Gable House Nursery School

A pirate ship in the playground, a toddler suite with space for sensory exploration, and outings beyond the nursery give Gable House a character built around discovery. Across two buildings on the same Wellington Road site, children have age-based rooms and a shared enclosed playground. The appeal is concrete: room to move, materials to investigate and a curriculum that takes learning into the surrounding community.

Gable House Nursery School has capacity for 95 children from birth to five years in Bridlington. At its September 2022 inspection, Ofsted rated it Good overall. That judgement is dated; the current offer includes gradual settling, communication through a parent app and targeted teaching through named language and maths programmes.

Opening hours run from 7.30am to 6pm, Monday to Friday, with bank-holiday closures and a one-week Christmas break. Funded childcare can be taken during term time or stretched across the year, giving families different ways to organise their entitlement.

Rooms and Ages

Baby Stars caters for babies from birth to twelve months, with cot sleeping facilities and routines shaped around feeding, rest and play at home. Staffing is one adult to three children. A Parent & Baby room gives families somewhere to spend time with their baby, including during lunch breaks, and breastfeeding mothers can use it. That makes continuity with home a practical part of the baby provision rather than simply an aspiration.

Tiny Stars serves children around 12–24 months, with moves from the baby room paced according to individual readiness. Its Starlight Rooms separate the main learning space from physical play and small-group sensory exploration. For a toddler, that gives different ways to spend the day: movement need not compete with quieter investigation in the same space.

Little Stars occupies the first floor of Gable House, with interconnected rooms and its own bathroom and changing facilities; Little Rockers is the room for two-year-olds in the Rocking Horse Building. Super Stars and Big Rockers are the preschool rooms, accommodating children aged three and four on the ground floors of the two buildings, with indoor and outdoor play linked through free-flow access.

The preschool emphasis combines maths, emotional wellbeing and understanding the surrounding world. Accessible resources let children choose activities, while key workers adapt teaching to their development. Room changes are gradual, allowing children to build a relationship with their next key worker before the move is complete.

Learning and Activities

The EYFS sets the foundation for learning and care: children learn through play, with observations helping staff plan their next steps. Gable House adds its own emphasis on mathematical understanding, social and emotional development, and experiences beyond home and nursery.

Shared across both nursery settings, What's In The Wider World? connects learning with local surroundings and natural materials. Number, shape and space are explored alongside knowledge of the environment, with monthly themes bringing indoor activities and outdoor experiences together. The curriculum overview explains how this approach is adapted to children's starting points and interests.

Speech Club, also shared across the settings, provides targeted language and communication work for children in the two-to-three-year rooms. Speech therapists deliver the programme virtually, with trained nursery key workers supporting the sessions. Maths Club adds individual or small-group teaching through carefully chosen play resources for children who need extra help with maths. These are specific additions to the everyday curriculum, rather than a replacement for it.

In September 2022, activities connected a common theme with different stages of development: babies investigated sticks, while older children named vegetables and used them for printing. An interest in washing dolls also became a way to explore counting and new vocabulary. The useful principle is the connection between a child's chosen play and an opportunity to teach something more.

Outdoor and Community Life

The enclosed playground includes a custom-made pirate ship, a covered sand area and mud kitchens. Planting, water play and a walk-in sand pit add opportunities for digging, mixing and investigating textures. Resources change daily, so the outdoor space supports more than energetic play alone.

Regular outings extend that approach. Local trips use push buses, while a minibus enables journeys farther afield, including visits to animal farms and places of interest. Gable House also makes regular visits to The Secret Garden, private grounds offered by neighbours, where children can explore natural tunnels, search for small creatures and gather materials from the surroundings.

In September 2022, community trips included beaches, parks and private gardens. Materials collected outside became resources for further activities back at nursery, including mark-making with twigs. That provides a clear example of an outing feeding into subsequent learning rather than standing apart from the nursery day.

Relationships and Communication

Settling begins with multiple short trial sessions offered free of charge before a child's start date. Staff use that time to learn about the child from their family, and each child has a key worker responsible for observations and individual planning. For babies, home routines guide care; for children changing rooms, the handover between key workers happens gradually.

Daily feedback, the family app and face-to-face meetings give parents several routes into discussion about care and development. Shared family workshops take place online and in person, covering topics such as weaning, safer sleep, lunchbox ideas and language development. Information sheets in communal hallways provide another way to take those ideas home.

In September 2022, parents knew their child's key person and received daily accounts of nursery life alongside development updates. Children sought comfort from staff, and clear reminders helped them understand behaviour expectations. Those observations give useful context to the key-worker arrangements, while remaining a picture of practice at that time.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

Gable House has a SENCO role and safeguarding lead roles within its management structure. Support for children with additional needs includes detailed individual goals, collaboration with other agencies where needed, and extra individual or small-group learning funded by the nursery alongside any additional council support. Planned transitions can support children moving to mainstream or special schools.

At the September 2022 inspection, Ofsted found safeguarding effective and described staff working with other professionals to plan support for children with SEND. Current safeguarding procedures include visitor sign-in and recruitment checks; these are arrangements, rather than a substitute for the dated safeguarding judgement.

Staff receive training relevant to the ages they work with, and paediatric first-aid training is maintained across both settings. The baby rooms provide cots, while settling and room transitions keep familiar adults involved. Together, these arrangements give families concrete matters to discuss in relation to their own child's routines and needs.

Sessions and Attendance

The address is 20 Wellington Road, Bridlington, YO15 2BG. Gable House opens Monday to Friday from 7.30am until 6pm across the year, excluding bank holidays and one week at Christmas. These are opening hours, so the daily attendance arrangement needs to fit within that window.

Enquiries can be made on 01262 676582 or by email to admin@gablehousenursery.co.uk. Viewings are booked by telephone, and viewing appointments can be arranged to accommodate working parents. The free trial sessions then provide a separate settling stage before the official start date.

Funding and Paid Extras

Funded provision covers children aged nine months to four years, with up to 30 hours a week over 38 weeks, subject to the relevant eligibility criteria. Families can instead spread the entitlement over the year by taking fewer hours each week. Applications need to be made before the intended starting term; the working-family offer remains conditional on eligibility.

The supplemental charges page sets out a separate, strictly voluntary sundries contribution. It helps towards snack food, outings, wipes, sun cream and Speech Club costs, and declining it does not affect a child's right to their full funded entitlement without attached costs. This makes the distinction between funding and additional contributions explicit.

For food, snacks are among the items supported by that voluntary contribution, while lunchtime arrangements include a healthy packed lunch or a prepared meal. An optional hot meal is served in the evening, with a weekly menu and advance arrangements for vegetarian, cultural or dietary preferences. Wipes and sun cream are likewise covered by the voluntary sundries contribution; families should obtain current prices for paid childcare in a written quotation.

Moving on to school involves sharing children's development information with teachers invited to the nursery. This is transition work: it helps the next setting understand the child and provides continuity between nursery learning and school.

• A site with upstairs rooms. Little Stars and Little Rockers use first-floor accommodation, while preschool rooms occupy the ground floors. During a viewing, discuss how your child's daily movement, outdoor access and any mobility needs would work in their room.
• Language teaching and praise. In September 2022, songs sometimes moved too quickly for children to absorb the words, and praise did not consistently explain individual achievements. Ask how staff now pace rhymes and make recognition meaningful to each child.
• Funding and voluntary contributions. Funded hours can be stretched, and the sundries contribution can be declined without affecting the full entitlement. Request a written quotation that separates your chosen attendance, paid hours, food arrangements and any contribution you choose to make.
• Settling around your child. Short free trial sessions precede the start date, and baby care follows home routines. Use the settling discussion to explain feeding, sleep and comfort preferences, including any dietary needs requiring advance planning.

Gable House suits families who value outdoor experiences, gradual transitions and targeted language or maths support alongside everyday play. The pirate ship and Starlight Rooms give its physical provision a recognisable character; The Secret Garden and community outings extend learning beyond the site.

It also suits families choosing either term-time funded attendance or a stretched entitlement across the year. The September 2022 Good judgement provides a dated quality reference, with specific improvements around songs and praise to explore. The strongest reason to consider it is the combination of individual key-worker planning and practical opportunities to discover the wider world.