Clandon Park Nursery

Woodland exploration and a window into the kitchen give Clandon Park Nursery two compelling ways to connect learning with everyday life. Children can explore the grounds at Clandon, grow ingredients and watch the chef prepare meals. This is a nursery with a clear appetite for outdoor play and practical discovery, rather than a day built entirely around indoor activities.

At its 7 July 2025 inspection, Ofsted rated the nursery Good, found safeguarding effective and judged that children were progressing well. There were also two clear priorities: sharper learning aims for planned activities and more deliberate involvement of children who are quiet or hesitant. Those points matter alongside the positive judgement.

The nursery has 58 places in total and occupies a timber building at Clandon Park, West Clandon, GU4 7RQ. Sleeping Bunnies, Little Foxes and Bonnie Badgers are its named rooms. Full days and later collection arrangements serve families seeking a substantial nursery week, with a minimum commitment of three days.

Rooms and Ages

Sleeping Bunnies is the baby room for children from six months to two years, with a separate space intended to help younger children settle. Little Foxes shares a routine with Sleeping Bunnies that includes sensory exploration, songs, movement and a midday period for rest. Bonnie Badgers, for children from 27 months to five years, has a routine combining gardening, early number work, phonics and individual learning activities.

The routines give a useful sense of how the day changes as children grow. Younger children have songs before play, a story alongside their snack and sensory activities before lunch. Their afternoon includes movement, music or soft play. Older children have opportunities for outdoor exploration and activities led by adults, alongside play they choose themselves. Sleep or quiet time remains part of the older children's routine for those who need it.

Learning and Activities

The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) provides the framework: children learn through play, with activities adjusted as their development progresses. Staff monitor development and use children's interests to shape what comes next. The practical implication is that learning can happen within an absorbing game or conversation, rather than requiring children to sit through a succession of formal lessons.

Several named activities add substance to that approach. DRAMA LLAMAS brings drama sessions for older children, using imaginative acting as an opportunity for expression. Caterpillar Music visits weekly, with themed musical activities, puppets and instruments suitable for babies. These give children different ways to participate: pretending, listening, moving and making sounds.

Little Kickers introduces football through playful activities that also involve instructions, numbers and cooperation. MINI ATHLETICS adds running, throwing and jumping. The difference between the two matters: one introduces ball skills, while the other broadens the movement children practise. Families can find the activities together on the curriculum page.

In July 2025, younger children explored painting tools during an ocean-themed activity, while older children dug up potatoes and investigated floating objects. Preschool children experimented with colour combinations and predicted the results. These examples show the breadth of the learning opportunities, but the same month's improvement priorities highlighted the need to make the intended learning clearer and draw quieter children further into activities.

Outdoor and Community Life

Clandon Park Nursery Forest School centres on practical exploration in woodland, including using tools, encountering challenges and learning about boundaries. Activities run through the seasons and in almost all weather. Outdoor learning therefore has a place beyond fair-weather play: clothing and a child's comfort with muddy, changeable conditions are relevant family considerations.

The large outdoor play space and surrounding woodland give this approach a physical setting. Gardening also connects the outdoors with meals through the Clandon vegetable garden, where children are encouraged to take part in growing and preparing food. In July 2025, children explored herbs, water and mud, and took walks in the surrounding park areas. The strongest thread is learning from things children can handle and investigate themselves.

Relationships and Communication

An appointed key person provides a regular point of contact for discussing a child's development. Termly parent meetings create time for a fuller conversation, while daily information sharing and an open-door policy support contact between those meetings. This gives families both a planned review of progress and a way to raise smaller matters as they arise.

Settling sessions for the preschool rooms let children explore the spaces and meet staff and their key person before starting. The preparation guidance also places considerable weight on independence, including managing coats and shoes, using cutlery and becoming familiar with time away from parents. For a child starting nursery, these are concrete expectations rather than a general promise that settling will be easy.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

At the July 2025 inspection, Ofsted found that staff worked with external professionals and adapted activities for children with special educational needs or disabilities. That is useful evidence of support in practice, with individual activities and changes to the environment rather than a blanket assurance about every child's future experience.

In July 2025, staff helped children manage overwhelming feelings through calm, consistent responses and supported routines such as handwashing and personal care. The nursery's Art Therapy activities use collage and mask-making to open conversations about feelings. These activities give children opportunities to express and discuss feelings; they should not be read as a promise of clinical treatment.

Sleep deserves careful attention here. Younger children's preparation guidance asks families to build familiarity with sleeping independently in a cot and explains that staff cannot routinely provide one-to-one rocking while caring for other babies. The daily routine includes a midday rest period, so the fit between that pattern and a baby's established sleep habits is a meaningful decision point.

Meals are prepared by a chef, and children have an observing window and a telephone through which they can ask about the cooking. The winter menu includes cooked lunches, fruit and lighter teas, while regular visits from a Dental Hygienist connect food with conversations about teeth and oral care.

School transition also has practical substance. In July 2025, teachers visited children at nursery and staff shared information about individual needs. Meeting a future teacher in familiar surroundings can make the change less abrupt, without implying an admissions advantage.

Sessions and Attendance

The address is Clandon Park Nursery, Clandon Park, West Clandon, Guildford, Surrey, GU4 7RQ. Telephone enquiries use 01483 385493, and visits can be booked. The nursery operates Monday to Friday.

The September 2026 to August 2027 terms set full-day attendance from 8am to 5pm, with a separately charged extension to 5.30pm that must be booked beforehand and cannot use funded hours. A minimum of three days each week is required. These are substantial attendance commitments, so a family needing occasional care will need a different arrangement.

Attendance is organised over 49 weeks, with a summer closure week, usually at the end of July, and two weeks closed around Christmas. Term-time-only places are considered only in exceptional circumstances, individually. The annual pattern matters as much as the daily collection time for families whose working year follows school terms.

Funding and Paid Extras

Funded childcare and additional private hours are offered. The current terms include the 30 Hours Working parent entitlement, with 15 hours universal and 15 Hours Working parent entitlement identified for three- and four-year-olds. Funding is spread across 49 weeks rather than delivered solely during the 38-week entitlement period.

Funded hours are restricted to 10am to 5pm and capped at seven hours a day. This is important for an 8am start: a full nursery day and the hours that can use funding are different arrangements. The fee forecast separates funded hours, private hours and charges, with billing spread into consistent monthly payments.

For private care, meals and baby wipes are included in the fee. For funded hours, meals and consumables are charged separately; the daily charge covering food and enrichment is voluntary, and opting out brings the alternatives provision policy into operation. Current prices come in the nursery's written quotation, with the charge structure set out on its fees page.

• Later collection times. The September 2026 to August 2027 terms give a prebooked extension to 5.30pm, while full-day tables also show an 8am to 6pm option with Arty Abbs sensory play. Clarify which later collection arrangement applies before relying on it for work.
• Participation in learning. In July 2025, planned activities needed clearer learning aims and quieter children needed more consistent involvement. Ask how staff now bring a hesitant child into group activities and assess what they gain.
• Baby sleep. Preparation guidance expects familiarity with independent cot sleep and explains the limits on one-to-one rocking. Discuss how the room would respond to your baby's actual sleep and soothing needs.
• The weekly commitment. Three days is the minimum, and term-time-only attendance is exceptional. The funded-hour window, closure weeks and alternatives provision policy all affect how this commitment fits your family's working pattern.

Clandon Park Nursery suits families seeking either full days or extended days, alongside outdoor exploration and a substantial programme of music, drama and movement. The woodland, vegetable growing and kitchen viewing window give its learning approach concrete substance. The July 2025 priorities deserve equal weight: engaging quieter children and making activities more purposeful are the questions that turn an attractive programme into a good fit for an individual child.