Step By Step Children's Nursery Eastbourne

A large shared play space, a baby area and a garden with climbing equipment give Step By Step Children's Nursery Eastbourne a clear character: younger children have space of their own, alongside opportunities to spend time with older children. Its Old Town setting on Victoria Drive combines indoor exploration with digging, planting and outdoor play.

At its January 2025 inspection, Ofsted rated the nursery Good and found safeguarding effective. The strongest practical appeal is the combination of mixed-age experiences and provision for babies. The current age range is 7 to 60 months.

Attendance can be arranged around morning, afternoon or longer daytime sessions, with term-time and year-round options. That gives families several ways to use the nursery rather than a single fixed day.

Learning and Activities

The early years foundation stage sets the requirements for children's learning, development and care. Learning includes communication, physical development, social skills, early reading and mathematics. In January 2025, these took practical forms: adults introduced vocabulary during garden play, children rode vehicles, practised sharing, explored books and measured water. Here, the shared indoor space allows children to explore together, while the baby area and sensory equipment give younger children a place for experiences suited to their stage.

Group-wide Art Lessons combine adult-led activities with children's own choices, using paint, dough and other materials for exploration and expression. Sensory Play centres on younger children learning through their senses.

In January 2025, babies used their own part of the larger space and also spent time with older children. Older children persisted with connecting peg pieces, helped one another build upwards and celebrated what they had made. The example gives parents a useful picture of shared play: cooperation was part of completing a task, rather than a separate lesson.

Books also featured throughout the day in January 2025. Children chose them independently, examined the pages and listened to adults reading in comfortable spaces. Reading was woven into daily activity, giving children opportunities both to browse for themselves and to share stories with an adult.

Outdoor and Community Life

Eastbourne shares the group's garden provision of climbing equipment, a mud kitchen and areas for planting and digging. Outdoor play brings movement, handling materials and exploring how things grow.

In January 2025, children rode and washed garden vehicles and collaborated over pretend food and drinks in the mud kitchen. Adults joined their play, introduced vocabulary and helped with pronunciation. Water play also involved measuring quantities as containers were emptied and filled.

In January 2025, children frequently joined activities with older residents at a local care home and also visited a library and park. These outings introduced different people and places.

Relationships and communication were practical features of care in January 2025. Children sought adults for comfort, and staff responded patiently. Adults modelled polite language and explained sharing and turn-taking, giving children guidance they could use during play.

The key person collected detailed information from parents when a child started, so care and learning could take account of individual needs. In January 2025, daily updates covered children's care and learning, while meetings gave parents opportunities to discuss development in more depth. That combination connected immediate information with a fuller conversation about the child.

At the January 2025 inspection, Ofsted found that support for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities included prompt referrals, collaboration with families and outside professionals, and targeted plans for early intervention. The mechanisms matter: support involved agreed action and outside expertise, rather than relying solely on reassurance.

Meals are cooked on site, and breakfast, lunch and tea are charged separately. Families using sessions across mealtimes therefore need to account for food alongside childcare hours.

Sessions and Attendance

The nursery's address is St. Elizabeths Church, 266-268 Victoria Drive, Eastbourne, BN20 8QX. Opening hours are 7.30am to 5.30pm, Monday to Friday, with closures for bank holidays and one week at Christmas.

The booking choices are a morning from 9am to noon, a longer morning from 9am to 1pm, an afternoon from noon to 4pm, and a daytime session from 9am to 4pm. Additional hours can extend these sessions within the opening hours. The distinction is useful: the full opening window is longer than the daytime session itself.

Families can attend during term time or throughout the year, and a term-time arrangement can include additional holiday days. Enquiries use a form asking for the child's age, preferred days and hours, intended start date and choice of nursery. Selecting Eastbourne keeps the enquiry attached to the right location.

Funding and Paid Extras

Funded childcare includes 15 hours per week for children aged two, three and four, and 30 hours per week for children from nine months to four years. Both term-time and stretched arrangements are offered. The stretched options are 22.5 hours weekly across 50 weeks for the 30-hour entitlement, or 11 hours weekly across 50 weeks for the 15-hour entitlement.

Hours beyond the stretched funded allocation are charged privately. Food has separate charges, invoiced monthly, so a funded-hours arrangement still needs to be considered alongside the child's mealtimes.

• Consistency of teaching. In January 2025, staff did not all translate the curriculum's intentions consistently into teaching. On a visit, ask how practitioners now plan what children will learn and connect that planning to their play.
• Early mathematics. The January 2025 improvement priorities included extending children's understanding of shapes and numbers during activities. Ask for an example of how adults develop this learning beyond measuring water.
• Mixed ages and the baby area. Babies have their own area within a larger shared space, and ages mix for part of the day. Ask how this arrangement works for a younger child's play and rest.
• Hours and meals together. The morning, afternoon and longer daytime options cross different mealtimes, with food charged separately. A written quotation should match the intended attendance pattern and its meal charges.

Step By Step Children's Nursery Eastbourne suits families seeking a morning session, afternoon care or a longer daytime arrangement, with the choice of term-time or year-round attendance. Its shared play space, baby area and garden give those patterns a tangible setting.

The January 2025 picture combines patient interactions, everyday reading and community visits with clear work to do on teaching consistency and early mathematics. Families who value mixed-age experiences and practical flexibility have a useful basis for considering it, with those teaching priorities deserving attention during a visit.