The Willow Tree Nursery School

A redbrick Victorian church, a private garden overlooking Wendell Park and children helping shape their own play give The Willow Tree Nursery School a recognisable character. The setting combines a shared vestry hall with outdoor learning, visiting dance and music practitioners, and practical experiences that put children’s ideas to work. Its appeal is concrete: space to explore, adults who follow children’s interests and families invited into nursery life.

At its March 2026 inspection, Ofsted awarded Strong standard across achievement, behaviour and routines, welfare and wellbeing, curriculum and teaching, inclusion, and leadership and governance, with safeguarding standards met and rapid progress across learning areas. These are separate area judgements, rather than an overall grade. The practical examples behind them include children preparing food, experimenting with construction materials and finding ways to express their preferences.

Based at St Saviour’s Church on Cobbold Road, the nursery accepts children aged 2 to 5 and operates during term time. Morning sessions and extended days offer different attendance patterns. The important financial distinction is between a child’s funding entitlement and the hours this particular setting delivers: its weekly funded offer reaches a maximum of 23 hours.

Rooms and Ages

The vestry hall is the shared indoor setting for children’s progression through the nursery. Little Willow is the first-year stage, emphasising emotional and social development, language and communication, and physical skills through play and relationships. In the preschool year, Big Willows extends that work into understanding the world, creative expression, literacy and mathematics, introducing letters and numbers through playful experiences.

These stages describe a progression in learning. For parents, the useful distinction is between the foundations of joining a group and the later broadening of experiences before school. Children’s own interests contribute to planning, so adult-led activities sit alongside play that children initiate themselves.

Learning and Activities

The early years foundation stage provides the framework for children’s learning, development and care: here, that means building communication, relationships and physical skills through play, then bringing language, numbers and exploration into everyday activities. Children contribute ideas for themes and activities. That gives them a part in deciding what happens, while staff organise experiences around their development.

Diddi Dance brings a weekly visiting practitioner who introduces different dance styles, alongside weekly visits from a music practitioner. These give movement and music a recurring place in the week. A yearly duckling project involves incubating eggs and watching them hatch, giving children a real process to observe over time.

In March 2026, storytelling included an experiment in which a hairdryer tested children’s predictions about straw, brick and wood. Practical mathematics involved comparing soil-filled buckets, exploring measurement during construction and measuring water in containers. These examples show how an imaginative starting point can lead into testing ideas, handling materials and talking about what happens.

Other March 2026 activities included transferring materials with scoops and tongs, painting after observing flowers, and using small hammers and nails with supervision. Protective goggles formed part of the construction activity. The detail matters: children were handling real objects and practising controlled movements, rather than only hearing explanations.

Outdoor and Community Life

A landscaped private garden backs onto Wendell Park, giving the nursery outdoor space of its own beside the park. An all-weather approach supports play outside as well as inside. For families choosing a city nursery, this offers a daily outdoor setting that belongs to the nursery itself.

Regular visitors include firefighters from the London Fire Brigade’s Acton depot and dentists from Ravenscourt Dental Practice. Their visits connect with themes about people who help us and dental health, bringing those subjects into contact with the people who do the work.

Across the year, events include a sports day in Wendell Park and a Christmas play. Leavers have a graduation ceremony in July and return for a leavers’ tea during the autumn term. That return visit gives the end of nursery a social continuation after children have moved on.

Relationships and Communication

Each child has a special person, the nursery’s term for the adult responsible for following their development and keeping contact with their family. Knowledge of the child’s interests and needs informs activity planning. Parents receive photographs and videos through the online learning journal, alongside meetings and developmental summaries.

Tapestry is the online journal used to record observations, with parents able to add comments and observations of their own. Termly parents’ evenings offer a fifteen-minute appointment with the child’s special person. Together, these provide both a continuing exchange and a scheduled opportunity to discuss development.

Family involvement also includes stay-and-play opportunities and reading and healthy-baking rotas. Parents can join activities at nursery, while baking at home can contribute snacks for children to share. This makes participation practical and gives families different ways to be involved.

In March 2026, settling support included home visits and conversations with parents about separation anxiety. Children also used a system for indicating their feelings, while adults helped them talk through frustrations. Weekly family updates included signs, story suggestions and advice about routines such as potty training, connecting nursery experiences with home life.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

A designated safeguarding lead and a SENDCO role form part of the staff structure. For children needing additional learning support, staff agree achievable targets with parents and work with relevant professionals. The mechanism is individual planning and collaboration, rather than a single approach applied to every child.

At the March 2026 inspection, Ofsted found that staff identified emerging needs and reviewed tailored support with families and professionals, while its next step was for leaders to concentrate on a transformational impact for disadvantaged children, children with SEND and those facing other barriers. That is the continuing development priority alongside the Strong standard area judgements.

In March 2026, Makaton signs, visual prompts and simple choices helped children communicate and take part in group experiences. Families contributed their languages and traditions, including Mandarin stories during Lunar New Year. These were concrete ways of making participation possible through more than spoken English alone.

Sessions and Attendance

The address is St Saviour’s Church, Cobbold Road, London W12 9LN. Nursery attendance is term time, with dates following the local authority’s term calendar as closely as possible. Enquiries can be made by telephone on 020 8740 3272 or by email at teachers@thewillowtreenursery.co.uk; email is the contact route during school holidays.

Morning sessions run from 9am to 12.30pm; extended days run from 9am to 3pm. The full-time pattern is Monday to Thursday, 9am to 3pm, followed by Friday, 9am to 12.30pm. Early drop-off starts at 8.30am daily and carries an additional charge.

For two-year-olds, the nursery encourages three mornings or two extended days each week. From the term after the third birthday, it encourages five sessions, with an extended day counting as two. These are attendance recommendations, so families should distinguish them from an absolute minimum requirement.

Children attending extended days bring a healthy packed lunch from home. Parent baking also contributes shared snacks, making food preparation something families participate in.

Funding and Paid Extras

Funded childcare is offered during term time, alongside privately paid hours. The participating schemes include the universal 15-hour entitlement for three- and four-year-olds and the additional 15-hour extended entitlement for eligible working families, both from the term after the child’s third birthday. The two-year-old working family entitlement applies to eligible working families from the term after the child’s second birthday. The younger working family entitlement applies here when an eligible child joins during the term in which they turn two.

Delivery has a narrower weekly window than the headline 30-hour entitlement: funded hours run from 9.30am to 2.30pm Monday to Thursday and from 9.30am to 12.30pm on Friday. An eligible child attending the full-time pattern can receive up to 23 funded hours weekly. Hours outside the funded window are privately paid.

Eligible working families apply online, provide their reference number and reconfirm their details every three months. Tax-Free Childcare and childcare vouchers are also accepted. Fully funded places are exempt from registration charges and deposits; the standard registration charge is non-refundable. Current prices come in the nursery’s written quotation, and the funding and fees information explains the attendance structure.

Children move on to state and independent schools, including Greenside, Ravenscourt Prep, The Good Shepherd and Wendell Park. These are destinations, not an admissions advantage. Nursery attendance does not guarantee a Reception place: families use the local authority admissions process for state schools or the individual school’s process for independent schools.

• Funding window. The weekly funded offer reaches 23 hours, even for an eligible child with a 30-hour entitlement. Compare the funded timetable with the attendance pattern your family needs.
• Term-time rhythm. Mornings and extended days finish by 3pm, and nursery attendance follows school terms. This suits families whose arrangements fit a shorter nursery day and school holidays.
• Food and personal supplies. Extended-day children bring lunch from home. At a tour, ask how packed lunches and allergies are managed for your child.
• Individual support. The March 2026 development priority concerns the impact of provision for children facing barriers. During a visit, discuss how your child’s targets would be agreed, reviewed and shared with you.

The Willow Tree suits families seeking term-time mornings or extended days, with a shared indoor setting and a private garden beside Wendell Park. Weekly dance and music visits, practical projects and direct family participation give the experience substance. The March 2026 area judgements provide a strong inspection position, while the priority for children facing barriers deserves attention in individual support discussions.

The timetable and funding window are decisive. For families who can accommodate the shorter day and bring lunch, the combination of outdoor space, play shaped by children’s interests and continuing contact through a special person makes a coherent offer.