The Kinderhouse Nursery

An old police station, four outdoor spaces and trips to the lifeboats give The Kinderhouse Nursery a character firmly rooted in Lytham St Annes. There is substance behind the setting too: at its July 2024 inspection, Ofsted awarded Outstanding overall, with the same judgement for education, behaviour, personal development and leadership. The strongest thread is children taking an active part in their learning, rather than simply following an adult's programme.

The nursery occupies The Old St Anne's Police Station on St Andrews Road North and has 100 places in total, with an age range from birth to five. Its named groups run from Bambini's for younger babies through to Kinder's for preschool children. A Sensory Room, an Outdoor Classroom and sleeping areas within the Baby Room give different activities their own space.

Flexible attendance, rather than fixed sessions, is the booking model. For parents, the other substantial draw is communication: individual key workers, digital diaries and a parent forum create several ways to stay involved, while speech and language support has specific tools and external links behind it.

Rooms and Ages

Bambini's covers 3-15 months. Nino's takes children aged 15-24 months. Keiki's covers 2-3 years, while Kinder's is for 3-4-year-olds. These age bands give parents a useful starting point for understanding their child's group and the sequence of moves through nursery.

The Baby Room includes sleeping areas, while the Preschool Room provides space for active learning. Elsewhere, the Sensory Room is intended for both exploration and quieter relaxation, and the Outdoor Classroom brings nature play into the setting. The practical appeal is the variety of spaces: rest, energetic activity and sensory exploration need not all compete for the same environment.

Learning and Activities

The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) organises learning across language, physical development, relationships, early literacy and mathematics, creative expression and understanding the world. At Kinderhouse, activities take children's interests as their starting point, with adult-led experiences alongside play that children initiate themselves. The framework is the baseline; the interest-led planning describes how the nursery puts it into practice.

In July 2024, number work was woven into imaginative play. Children planning a pretend aeroplane counted the seats they needed, including their own. Older children also took charge of singing with a group and reading to friends, while babies listened to stories read by staff. These are useful examples of learning embedded in an activity: counting has a purpose, and speaking involves holding someone else's attention.

Two interactive computer tables provide another route into stories, drawing and number games. One is upstairs and one downstairs; each can be used horizontally or with the screen tilted. Their value is the specific activity they support, rather than technology for its own sake: children can explore digital painting, story programmes and early number work.

Physical activity has several forms. In July 2024, weekly sport practised particular movement skills, rhythm and rhyme sessions combined singing and dancing with balance, and baby yoga involved stretching and muscle development. The current activity offer also includes yoga and Rhythm and Rhyme, giving movement a place alongside stories and imaginative play.

Outdoor and Community Life

Four separate outdoor spaces provide opportunities to play outside within the nursery. The setting also has its own minibus and uses the surrounding area for outings, with the beach, woods and parks close by. That combination matters: outdoor experience includes both the nursery's spaces and places beyond them.

Community activities include fire-station visits, police talks, lifeboat visits, links with a local church and visits to a care home. These bring children into contact with people and services beyond their immediate family. In July 2024, regular tram outings included learning about the lifeboat service, and children took part in the local carnival and kite festival. Those dated examples show the community involvement in practice, rather than leaving it as a broad aspiration.

Relationships and Communication

Each child has a key worker responsible for getting to know their needs, helping them become familiar with nursery and building a relationship with parents. Other staff also become familiar to the child. This gives families a particular person to communicate with while allowing relationships to extend beyond that one adult.

Babys days is the digital communication system: staff add daily diary entries, progress updates and photographs, and parents can contribute their own observations and images or message the key worker. It connects nursery experiences with what happens at home. The parent forum adds a collective route for feedback, with four parent representatives meeting every six weeks to discuss other families' views and ideas for events.

In July 2024, staff used a focus child system to review individual progress regularly and kept up communication with parents about learning. Parents were also invited to read in their home languages, and children explored words from different languages with staff. This made family backgrounds part of everyday learning, rather than keeping communication solely about routines and collection times.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

Speech and language provision includes internal champions and the Wellcomm toolkit, used to identify emerging needs and gaps. A SENCO role coordinates support, with portage and the inclusion team contributing each term and links to the Child Development Centre at Blenheim House in Blackpool. These are concrete mechanisms for identifying a need and bringing in help.

At the July 2024 inspection, Ofsted found safeguarding effective and strong support for children with SEND, specific health needs and additional funding, including targeted training and cooperation with outside agencies. The current arrangements also include fingerprint-controlled entry, with authorised collectors added to the system, and a video door system controllable from the rooms. Access arrangements are a practical feature; the safeguarding judgement belongs to the dated inspection.

Meals are cooked by in-house chefs, with freshly prepared food and seasonal menus. Hot lunch is charged separately, while snacks and afternoon milk are free. For families comparing costs, that distinction matters as much as the hourly childcare price.

Sessions and Attendance

The address is 23-25 St Andrews Rd North, The Old St Anne's Police Station, Lytham St Annes, FY8 2JF. Opening hours are 7.45am to 5.30pm, Monday to Friday, across 52 weeks of the year, with bank-holiday closures. Attendance is arranged through flexible hours rather than fixed morning, afternoon or full-day sessions, allowing the booked hours to follow a family's needs.

Enquiries can be made by telephone or through the contact form, and tours can be arranged through the nursery. Its own minibus supports outings; public transport is also close to the setting. Neither should be confused with a home-to-nursery transport service.

Funding and Paid Extras

Funded childcare is offered through universal funding of 15 hours for three- and four-year-olds, extended funding of 30 hours for working parents, and funding for eligible two-year-olds. Tax-Free Childcare and childcare vouchers are also accepted. Eligibility conditions still apply; accepting a scheme does not make every family eligible for it.

Private childcare is charged by the hour. The distinction between a separately charged hot lunch and free snacks and afternoon milk should form part of any comparison, and current prices come in the nursery's written quotation. The funding and fees information also sets out a minimum term's notice when a family will not take up a place in the following term, making the timing of changes important.

Moving on to school was an active part of provision in July 2024: children made regular visits to their new schools and practised listening and attention. Becoming familiar with staff and routines gives school preparation a practical form, alongside the learning that happens within nursery.

• Hours that match your working day. Flexible attendance replaces fixed sessions, and the current weekday closing time is 5.30pm. During a visit, discuss how your required hours would work across the week.
• The move between age groups. Bambini's, Nino's, Keiki's and Kinder's divide the early years into separate stages. Ask how room moves and key-worker relationships are managed for your child's stage.
• The complete funded-place arrangement. Funding participation sits alongside separately charged hot lunch and free snacks and afternoon milk. Ask for one written breakdown covering the funded-hours pattern, food and non-food consumables.
• Notice before changing plans. A minimum term's notice applies when a place will not be taken up in the following term. Build that commitment into decisions about a change of childcare or the move to school.

Kinderhouse suits families seeking flexible hours, whether that means shorter attendance or longer stretches of the weekday, rather than a fixed-session timetable. Its strongest practical attractions are the separate outdoor spaces, community outings and several routes for parents to contribute to their child's nursery life.

The July 2024 Outstanding judgement provides a strong dated assessment, while the current speech and language mechanisms give families something concrete to understand beyond a general promise of inclusion. The decision is likely to turn on how the flexible booking arrangement fits the working week, the room progression and the full cost structure around funded or private hours.