Sibton Nursery School

Recipe cards, independently gathered ingredients and books borrowed for home reading give Sibton Nursery School a practical, hands-on character in its December 2022 account. These are useful details: children had opportunities to make choices, follow a sequence and share learning with their families.

On Yoxford Road in Sibton, Saxmundham, the nursery has capacity for 45 children and accepts ages from 6 to 60 months. At its 8 December 2022 inspection, Ofsted rated it Good and judged safeguarding effective.

In December 2022, cooking brought several skills together. Children collected ingredients from shelves, followed recipe cards and used their fingers to combine butter and flour for mince pies. The activity gave them practical jobs as well as reasons to talk about what might happen next.

The early years foundation stage is the required framework for children’s learning, development and care. Here, the December 2022 examples included activities that developed conversation, listening and taking turns, alongside opportunities to practise writing names. Children used a signing-in board and labelled the paper bags for their cooking, giving writing a purpose beyond an isolated exercise.

Reading also extended beyond the nursery in December 2022. Children could select a book to read with their parents, then exchange it for another. That offered families a concrete way to continue the day’s learning at home.

At the December 2022 inspection, Ofsted found that children with special educational needs and/or disabilities received good support, with funding used for individual needs and the special educational needs coordinator working with external professionals and the local authority.

Before children started in December 2022, home visits involved the manager and key person learning about family life. This made settling a relationship-building process before attendance began. Staff also helped children through disagreements over sharing, using encouragement and distraction to reduce upset.

In December 2022, parents received news about their child’s day, and the cook worked with families on dietary requirements. Staff kept safeguarding and paediatric first-aid training current, while peer observations and individual meetings gave practitioners opportunities to review their work.

Hygiene teaching needed more attention at that visit. Children were not consistently taught to cover a cough or replace dropped cutlery. The improvement priority was to explain both the routines and why they matter.

The address is Sibton Nursery School, Yoxford Road, Sibton, Saxmundham, IP17 2LU.

In December 2022, the nursery operated Monday to Friday across the year, closing for two weeks at Christmas; session times ran from 8am until 6pm. At that date, it provided funded early education for two-, three- and four-year-olds. These are dated attendance and funding arrangements rather than a description of today’s booking choices.

• Hygiene habits. The December 2022 improvement priority concerned explaining everyday hygiene to children. On a visit, ask how practitioners now teach coughing etiquette and what to do with dropped cutlery.
• Starting young. The current age range begins at 6 months, while the December 2022 settling example involved home visits with a key person. How do today’s session choices and settling arrangements work for a child starting at that age?

Sibton will interest families who value practical independence, purposeful cooking and reading shared with home. Its December 2022 account gives those priorities substance, alongside a Good judgement. Families considering a start at the youngest accepted age should make the visit count: settling and attendance choices deserve as much attention as the learning activities.