Enchanted Wood Preschool, The Broadway

Children here spend, on average, 80% of the day exploring outside, making mud pies, cooking over the fire pit and climbing trees. That one proportion shapes almost everything else about Enchanted Wood Preschool's Broadway site, which sits in the grounds of Christ Church in Bexleyheath and takes children from two to five. The site opened in 2018 and has since taken Hygge accreditation, an ethos it describes as living in the moment and feeling the joy in everyday routines: cosy cushions, soft lighting, calm music at mealtimes, limited plastic and real objects rather than toy ones.

The inspection position is unusually clear-cut. At the report card inspection of 30 April 2026, published on 16 June 2026, all six evaluation areas were awarded the Strong standard: achievement; behaviour, attitudes and establishing routines; children's welfare and wellbeing; curriculum and teaching; inclusion; and leadership and governance. The safeguarding standards were met.

One practical fact frames the rest: this is a term-time site selling a single full-day pattern, so holiday cover has to come from somewhere else.

Rooms and Ages

Three classes divide the age range: Rabbits for two-year-olds, Hedgehogs for three-year-olds, Owls for four-year-olds. The grouping is about key people and curriculum phase rather than walls: children access the whole preschool freely, without restrictions, and the setting treats its environment as a third teacher, beautiful as well as functional.

Learning and Named Experiences

The framework is the Early Years Foundation Stage, which every early years setting in England must deliver. It fixes seven areas of learning, from communication and physical development to mathematics and expressive arts, and the points at which progress is assessed; how a setting gets there is its own affair. Enchanted Wood plans an ambitious, sequenced year across all seven, tracked through the Developmental Matters system, with Rabbits in Phase 2, Hedgehogs in Phase 3 and Owls in Phase 4, and flexibility to move between plans for a child who needs it. Language development leads the curriculum, driven by what children are already curious about.

Assessment is refreshingly low-tech. Key persons observe using Look, Listen and Note techniques and complete a Learning Journey each week from photographs and observations; the documents are paper-based, kept on site and shared each term at Parent Review Meetings. Executive function and self-regulation are stated goals rather than by-products: holding information in mind, focusing attention, planning what to do next, bouncing back when something is hard.

Outdoor and Community Life

What the site calls its Enrichment Programme is where it separates itself from a generic preschool offer: Forest School, yoga, mindfulness, Tiny Talk, Cycleme Tots, weekly trips to the allotment and campfire cooking. Forest school runs weekly and locally, in all weathers and seasons, in streams and woodlands, and an art teacher works with the children here every week on projects in the outdoor atelier.

The allotment is where the approach visibly pays off. Children carry watering cans, count scoops of wood chippings accurately into a wheelbarrow and lift heavy logs, and all of them, including children with SEND, know what plants need to grow. At the water tray they fill and empty containers to wash minibeasts, using words such as full, empty and pour, and on the walk there they hold hands with staff and practise crossing the road.

Relationships and Communication

Children form warm attachments with staff who know them extremely well, and low staff turnover is the mechanism behind that. Behaviour is managed with transition songs, positive words, calm tones and communication at the child's eye level rather than instruction from above.

Families are brought in through an All About Me form covering favourite activities, medical needs, allergies and additional needs, then kept in through parent WhatsApp groups, a parent admin portal and termly newsletters. Development Reviews at one, two, three and four years are aligned with Health Visitor checks, and reports from outside therapists are folded into the same record. Stay and Play sessions and festivals run through the year.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

Inclusion was one of the six areas awarded the Strong standard in April 2026, and the mechanisms are concrete: sign language, visual prompts, first and then boards, communication buttons, specialist training on communication and language from outside professionals, and tailor-made introductions to speech and language sessions where a child needs them.

Emotional regulation has a physical address here. Leaders created a designated calming area called the lean to, fitted with swings, calm spaces, books, puzzles, sensory circuits and role play, reachable by every child including those with SEND. Children sway on the swing or look at books until they feel ready to return to their learning, and breathing exercises are taught so they can take charge of a strong feeling themselves.

Lunch comes from home. Term-time sites ask families to bring a lunchbox; the preschool stores it cool for a maximum of four hours, cannot reheat food, but accepts a thermos flask. Staff sit with children at mealtimes to support safe eating, and lunchbox expectations and guidance are published.

Sessions and Attendance

One pattern, plainly stated: full days, Monday to Friday, 8.30am to 4pm, term time only, for all three classes, closed during school holidays.

Getting There

The preschool occupies Robert's Hall on the Broadway in Bexleyheath, in the grounds of Christ Church, which it describes as a short walk from the town centre.

Funding and Paid Extras

Funded entitlements are offered on both a term-time and a stretched basis, and childcare vouchers are accepted. The site publishes its own fees and supplements schedule, current from 1 April 2026, alongside funding guidance and Best Start in Life information; current prices come in the preschool's own written quotation.

Two costs sit outside that. Lunch is a family expense. So is kit: every child wears the preschool t-shirt and sweatshirt from a schoolwear supplier in Blackfen, plus wellies for wet garden play, and any child on a forest school day needs an all-in-one 100% waterproof suit, with a winter list running to thermals, fleece and thick ski socks.

Children leave well prepared for school: they sit and listen attentively, follow embedded rules and routines, enjoy books and stories, and attend regularly and on time.

• The holiday gap is structural, not incidental. The preschool closes for school holidays and sells no year-round pattern, so working families need a second arrangement costed in early.
• Outdoor kit is a genuine budget line. Branded t-shirt and sweatshirt, wellies, a sun hat and a 100% waterproof all-in-one for forest school days are all bought by parents. It is the price of a setting that lives outdoors, but real money before term one.
• Lunch arrives in a box. Families pack it, the preschool stores it cool for up to four hours and will not reheat it. Families managing allergies will want the published food guidance, with its prohibited foods and choke hazards, in hand early.
• Getting through the door takes patience. Site visits are offered only to families already on the waiting list, for safeguarding reasons. Where a nursery cannot offer the pattern a family wants, part-week places, partial days or days that were not the first choice are often what is on the table; in competitive areas parents register well over a year ahead, and some split a child between two settings until one can cover the days they need.

This is a preschool with a clear and unusually well-executed idea of what a two-to-five-year-old's day should look like: outside, in the weather, doing real things with real tools, then back to soft lighting and a calm room. The April 2026 report card puts substance behind that, with the Strong standard across all six areas and safeguarding standards met, and the named detail holds up, from the lean to and the allotment to a weekly art project in an outdoor atelier.

The limits are honest. It sells a single term-time day, so a family needing year-round or part-day cover will not find it here, and the outdoor commitment carries a clothing bill. It suits families near Bexleyheath town centre who want their child muddy, talking, counting wood chippings and ready for Reception, and who can absorb school holidays another way. It is the wrong fit for anyone needing childcare that runs through August.