Flying Start Day Nursery, Finningley

Stories, home-language songs and practical experiments give Flying Start Day Nursery, Finningley its clearest character. In January 2025, children explored what authors and illustrators do, while preschool activities used stones and scales to make weight something children could investigate for themselves. Everyday objects became teaching tools.

At its January 2025 inspection, Ofsted rated the nursery Good overall, with Outstanding judgements for behaviour and attitudes and personal development, and found safeguarding effective. The important qualification concerns everyday routines: snack preparation and meal service sometimes occupied staff when children needed conversation or assistance. The improvement priority was to organise these moments so that learning and adult attention continued more consistently.

Based at Doncaster Finningley Airport, the setting has 84 places in total and accepts children aged 1 to 60 months. Morning, afternoon and full-day bookings sit alongside two contracts with different rules for funded attendance. Choosing between those contracts matters as much as choosing a session.

Rooms and Ages

The Infant Room emphasises sensory exploration, tummy time and responsive routines; the Toddler Room combines imaginative play with crafts, music and stories to develop social confidence; the Preschool Room introduces early reading and mathematics through play, alongside growing independence. These are different emphases rather than one activity plan applied across every stage.

Physical play has its own space. The Outdoor Play Area provides opportunities to climb, run and explore nature, giving children a way to practise movement beyond indoor activities. Reading corners provide a quieter counterpart to the more active parts of the day.

Learning and Activities

The early years foundation stage is the framework for children's learning, development and care, bringing play and developing skills together in the nursery day. In January 2025, the curriculum moved from babies exploring movement and hearing songs towards toddlers practising attention and turn-taking, then preschool children sustaining conversations about stories. The progression was concrete: older children discussed the different jobs involved in making a book.

During that January, staff used selected stories to introduce vocabulary across the nursery. This work was still becoming more consistent. One practical example showed the value of language in ordinary moments: toddlers helping clear spilled milk heard an explanation of how paper towels soak up liquid. Learning did not depend entirely on a planned activity.

Art in Action adds weekly creative projects, with materials supplied. Nature Explorers involves outdoor adventures and learning about the natural world, with boots required. The former gives families a recurring creative activity; the latter has a straightforward clothing implication for children taking part.

At the January 2025 inspection, Ofsted found that dividing children between smaller indoor and outdoor groups helped staff give more attention to children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) and those with less confidence, while adapted activities enabled children to participate and make progress. This is the strongest concrete example of inclusion here: the organisation of the day supported participation, rather than expecting everyone to manage an activity in the same way.

In January 2025, familiar languages also had a practical place in children's surroundings. Staff sang in children's home languages and used packaging bearing familiar words in pretend domestic play. These details connected nursery experiences with life at home and gave children recognisable material to use in their play.

Emotional understanding was another part of that January's practice. Younger children encountered feelings through stories, while preschool children discussed their own emotions and how these could affect someone else. Staff used boundaries and conversation together, making behaviour something children could understand as well as follow.

Parents received information about dental health and online safety in January 2025, alongside activities and discussions for children. Management also planned further staff development to reduce differences in practice across the team. That work matters because adult interaction during meals and snacks was uneven in January 2025: strong individual teaching needs to extend through ordinary routines too.

Sessions and Attendance

The address is 9 Second Avenue, Doncaster Finningley Airport, Doncaster, DN9 3GB. Opening hours run from 7.45am to 6pm, Monday to Friday, across the year excluding bank holidays. The opening window is longer than the core sessions, so families using its beginning or end need to distinguish those additional hours from their main booking.

Under Contract A, morning sessions run from 9am to 1pm, afternoons from 1pm to 5pm, and full days from 9am to 5pm. Additional hours are charged separately. Payments are made monthly in advance, which makes the contract and the actual attendance pattern important to the household budget.

For enquiries, the nursery can be contacted on 01302 802070 or at kids@flyingstartdaynursery.co.uk. Current prices come in the nursery's written quotation.

Funding and Paid Extras

Contract A stretches funded hours across the year and applies a Care Package charge to each morning and afternoon session. Contract B is for funded attendance only, operates during term time and does not permit families to buy additional hours. These arrangements serve different needs: one allows extra paid attendance, while the other sets a firm boundary around funded provision.

Contract A fees include breakfast when needed, a homemade hot dinner, tea and snacks; under Contract B, families can purchase lunch and tea separately or send packed food. The fee structure sets out the two contracts, so the food arrangement should be read alongside the attendance choice.

• Routine attention. In January 2025, preparing snacks and serving meals sometimes reduced the interaction and assistance children received. On a visit, ask how these routines now maintain adult attention while food is prepared and distributed.
• Contract choice. Contract A combines stretched funding with separately charged extra hours and a session Care Package; Contract B limits attendance to funded, term-time provision. Compare each against the actual hours your family needs before choosing.
• Outdoor preparation. Nature Explorers requires boots. Families choosing these activities need to include suitable footwear in their child's nursery kit.

Flying Start suits families seeking morning sessions, afternoon sessions or full days, with a further choice between stretched funding and a funded-only term-time contract. Stories, practical investigation and attention to children's familiar languages gave its January 2025 nursery day substance. The balance is clear: purposeful learning and thoughtful participation arrangements, alongside a specific need to make mealtime and snack routines more consistently supportive.