Daisy Chain Nursery and After School Club

A wooden fort, a mud kitchen and an outdoor space set aside for babies and toddlers give Daisy Chain a clear physical character. Inside, its youngest children occupy neighbouring rooms, while preschool children have ground-floor space with direct outdoor access. This is a nursery where the arrangement of rooms matters: siblings close in age can mix, and children have places for both energetic play and quieter reading.

At its May 2022 inspection, Ofsted rated the nursery Good, found safeguarding effective and judged that children, including those needing additional learning support, made good progress. That judgement is dated. The same visit identified improvements needed in staff development and the planning of activities intended to hold children's attention.

At 5 Church Lane in Hook, Goole, Daisy Chain has capacity for 56 children, with an early-years age range of one month to five years. Its wider provision includes care for school-age children. Full-day, morning and afternoon bookings feature in the 2025-2026 attendance arrangements, alongside shorter funded days.

Rooms and Ages

The baby room occupies the first floor, with space designed around crawling, early walking and sensory exploration. Beside it, the toddler room uses dividers to separate the groups while allowing them to mix; carpet and vinyl surfaces accommodate movement, singing and messy activities. For siblings close in age, that shared arrangement allows some contact despite belonging to different rooms.

Children join the ground-floor early preschool room around the age of three, where construction, role-play, painting and mark-making sit alongside reading and outdoor activities. The preschool room, also downstairs, combines direct access outside with science and technology resources, computer equipment and a quiet reading area. The progression is practical: different rooms offer different materials and ways to play, while older children have more opportunity to choose between indoor resources and outdoor space.

Book corners throughout the nursery include puppets and puzzles as well as books. These quieter areas give children somewhere to pause and talk with staff or friends. Role-play spaces change with children's interests and needs, including classroom play for a child anxious about starting school. The environment therefore has a role in preparing children for unfamiliar experiences, as well as entertaining them.

Learning and Activities

The Early Years Foundation Stage shapes the nursery day through stories, songs, construction, physical activity and opportunities to investigate materials. Staff extend children's vocabulary through conversation, and activities draw on children's interests and developmental needs. The useful detail is how this translates into practice: number games, puppets, cooking, creative materials and technology give children several ways to explore an idea.

Individual Learning Journeys record each child's development and help staff plan experiences around their interests and next steps. Learning Stories document what children have learned and provide a starting point for conversations with families. In preschool, children contribute ideas through mind-mapping; these ideas help determine weekly interests, themes and role-play arrangements. Children have a say in what happens next.

Resources are selected with the children attending that day in mind. Babies and toddlers can choose from materials matched to their development, while adults also introduce stories, movement sessions and early number or mark-making activities. This gives families a useful picture of the balance: children make choices, and practitioners bring fresh experiences into their play.

Outdoor and Community Life

The outdoor area has three sections. A grassy space combines a fruit and vegetable patch with climbing apparatus, a wooden fort, a trampoline and a mud kitchen. An all-weather area adds a playhouse, chalkboards, a slide and a digging plot, with space for water activities, painting and construction. Babies and toddlers also have a smaller, separated area with astro turf and equipment suited to their development.

These spaces support different kinds of activity, from growing things to balancing, digging and making a mess. In May 2022, children practised moving across ropes arranged as an obstacle course, changing how they balanced to manage the challenge. That dated example gives substance to the nursery's emphasis on children learning to judge physical risks.

Frequent visits to local parks and village walks extend the day beyond the nursery grounds. Events, plays and shows also feature across the year. The value is the change of setting: children can explore their surroundings and encounter experiences beyond the materials in their rooms.

Relationships and Communication

Each child is assigned a key person responsible for their care and development. Regular dialogue with parents is part of that role, alongside getting to know the child's feelings, interests and behaviour. Families therefore have a particular practitioner with whom to build the day-to-day relationship.

Parents can contribute to learning journeys and diaries, with workshops and parents' evenings offering further opportunities for discussion. Shared my family books connect home and nursery, while family photographs and comments about experiences at home can become part of displays. These are concrete ways for a child's home life to inform nursery activities.

Staff undertake continuing training and workshops during the year. In May 2022, professional development targets needed to be more precise about improving teaching, and group activities needed better planning to sustain attention. Those are useful points to explore alongside the nursery's current training arrangements: development opportunities matter most when they change what practitioners do with children.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

Support mechanisms include early identification of developmental needs, work with parents and other professionals, signing, visual timetables and signs in children's home languages. Experiences are adjusted for children needing additional support or challenge. These arrangements give families specific methods to discuss when considering how their child communicates and participates.

At the May 2022 inspection, Ofsted found that staff worked with families to seek professional support and that children were well prepared for their next stage of learning. In daily practice at that time, older children dressed for outdoor play, managed toileting and helped clear cups and plates. These small responsibilities made independence part of ordinary routines.

The 2025-2026 food arrangements included meals freshly cooked on the premises. The nursery says it works with families to accommodate dietary requirements, including allergies and intolerances, wherever possible. Families with food allergies should discuss current handling arrangements as well as menu choices.

Sessions and Attendance

The nursery opens Monday to Friday, from 7.30am to 6pm, across the year, closing on bank holidays and for one week at Christmas. Its address is 5 Church Lane, Hook, Goole, DN14 5PN. Enquiries can be made by telephone on 01405 761871 or by email at info@daisychainnursery-hook.co.uk, and visits can be booked.

For the 2025-2026 cycle, additional paid sessions comprised Full Day from 8am to 6pm, Morning from 8am to 1pm, Afternoon from 1pm to 6pm and Short Day from 8am to 3.30pm. The opening window begins earlier than those nursery sessions, so the distinction matters when planning a working day.

Funded arrangements for that cycle included Long Day from 8am to 6pm, Short Day from 8.30am to 3.30pm and School Day from 9am to 3pm. Morning and afternoon options ran from 8am to 1pm and 1pm to 6pm, with shorter alternatives from 9am to noon and 1pm to 4pm. The funded and additional paid Short Day patterns had different starting times.

Funding and Paid Extras

Funding includes the universal 15-hour entitlement for three- and four-year-olds, beginning in the term after their third birthday, with an additional 15 hours for eligible working parents. For eligible children aged nine months to two years, the nursery describes 15 to 30 funded hours per week. These entitlements relate to 38 weeks, and funding can be spread across 51 weeks.

The 2025-2026 arrangements offered term-time funding or a stretched pattern of 11 or 22 hours weekly for up to 51 weeks, subject to government eligibility; stretched allocations were based on the academic year and adjusted for a midyear start. Additional private hours and early care before 8am were separately charged options.

For funded sessions in that cycle, parents could supply packed meals without a charge, following the nursery's healthy-eating guidelines. Optional meal packages were also offered. This choice affects both the cost and the practical preparation involved in a funded booking. For current prices, ask the nursery for a quotation.

• Teaching and attention. In May 2022, staff development targets needed greater precision and planned group activities did not consistently sustain children's engagement. At a visit, ask how training and activity planning have changed.
• Session dates and starting times. The 2025-2026 arrangements offered several attendance patterns, with different starts for funded and additional paid Short Day sessions. Confirm which pattern and clock times apply to a new booking.
• Food allergies. The nursery aims to accommodate dietary needs wherever possible, and funded meal packages in the 2025-2026 cycle were optional. Discuss ingredient handling and how a supplied packed meal would fit your child's routine.

Daisy Chain suits families interested in outdoor exploration, practical independence and a key-person relationship with regular parental involvement. The separated space for babies and toddlers, ground-floor preschool rooms and children's contribution to weekly themes give those priorities a concrete form.

Its attendance arrangements encompass full days and shorter morning or afternoon sessions, making the offer relevant to more than one family timetable. The May 2022 Good judgement provides a dated assessment of quality; the improvements around teaching development and children's engagement deserve equal attention when choosing it.