The Spring Montessori

Sandpaper letters, a moveable alphabet and a garden mud kitchen give The Spring Montessori its character: this Burwell preschool makes learning tangible. Its church-hall classroom is one open space, with practical tasks, language materials and creative play accessible to children. The appeal is concrete: children can explore an idea through objects and activity, rather than only hearing an adult explain it.

The setting has capacity for 26 children, with a current age range of 24 to 60 months. At its June 2025 inspection, Ofsted judged it Good overall, found safeguarding effective and recognised good progress, while identifying inconsistent behaviour boundaries and disorganised routines as areas for improvement. Those concerns matter alongside the attractive learning materials.

Attendance is term-time, with a choice between morning and all-day sessions. This is a preschool shaped around exploration and practical independence, with a timetable that families need to match carefully to their working day.

Rooms and Ages

The Montessori Classroom occupies a single, open-plan church-hall space, giving children access to practical living, sensory exploration, language, mathematics and cultural learning. These are areas within the classroom, rather than separate age-based rooms. For families, the shared layout is an important part of the experience: learning resources sit within one environment that children can explore.

Creative play has its own places too. The Art and Craft Area and Role-play Corner sit alongside a Book Corner, while the Loose Parts Play Area uses recycled materials for imaginative activity. The combination gives children opportunities to move between a purposeful task, storytelling and making something of their own.

Learning and Activities

The early years foundation stage provides the framework for children's learning, development and care: play and everyday experiences support communication, physical skills and growing independence. Montessori adds a concrete approach here, with hands-on materials and children choosing activities at their own pace. The classroom guide explains how that approach works across the learning areas.

Everyday Living Area activities include preparing food, dressing, washing and gardening. These bring ordinary responsibilities into learning, making independence something children practise. In the Sensorial area, Colour Tablets, Knobbed Cylinders, Broad Stair and Pink Tower give children objects to compare and classify while developing coordination and sensory awareness.

Language work uses a moveable alphabet and sandpaper letters, linking spoken language with tactile materials before writing and reading. Mathematics similarly starts with objects: beads, number rods and a spindle box help children work with quantities before moving towards more abstract ideas. The materials give families a clearer picture of Montessori here than the name alone could.

In June 2025, children explored boxes organised by continent and compared a globe with a map. Discussions covered animals, climates and places, with festivals and religious traditions extending the subject. Children also devised stories together and made books, giving their ideas a finished form they could return to and read.

Outdoor and Community Life

The Garden Area includes a reading den, fairy garden and vegetable/herb garden, as well as climbing equipment, slides and wheeled toys. Sand and water play add opportunities for experimentation. This makes outdoor time more than a break from the classroom: there are places for movement, quieter activity and practical exploration.

In June 2025, the mud kitchen brought counting into shared play. Children used recipe cards to gather ingredients and make mixtures together. Caring for the setting's pets and visiting religious buildings and community places also formed part of the experience at that time, bringing responsibility and encounters with other people into the nursery day.

Moo Music runs every other Tuesday, using songs, instruments, games and dancing. Regular Forest School sessions add nature activities, including bug hunts and building dens. These give different routes into participation: music invites movement and group activity, while outdoor sessions make natural materials and living things part of learning.

Relationships and Communication

In June 2025, staff joined children's play and extended conversations with new vocabulary. Written celebrations on an achievement tree recognised children's successes. These are useful details for parents weighing the social side of preschool: adults were involved in activity, and children's achievements received visible attention.

Daily messages and face-to-face meetings gave parents different ways to discuss care and learning in June 2025. Home-learning ideas were also shared regularly, creating a connection between activities at nursery and at home. A brief daily update serves a different purpose from a longer conversation; both were part of communication at that point.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

A Special Educational Needs Coordinator (SENCo) role forms part of the staff structure. Child-protection roles sit with the manager and deputy manager, and the team holds paediatric first-aid training. These are concrete arrangements for handling support and welfare responsibilities, rather than a blanket promise about any individual child's experience.

At the June 2025 inspection, Ofsted found that work with other professionals supported children's safety and wellbeing, and that school transitions were supported through information sharing with teachers and opportunities to meet new adults. For a child moving on, that combination addresses both continuity of information and familiarity with the people who will care for them next.

The June 2025 concerns were about everyday consistency: adult expectations varied, and changes between activities could become unsettled. Children could lose engagement during those moments. The practical question for families is how the setting now organises these parts of the day, alongside its child-led approach.

Sessions and Attendance

Opening hours are 9am to 3pm, Monday to Friday, during term time. Morning sessions run from 9am to 1pm; all-day sessions run from 9am to 3pm. The morning pattern therefore includes the middle of the day, while the all-day option extends attendance into the afternoon.

These are different choices within the same term-time calendar. A morning booking may suit a family wanting a shorter preschool day; an all-day booking provides a longer stretch for activities. Both finish within the afternoon, so the exact collection time matters when matching attendance to work or other care arrangements.

Getting There

The address is The Guildhall, Spring Close, Burwell, Cambridge, CB25 0HF. Enquiries can be made by telephone on 01638 743304 or by email to thespringmontessori@gmail.com.

Funding and Paid Extras

The nursery accepts children eligible for 15 and 30 hours of funded childcare, delivered during term time. Universal funding for three- and four-year-olds and Working Family Entitlement are included in its funding arrangements; the latter depends on eligibility. Funded hours can be distributed across the week, with additional hours charged privately.

A consumable charge is separate from the childcare hours and applies to children's allocated hours, including funded attendance. The charge contributes towards running costs and enhanced provision. Families comparing funded attendance with paid hours need to consider that separate charge alongside the session pattern, rather than treating the funded entitlement as the whole payment arrangement.

Current prices come in the nursery's written quotation. The fees and funding page sets out the distinction between funded hours, extra hours and the consumable charge.

• Boundaries and transitions. In June 2025, expectations were inconsistent and some changes between activities disrupted engagement. Use the one-hour Preschool Visit to ask how staff now make rules clear and organise transitions.
• One shared classroom. The church-hall space is open plan, with learning and creative areas accessible to children. During a visit, consider how that shared setting suits your child's need for activity or quieter play.
• Term-time collection times. Morning sessions end at 1pm and all-day sessions at 3pm. Both patterns require a family arrangement that fits those finishes and the term-time calendar.
• Funding and everyday supplies. The separate consumable charge applies to allocated hours. Ask what it covers for your intended booking, including the arrangements for meals and non-food supplies.

The Spring Montessori suits families seeking practical, child-led preschool learning, with either morning sessions or an all-day term-time pattern. Its appeal lies in the detail: tactile language materials, everyday living tasks, a varied garden, Moo Music and Forest School give children several ways to explore and take part.

The June 2025 Good judgement sits alongside specific concerns about boundaries and routines. Those are meaningful considerations in an open-plan setting where children choose activities. For families comfortable with the timetable and shared classroom, the learning offer has a clear identity; the visit should establish how consistently the day now works around it.