The Village Nursery School

Woodland sessions and a retirement-village setting give The Village Nursery School a character that extends well beyond its church hall. Whiteley Village woods are part of the children's week, while outings within the village introduce them to people and places outside nursery life. This is a setting where the surrounding community becomes part of what children learn.

For children aged 2 to 5, there are 40 places in total. At its 24 June 2025 inspection, Ofsted rated the nursery Good and found safeguarding effective. The strongest practical attractions are access to woodland, a key person approach and daily learning updates through Tapestry, an online journal that lets parents see and contribute to their child's experiences.

Attendance is term-time, with morning and afternoon sessions and extensions at either end of the day. That flexibility sits within a school-holiday calendar rather than year-round childcare.

Learning and Activities

The EYFS connects learning through play with children's language, movement, relationships and developing understanding of the world. Here, weekly themes give those areas a practical starting point, while children also choose activities for themselves. The Montessori approach is incorporated through freely chosen play and movement between indoor and outdoor activities, subject to the weather; adult involvement sits alongside that choice.

Inside the hall, spaces for literacy, art and maths sit alongside a home corner, small world play and a quiet corner. These give children different ways to join in: imaginative play, making things, exploring ideas or taking a quieter pause. Circle time, sensory play and music and movement add shared activities to the day, so individual choice is balanced with time together.

In June 2025, a camping theme used a tent, binoculars and camping furniture to prompt conversations about trips. Play gave staff a concrete starting point for extending children's vocabulary.

Children's own experiences also contributed to activities in June 2025. Photographs children brought in from a dinosaur museum trip prompted discussion of travel, families and dinosaurs. This gives parents a concrete example of how something from home can become part of nursery learning. The visit was the child's experience, rather than a nursery trip.

Outdoor and Community Life

At least one woodland session takes place each week in the Whiteley Village woods. Outdoor Learning is a child-led programme involving practical exploration and supported risks, linked to seasons and weekly themes. Pond-life investigations, rope-bridge building and conker collecting give it substance. The nursery also includes forest school sessions, using woodland activity as a way for children to explore outdoors.

The outdoor play area has a pirate ship for climbing and a mud kitchen, alongside scooters, bikes and cars. There are opportunities to move, balance, pretend and experiment with materials. Woodland sessions extend that experience beyond the nursery's own play space; in June 2025, children learnt about brambles and nettles during walks, connecting exploration with recognising possible hazards.

The Whiteley Village Post Office and Whiteley Village Nature Club are named outing destinations. Police and fire brigade visits bring other community roles into the children's experience. These are concrete connections with the neighbourhood, rather than learning about the wider world only through pictures or pretend play.

In June 2025, small concerts in the retirement village and encounters with village visitors introduced children to people beyond their families and nursery group.

Relationships and Communication

A key person approach gives each child an identified adult connection within the nursery. Parents are encouraged to pass on news about family events and developmental milestones, keeping experiences at home connected with the nursery day. That exchange has a practical purpose: changes in a child's life can be shared with the adult who supports them.

Tapestry carries daily observations using video, photographs and written comments. Parents can add comments of their own, so communication is more than a one-way account of activities. It offers a way to see what a child has been doing and contribute information that may help staff understand their interests.

In June 2025, staff also helped families with potty training and moving away from soothers. Teachers from children's next schools visited to exchange information about development and progress. Those visits helped staff share developmental information as children prepared to move on to school.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

At the June 2025 inspection, Ofsted found children with special educational needs and/or disabilities well included, with staff identifying developmental gaps and coordinating additional support through professionals and the local authority. A SENCO role is part of the team structure, giving families a specific point of contact for discussing additional needs.

The team includes designated safeguarding lead roles, and staff profiles list paediatric first aid training. These are arrangements within the nursery, separate from the dated safeguarding judgement. The staff's qualifications include a Montessori International Diploma and Early Years Teacher status, relevant to the combination of child-chosen and adult-led activities.

One practical weakness needs attention. In June 2025, plans to develop independence during snacks and meals were inconsistently put into practice, despite children having choices elsewhere in the day. Everyday tasks matter alongside play: the improvement required was greater consistency in helping children practise doing things for themselves.

Sessions and Attendance

The address is The Sanctuary, Octagon Road, Whiteley Village, Walton-On-Thames, Surrey KT12 4EE. Enquiries can be made by email or telephone through the nursery's contact route.

The nursery operates on weekdays during term time, for 38 weeks each year, and closes on bank holidays. Morning sessions run from 8.30am to noon; afternoon sessions run from noon to 3.30pm. Lunch occupies noon to 12.30pm, overlapping the start of the afternoon rather than following a separate morning-to-afternoon gap.

Breakfast club runs from 7.30am to 8.30am, while extended hours run from 3.30pm to 5.30pm. These extensions allow a longer attendance day around the core sessions. The 2025-2026 session schedule also offered a full day from 8.30am to 3.30pm and required a minimum of two sessions each week.

Funding and Paid Extras

Funded childcare is offered on a term-time basis. The funding information describes 15 or 30 hours per week over 38 weeks, while the fee terms name FEET funding, 2-year-old funding for working parents and 30 hours funding for working parents. Those are funding routes, rather than a promise that every family qualifies for each one.

The 2025-2026 fee terms allowed the listed sessions to be used with funded hours and applied an additional charge for outdoor learning, crafts, cookery and consumables to children receiving any funding. Private hours were charged separately. Current prices belong in the nursery's written quotation; the dated charge structure is important when considering what funded attendance involves.

Children attending the afternoon bring a packed lunch. Parents also supply nappies, wipes and suncream, while the dated funded-hours terms separately charge for consumables, so that category has both a parental-supply requirement and a charge. The fees page sets out the session and charge structure.

• Funding allocation. The funding information describes both 15 and 30 weekly hours but also limits allocation across morning, afternoon and lunch sessions to 15 hours. Ask how the funded hours would be applied to your intended pattern and which current additional charges would apply.
• Term-time coverage. The 38-week calendar and bank-holiday closures matter for families needing continuous childcare. Morning and afternoon choices offer flexibility within that calendar, rather than coverage through school holidays.
• Woodland clothing. Weekly woodland activity calls for weather-appropriate clothing, including winter waterproofs and sturdy footwear. At a visit, discuss how your child would take part and manage the outdoor routine.
• Everyday independence. Consistency at meals and snacks was the June 2025 improvement point. A useful visit question is how children now practise those tasks for themselves alongside choosing their play.

The Village Nursery School suits families seeking morning or afternoon term-time attendance with regular woodland activity and close connections to village life. Breakfast club and extended hours add options around those sessions. Its church-hall spaces, outdoor play equipment and nearby woods provide several different settings for exploration.

Daily Tapestry updates and the key person approach keep parents involved. Families need a workable term-time calendar and a clear funded-hours agreement. The June 2025 independence finding remains a useful discussion point.