Alphabet Day Nursery

A baby garden, an allotment area and trains passing next door give Alphabet Day Nursery a character that reaches beyond its playrooms. On Station Road in Whittlesey, near Peterborough, the setting combines separate spaces for babies, toddlers and preschool children with opportunities to explore the surrounding town. Outdoor play starts early here: even the youngest children have a garden adjoining their room.

At its May 2025 inspection, Ofsted rated Alphabet Day Nursery Good, judged safeguarding effective and found that children settled confidently, with close staff relationships and well-adapted support for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities. The qualification matters too: staff needed to extend children's thinking more consistently. Warm relationships and purposeful teaching were evident, but staff did not always sufficiently extend children's knowledge and ideas.

The nursery accepts children from 3 months to 5 years and has 63 places in total. Its current room structure runs from Rabbits Room through Hedgehog Room to Squirrels Room, with flexible childcare across the year. The strongest practical combination is space for age-appropriate play, outdoor access and a settling process built around the child's existing home routine.

Rooms and Ages

Rabbits Room caters for children aged 0-2 years, within the nursery's overall starting age of 3 months, and combines space for crawling and early walking with a cosy reading area and an adjoining baby garden for sensory and physical play. That outdoor connection gives babies another setting in which to explore movement, rather than making the garden an experience reserved for older children.

For children aged 2-3 years, Hedgehog Room brings construction, pretend play and painting together with a book corner and the adjoining Toddler Garden, where bikes, climbing, gardening and early mark making support physical development. Sharing, taking turns and potty training belong to this stage too. The emphasis is on growing independence through familiar activities, with a key person supporting the transition.

Squirrels Room serves children aged 3-5 years, with play moving freely into its large garden, where planting, bug hunting, balancing and mud kitchen play sit alongside preparation for school and greater independence. Choosing between indoor and outdoor activities gives preschool children opportunities to make decisions about their play. The rooms have different purposes, rather than simply different age labels.

Learning and Activities

The Early Years Foundation Stage provides the framework for children's learning and care: practitioners use play to develop language, movement, relationships and early skills in reading and mathematics. It is the shared early-years foundation, with activities shaped around each child's stage of development. At Alphabet, that approach is expressed through practical experiences such as making marks, building, handling play dough and sharing books.

Preschool children also have Physical Education and Musical Lessons during the week, planned by the preschool team. These add organised opportunities for movement and music to the play-based day. They sit alongside opportunities to develop communication, relationships, literacy and mathematics, rather than replacing children's own choices of activity.

In May 2025, staff used conversation during play, songs and stories to build children's vocabulary. Babies connected pictures in books with parts of their own bodies, while older children brought familiar story language into their play. This makes communication part of ordinary activity rather than something confined to a separate lesson. The teaching development point was to extend children's thinking more consistently.

Outdoor and Community Life

A spacious garden and allotment area broaden the nursery's physical setting. Large, air-conditioned rooms also benefit from natural light. Together, these features provide different places for active play and quieter activity, with the room-specific gardens keeping outdoor experiences relevant to each age group.

The local environment is part of the offer. Outings include collecting library books, visiting parks, shopping locally and going to the garden centre; picnics and visits to elderly homes bring other experiences beyond the nursery. These activities connect play with everyday places and people. Their value lies in giving children something real to talk about, observe and remember.

Train spotting is another recognisable part of life here. The nursery sits alongside Whittlesey Railway Station, and children can watch trains and railway maintenance work. That neighbouring activity supplies an immediate connection between the children's surroundings and their curiosity about how things work.

Relationships and Communication

Settling begins with parents and children together. Rabbits Room offers introductory settling sessions, and families meet their child's key person to discuss the routine already established at home. For a baby starting childcare, this makes familiar habits part of the conversation from the outset. The key person has practical information to work with, rather than starting from a generic routine.

In May 2025, staff gathered information about children's routines, interests and existing abilities, and babies showed familiarity with the adults caring for them. Older children approached staff to talk about what they had discovered. These observations give substance to the relationship-led approach: adults were people children actively sought out, as well as people who organised activities.

The key-person arrangement continues beyond the baby stage. In Hedgehog Room, it includes support with sharing, turn taking and potty training. These are daily transitions with a direct effect on a toddler's confidence, and the same relationship can connect physical care with learning through play.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

At the May 2025 inspection, Ofsted found that staff adjusted teaching and resources for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities, worked with parents and helped them seek support from other professionals, and reviewed the effect of individual interventions. This is useful evidence of a practical support process, with changes made to the child's experience and their impact considered, rather than a general promise of inclusion.

Current safeguarding arrangements include designated lead practitioner roles, staff vetting and ongoing safeguarding training. The team also holds paediatric first-aid qualifications.

An on-site chef prepares the day's snacks, cooked lunch and afternoon tea in the nursery kitchen. Children eat together and practise serving themselves and handling cutlery, so meals also offer opportunities to build independence.

Sessions and Attendance

Opening hours are 7.30am to 6pm, Monday to Friday, across 51 weeks of the year. Flexible childcare is offered to accommodate families' individual requirements.

The nursery is at Station Road, Whittlesey, Peterborough, PE7 2HA. Enquiries can be made by telephone on 01733 350781 or by email at info@alphabet-daynursery.co.uk. Its overall age range begins at 3 months, even though the baby room's age band starts at birth.

Getting There

Whittlesey Railway Station is alongside the nursery, a useful point for families who commute by train. There is also free parking in the nursery's private on-site car park, giving drivers a dedicated place to park.

Funding and Paid Extras

The nursery offers 15 hours of funded childcare for three- and four-year-olds and 30 hours subject to eligibility, plus a separate 15-hour offer for eligible two-year-olds whose parents receive qualifying benefits. These entitlements provide a route to funded attendance for eligible families; they do not establish a particular booking pattern. Current prices come in the nursery's written quotation.

• Extending children's ideas. The May 2025 teaching development point was about deeper thinking. On a visit, ask how staff encourage children to explain their choices and pursue a question beyond its first answer.
• The baby-room transition. Rabbits Room includes settling sessions with parents and a discussion of home routines with the key person. Use that conversation to work through your baby's feeding, sleep and separation needs.
• Flexible attendance and funding. Flexible childcare and funded hours are both offered. Ask for one written outline covering your intended attendance pattern, how funded hours fit it, and the treatment of meals and non-food consumables.

Alphabet suits families looking for flexible attendance, age-specific rooms and a nursery day that connects indoor play with gardens and the surrounding town. The baby settling arrangements have clear practical value, while preschool children gain outdoor choice and additional movement and music activities.

The May 2025 Good judgement supports that picture, with the teaching development point providing a sensible question for a visit. Its appeal is concrete: a key person who learns the child's routines, outdoor spaces attached to the rooms, and everyday experiences that give children things to investigate and discuss.