily surroundings, not simply a birthday milestone.

Families receive newsletters at the start of each half term, covering dates and practical information. Stay & Play sessions run twice yearly on Saturdays, bringing children and their families together for activities organised around a curriculum theme. These sessions give parents time to talk with staff and experience activities alongside their child, complementing the individual progress discussions.

In June 2025, staff gathered information about children before they started, and daily communication included updates and access to development information through an online app. Those inspection-time arrangements provide a useful picture of how contact with families worked alongside the nursery day.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

SEND support uses a graduated approach, with a SENCO coordinating provision and contact with other professionals. Adult-supported learning is adjusted around individual needs and ways of learning. The nursery is one of four enhanced provisions in Doncaster, a designation associated with selection criteria that include an experienced SENCO. The practical point is the support mechanism: planning and professional liaison have an identified coordinating role.

A safeguarding lead and deputy are in place, supported by a safeguarding champion who helps colleagues develop their knowledge. Staff undertake safeguarding training at induction, refreshed every three years, and paediatric first aid training follows the same renewal interval. These are care arrangements, rather than a substitute for the dated safeguarding judgement.

Oral health has a regular place in the day. With parental permission, toddlers and preschool children take part in supervised toothbrushing in both the morning and afternoon, supported by Doncaster Local Authority. Oral Health Week runs each term and uses related play activities, while families receive information to support habits at home.

Healthy Learning Healthy Lives recognises work on physical activity, healthy lifestyles and oral health; the nursery received the award again in November 2021. In June 2025, lunchtime routines included children serving food and practising the use of cutlery. Everyday care tasks were opportunities to practise independence.

Sessions and Attendance

The nursery opens Monday to Friday, from 7.30am to 5.30pm, across 51 weeks of the year. It closes on bank holidays and for the week between Christmas and New Year. Families organising care around employment therefore need to allow for those closure periods as well as the daily finishing time.

A full day runs from 7.30am to 5.30pm. Half-day options are 8am to 1pm or 1pm to 5.30pm, and childcare can also be charged by the hour. The morning half day starts later than the full day, a useful distinction when matching the booking to a working day.

The address is 157 Station Road, Doncaster, DN7 4JP. General enquiries can be made directly on 01302 840925.

Funding and Paid Extras

Funded childcare includes 30 hours for eligible working families with children aged 9 months to 4 years, 30 hours for families with children aged 3 and 4 years, and 15 hours for two-year-olds receiving support. Tax-Free childcare is also accepted. Funding can cover 38 term-time weeks or be stretched over 51 weeks, with fewer hours each week under the stretched arrangement.

There are no top-up fees for funded hours. Children attending with funding can bring a packed lunch or purchase nursery meals: breakfast and morning or afternoon snacks carry no charge, while dinner and tea are charged separately. Private sessions and hourly childcare are also offered; current prices come in the nursery's written quotation, with the charge structure set out on its funding and fees page.

Meals are homemade on the premises using fresh produce, and cooks undertake food-hygiene and allergy-awareness training. Dietary requirements are accommodated under the nursery's arrangements, with a menu and corresponding allergy matrix available to families.

• Behaviour and digital safety. In June 2025, Ofsted identified inconsistent staff messages about behaviour and a need to make online-safety teaching more continuous. Ask how expectations are now explained across rooms and how safe technology use is revisited beyond a themed week.
• Your baby's day. The Nest Room combines individual routines with a separate sleep room. At a visit, ask how naps, feeding and the number of babies sharing the room would work for your child.
• Funding and family costs. Stretching entitlement means fewer funded hours each week, and funded dinner and tea are separate charges. Request a quotation for your intended pattern that also explains nappies, wipes and other consumables.
• Dietary needs. Meals are prepared on site and an allergy matrix accompanies the menu. Families managing allergies should confirm current preparation and serving arrangements before agreeing a meal plan.

Fledglings suits families seeking either full-day care or morning and afternoon half days, with hourly childcare adding another option. Its strongest practical combination is age-related outdoor space, sustained work on language and regular opportunities for families to contribute to learning.

For babies, the separate sleep room and attention to individual routines matter more than the programme names. For older children, weekly football, daily outdoor choice and toothbrushing routines make the day concrete and varied. The June 2025 priorities around behaviour messages and digital safety remain useful points for discussion, alongside the attendance pattern and meal charges that will shape family life.