Play Days Nursery

Fairy Garden, Rainbow Garden and Treasure Island Garden give Play Days Nursery a clear outdoor identity: sensory planting for babies, shaded storytelling for toddlers and a covered sand area for preschool children. The setting sits within Eyres Monsell and Gilmorton Children's Centre in Glen Parva, Leicester. Its indoor organisation follows the same progression, with separate baby, toddler and preschool spaces rather than a single room serving every stage.

At its February 2022 inspection, Ofsted rated the nursery Good overall and judged behaviour and attitudes Outstanding. That dated judgement sits alongside concrete examples of children helping friends, taking turns and persisting with practical tasks. The improvement priority was equally specific: giving children more chances to put newly learned words into use.

The nursery has capacity for 50 children, with a current age range of 2 to 60 months. Full days, morning sessions and afternoon sessions provide different ways to organise attendance. For parents, the strongest practical combination is the stage-specific play space, a baby routine linked to home and organised preparation for the move to school.

Rooms and Ages

Baby Room combines black, red and white sensory areas with treasure baskets, painting on the body and water activities, giving babies different materials and sensations to explore. Toddler Room is a spacious area where language activities, movement, messy play and everyday self-care sit alongside an outdoor classroom and a quiet place to rest. Preschool uses a large, open-plan room for learning across the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS), the framework covering children's communication, physical development, relationships and learning through play.

The progression is practical. Babies explore through their senses; toddlers work on managing everyday tasks; preschool children encounter more directed preparation for school. These are emphases rather than fixed expectations that every child must reach at the same pace. Toddler activities follow each child's needs and interests, while the wider activity plans can change when children's own ideas take the day in another direction.

Learning and Activities

Weekly activity planning gives the day a structure, but children can select much of the indoor and outdoor equipment themselves. That makes room for both an adult's planned activity and a child's sustained interest in a particular object or action. Observations are connected back to the EYFS so that play also informs what staff plan next.

Schematic play means exploring recurring patterns of action, such as filling containers, moving objects between places or turning things. Here, those interests are recognised as ways children investigate how things work. A child repeatedly carrying water or putting objects inside a container has a learning interest that staff can build on, rather than simply an activity to interrupt.

In Toddler Room, Funky fingers and dough gyms use activities intended to develop small hand movements and early writing skills. Language groups, messy activities and larger movements add different kinds of practice. Preschool includes Phase 1 letters and sounds alongside phonic awareness, giving the later nursery stage an explicit sound-and-language emphasis before school.

In February 2022, books, songs and rhymes were used to introduce vocabulary, but children needed more opportunities to use those words in other situations. That distinction matters: hearing a new word and choosing it independently during play are different steps. It is the clearest teaching question to carry into a visit.

Outdoor and Community Life

Fairy Garden contains sensory flowers and plants for babies. Rainbow Garden gives toddlers shaded space for stories and outdoor play. Treasure Island Garden brings together landscaped mounds, stepping stones and a substantial covered sand area, providing preschool children with different surfaces and materials to explore.

The gardens are more than a shared patch of outdoor space. Each has a different physical character, which helps parents picture the outdoor experience at their child's stage. In February 2022, children also used movable construction and climbing materials outside and experimented with the effects of windy weather.

Occasional walks and visits beyond the premises take place with parental consent. These extend the nursery day beyond its rooms and gardens, while retaining an explicit permission process for families.

Relationships and Communication

A baby's key person follows the routine used at home and completes a daily diary about the child's day. This gives parents a regular account of care and helps staff carry familiar routines into nursery life. For a baby starting childcare, that continuity is more useful than a general promise of individual attention.

Joining includes a care plan and discussion of the child's development, giving parents a structured opportunity to explain routines and preferences. Two free induction sessions, each lasting one hour, are offered initially, with a parent able to stay if preferred; further settling sessions are considered through discussion with the family. The settling process can therefore respond to the child rather than ending automatically after the initial visits.

Staff hold professionally recognised qualifications. In February 2022, they also received continuing training and regular supervision, and planning drew on children's interests and experiences at home. Those are inspection-time details rather than a description of today's staffing numbers.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

At the February 2022 inspection, Ofsted found effective safeguarding arrangements and good support for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities, including specialist training and collaboration with specialist teachers. The current team structure includes special educational needs coordinator support and key-person roles, giving families identifiable functions through which to discuss their child's needs.

Toddler care incorporates handwashing, teeth cleaning, toileting and eating independently. An integrated health and education review takes place at 2 years 3 months, involving parents, the key person and a health visitor; a progress record brings together strengths and areas needing further development. This connects nursery observations with the family's knowledge of the child.

Meals use a three-week menu rotation, with dishes including chicken casserole, salmon pasta and lasagne; a nursery chef is part of the team. Dietary arrangements take account of parents' instructions, and the nursery's nut policy aims to keep nuts out rather than presenting an unconditional guarantee.

Moving to school has a concrete process. The key person contacts the new teacher, organises transition visits and sends a continuity report about the child. Meeting the teacher and seeing the classroom give the move a familiar starting point, while the written handover helps the receiving teacher prepare.

Sessions and Attendance

The address is Eyres Monsell and Gilmorton Children's Centre, Hillsborough Road, Glen Parva, Leicester, LE2 9PT. Opening hours are 7.45am to 5.45pm, Monday to Friday. Attendance runs across the year, with bank-holiday and Christmas closures.

A full day runs from 7.45am to 5.45pm. Morning sessions run from 7.45am to 12.45pm, while afternoons run from 1.15pm to 5.45pm. Weekly booking patterns cover two, three, four or five days, or a minimum of two sessions. That distinction matters for a family wanting shorter blocks: morning and afternoon attendance are genuine booking options, rather than simply leaving a full-day place early.

Showrounds can be booked through a form, and enquiries can be made through the contact form. The joining process requires an enrolment form, a care plan, agreement to the terms and payment plan, an agreed start date and fees in advance. The waiting-list rule matches offers to the child's age and requested sessions, in order of applicable entries.

Funding and Paid Extras

Funded early education is offered for three- and four-year-olds from the term after the third birthday, and the nursery also accepts enquiries about funded places for two-year-olds. Additional childcare hours are charged separately from funded entitlement. The annual attendance pattern and the way funded hours are allocated need to be read together, because they affect the balance between funded time and paid care.

For funded sessions that overlap mealtimes, meals, snacks and drinks are free. Consumable charges are listed, and parents supply nappies. There is no registration charge to reserve a place. Current prices come in the nursery's written quotation; the fee schedule sets out the charging categories.

Fees continue during holidays, sickness absence and the Christmas closure. Families should therefore budget around the agreed attendance pattern rather than expecting each missed day to reduce the bill.

• Putting new words into use. The February 2022 improvement priority concerned opportunities to use newly acquired vocabulary. On a visit, ask how staff now help children carry words from books and songs into conversation and play.
• Funded-hours pattern. Funding information gives both 15 hours over 38 weeks and a stretched arrangement described as 12 hours over 51 weeks. These are conflicting delivery descriptions; ask for the funded timetable and additional-hours breakdown in writing before choosing a booking pattern.
• Christmas planning. Room information gives closure from Christmas Eve until after New Year, while the terms give a 1pm Christmas Eve finish. Ask which Christmas Eve arrangement applies to your contract, especially if you need that day's care.
• Settling and dietary needs. The initial induction offer allows a parent to stay, and the nut policy expresses an aim to exclude nuts. Use the showround to discuss how settling sessions would work for your child and, where relevant, confirm current allergy practice.

Play Days Nursery suits families choosing between full days, mornings and afternoons who want separate spaces for babies, toddlers and preschool children. The gardens give those stages recognisable outdoor settings, while baby diaries, a care plan and school-transition visits put useful structure around the changes that can unsettle a child.

The February 2022 Good judgement is a dated quality reference, with children's behaviour a strength and vocabulary use the clear improvement priority. For a decision now, the funded-hours timetable and Christmas Eve arrangements deserve written agreement alongside the chosen attendance pattern. The most persuasive details are concrete: sensory planting, a toddler rest area, covered preschool sand play and a key-person handover to the next teacher.