Park Day Nursery

An upstairs base for babies, a garden with dinosaur land and village outings give Park Day Nursery its character. Based within Crofton Community Centre in Stubbington, Fareham, it cares for children from three months to five years. The combination matters: children have age-specific indoor spaces, outdoor play and opportunities to explore beyond the nursery.

At its 20 March 2023 inspection, Ofsted rated the nursery Good overall and found safeguarding effective, with well-supported children with special educational needs and/or disabilities and good progress through a carefully ordered curriculum. That judgement also came with practical improvements: greater consistency in staff practice and more thinking time during conversations with children.

Full days, mornings and afternoons are offered across the year. For parents, the strongest reasons to consider Park are its separate arrangements for younger children, practical preschool learning and detailed communication about everyday care.

Rooms and Ages

Park Olive & Willow Rooms accommodate children approximately three months to two years old, with upstairs spaces for sensory exploration and physical play, plus a separate sleeping area. Treasure baskets, messy materials and climbing equipment give younger children different ways to explore, while access between the rooms allows them to spend time together or separately. This is a useful arrangement for children at different stages of mobility and confidence.

For children approximately two to three, Park Oak Room combines adult-guided activities with play children choose themselves, using sorting for early mathematics, rhymes for language and painting for creative exploration. The change is towards a little more structure. Learning still happens through familiar activities rather than a day organised around formal lessons.

Park Pre-School Room emphasises independence and preparation for school, with spaces for construction, role play, craft, early writing and number work. Its age bands are approximate. The practical emphasis gives children opportunities to practise choosing resources and managing tasks as well as developing early literacy and numeracy.

Learning and Activities

The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) provides the educational framework: children develop communication, relationships, movement, early reading and number skills through play and adult-supported experiences. It is the shared foundation for nursery education. Park combines experiences initiated by children with activities adults lead, using observations to plan what each child could learn next.

The preschool curriculum makes those aims concrete. Respectful communicators covers expressing ideas, listening to others and recognising letters in a child's name; Passionate problem solvers brings together counting, comparing and practical independence. Pouring a drink, managing clothing and using cutlery sit alongside mathematical learning. That gives school preparation an everyday purpose beyond recognising letters.

Curious creators includes working with materials, imaginative play and music, while Well-being warriors addresses feelings, friendships and seeking help from a familiar adult. Independent investigators introduces questions about growing, animals, technology and how materials behave. These are curriculum aims, rather than a claim that every child has already mastered each skill.

Country of the month introduces children to facts about different countries and to cultures and religions, with Diwali and Chinese New Year among the events used for learning. This gives conversations about the wider world a recognisable theme. The curriculum overview explains how learning and communication with parents fit together.

In March 2023, children explored water play, worked together to water garden plants and practised letters and sounds with staff. Older children also worked on dressing themselves and handling pencils. These examples show how physical exploration, conversation and independence featured in the day at that time.

Outdoor and Community Life

Dinosaur land, a construction area and the mud kitchen provide settings for imaginative play in the garden. Climbing frames, bikes and ride-on toys add opportunities for movement, while sand and water resources support hands-on exploration. The mix gives children reasons to collaborate as well as space to be physically active.

Outdoor play continues through the year, with waterproof suits supplied for garden use. Village shops, the library and the park are destinations for local exploration. These outings connect children's learning with ordinary community places rather than keeping their experience entirely within the nursery.

Relationships and Communication

A key person is allocated before a child starts, giving parents a specific practitioner with whom to share routines and individual needs. Settling sessions are recommended to help children become familiar with the setting. For babies and toddlers, sleep follows their individual pattern, with a separate area available for rest rather than requiring everyone to sleep together at a fixed point.

Famly, the online communication platform, carries photographs, notices, events and invoices; families with children up to three also receive daily information about food, sleep and nappy changes. That makes the small details of a younger child's day accessible to parents. Development information can also be viewed through Famly, and parents can arrange a discussion with their child's key person about progress.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

A SENCO role and designated safeguarding lead roles form part of the staff structure. Collection procedures require parental authorisation and identification, while door cameras, coded entry and an intercom support access arrangements. These are practical procedures, rather than a substitute for the dated safeguarding judgement.

At the March 2023 inspection, Ofsted found that targeted support plans were developed with parents and external agencies, but identified uneven staff understanding of baby sleep arrangements and occasions when questioning left children too little time to answer. Staff monitored sleeping children, yet the understanding of arrangements was inconsistent. The improvement priorities were to make monitoring and training more precise and strengthen conversational practice.

Within Park Oak Room, staff work with parents on toilet training and encourage children to manage handwashing and personal hygiene. Preschool learning also includes recognising feelings, asking adults for support and sharing with friends. These practical habits connect care with growing independence.

Sessions and Attendance

Full day care runs from 8am to 6pm. Morning care is 8am to 1pm, and afternoon care is 1pm to 6pm; an optional early start begins at 7.30am. Additional ad hoc hours can also be booked. These choices serve different routines, from a shorter morning to a day extending into the evening.

The nursery operates for 51 weeks each year and closes on bank holidays and for a week at Christmas, with those closures excluded from charges. Term-time places and school-hours patterns are not offered. Families whose childcare needs stop during school holidays therefore need to weigh the across-year arrangement carefully.

Getting There

The address is Crofton Community Centre, Stubbington Lane, Stubbington, Fareham, Hampshire PO14 2PP. Access is through the community centre's main entrance, and its large adjacent car park provides a practical option for families travelling by car. General enquiries can be made through the contact form or by calling 01329 668686.

Funding and Paid Extras

Both the 15 hour Funding entitlement and 30 hour Funding entitlement are offered on a stretched basis over 51 weeks. The former is stretched to 11 hours weekly, with a separate attendance band using 10 funded hours; the latter is stretched to 22 hours weekly. Additional attendance is charged privately under the applicable attendance band, so a funded entitlement and the total booked week are separate parts of the arrangement.

For non-funded sessions, meals other than lunch are included, while lunch is an optional separate charge; ad hoc hours are excluded from that inclusion, and families can pay for a nursery meal or supply their own when a meal falls within those hours, subject to the terms. On funded arrangements, lunch is also an optional separate charge, and the terms describe a voluntary payment associated with funded hours.

A refundable deposit is offset against the final invoice, with a further deposit for bookings more than three months ahead offset against the third invoice under the applicable terms. Non-funded bookings have a registration charge that includes settling play sessions, a nursery bag and a drinking cup or bottle; funded arrangements instead include an optional starter package and separately priced settling sessions. Current prices come in the nursery's written quotation, with the fees and funding terms setting out the charging structure.

• Baby sleep practice. In March 2023, staff understanding of sleeping arrangements was inconsistent. During an appointment visit, ask how the separate sleep area is used and how staff now maintain consistent practice.
• Time to answer. The March 2023 improvement priorities included allowing children longer to respond to questions. Ask how practitioners support quieter children and leave space for their ideas.
• Across-year attendance. Morning and afternoon sessions provide shorter options, but term-time and school-hours patterns are not offered. The annual attendance arrangement needs to fit your family's holiday routine.
• The whole funded bill. Stretched funding, private attendance, optional lunch and the voluntary funded-hours payment are separate elements. Request a written quotation for your intended pattern, including who supplies nappies, wipes and other consumables.

Park suits families seeking either full-day attendance or shorter morning and afternoon sessions across the year, with an optional early start. Its appeal is concrete: upstairs rooms for younger children, a separate sleep area, a garden equipped for imaginative and physical play, and preschool aims rooted in communication and everyday independence.

The Good judgement dates from March 2023, and its improvement priorities deserve attention alongside the strengths. For parents of babies, consistent sleep practice is the most useful visit discussion; for funded attendance, the full charging structure is the key practical decision.