Faith Nursery Forest Hill

A Montessori Room, a Music Stage / Role Play Room and gardens serving two buildings give Faith Nursery Forest Hill a day built around changing activities and spaces. On Stanstead Road in Forest Hill, the nursery combines opportunities to explore independently with care organised around a child's routines. Its scale matters: there is capacity for 144 children aged six months to five years, across the whole setting.

At its July 2025 inspection, Ofsted rated the nursery Outstanding, found safeguarding effective and judged that children made exceptional progress through a carefully organised curriculum. Those findings give families a substantial basis for considering the nursery, alongside the practical detail of its rooms, sleep arrangements and communication with parents.

Baby Rooms, Toddler Rooms and Pre-school Rooms provide separate stages within the nursery. Full-day and half-day patterns are offered in preschool; the nursery opens across the year, with bank-holiday and Christmas closures.

Rooms and Ages

Baby Rooms, for six to 24 months, combine sensory and textured play with garden time, cots for younger babies and beds in a sleep room for older babies. Play dough, water and different textures provide concrete things to handle and investigate. The rest arrangements also matter for families whose baby still needs sleep during nursery hours.

Toddler Rooms cover 24 to 36 months, with four activity rooms connected for children to move between, and an emphasis on play, communication and growing independence. Their activities include construction, mark making, science and nature, alongside music and movement. A sleep room accommodates children who need a rest. This is a stage with both active exploration and space to pause.

Pre-school Rooms, for three to five years, connect defined activity areas across rooms and use games and circle times to practise communication, sharing and taking turns. Children have activities they choose themselves as well as ones led by adults. The connected layout lets them carry an idea between different kinds of play, while group experiences give them practice in listening and participating with others.

Learning and Activities

The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) provides the framework: here, children learn through conversation, exploring their surroundings, puzzles, construction and creative play. Montessori teaching sits alongside it, encouraging children to choose, try and work things out at their own pace. Materials are designed to help children recognise an error and attempt their own correction. For parents, that makes independent discovery a concrete part of the approach.

The Montessori Room combines maths and literacy with individual learning plans and guidance as children become ready for the next activity. A Computer Room provides opportunities to explore computing in a dedicated space. The Music Stage / Role Play Room supports imaginative dramatic play, giving children another way to express ideas and feelings. These are different settings for learning, with different resources to draw children into an activity.

SATPIN and Phonics introduces preschool children to the sounds represented by s, a, t, p, i and n, then brings those sounds together in simple words. Songs help children learn the sounds, and children can make words of their own. This gives families a clear picture of how early reading begins here, through hearing, saying and combining sounds.

In July 2025, babies investigated ice with warm water, exploring what happened as it changed. Children also discussed holiday preparations and used suitcases in imagined garden excursions. These examples show how familiar experiences and simple materials could become starting points for investigation and conversation at that time.

Outdoor and Community Life

Outdoor play forms part of morning and afternoon activities, except when weather conditions are too severe. The gardens include planted, grassed and hard-surfaced areas, with equipment children can access. Water play, wet sand, planting and searching for minibeasts give the outdoor day several different textures and tasks.

The mud kitchen brings pretend cooking into that setting. Children can handle natural materials, build ideas together and explore what happens when materials mix. It gives messy play a recognisable purpose, while planting and observing small creatures bring the surrounding natural world into children's activities. The gardens are used as learning spaces as well as places to move about.

Relationships and Communication

Each child has a key person who supports settling, builds a relationship with the family and contributes to regular developmental reports. Familiarisation is arranged after a child is accepted, with staff and parents working together on settling. For babies, staff take information about home routines during settling sessions and follow those routines as closely as possible.

Daily baby reports cover food, nappy changes and activities, while an individual learning journal records targets and progress. Home observation sheets let parents contribute achievements from outside nursery to progress reports. Regular parents evenings provide another opportunity to discuss development. Together, these arrangements give families both practical information about the day and a way to contribute to longer-term planning.

Before a child's second birthday, introductions to the toddler rooms help prepare for the next stage. Toilet training has its own practical support: the Potty Training Pack includes a training pant, a training nappy, stickers, a chart and information for parents, with books available to borrow. That creates shared resources for a change that involves both home and nursery.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

At the July 2025 inspection, Ofsted found strong support for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), including access to external expertise, communication aids and careful sharing of information for the move to primary school. The value for families lies in the mechanisms beneath that judgement: support could involve adjustments, specialist advice and information carried forward to the next setting.

In July 2025, staff used visual timetables, flashcards and non-verbal signals to help children communicate their needs. Sensory areas and quiet spaces supported individual work and emotional regulation. Staff also helped families with changes such as moving house or bereavement, alongside transitions between nursery rooms and toilet training. This gives a detailed picture of the support provided at that inspection.

A dedicated Sensory Room contains lighting, sounds, colours, different smells and soft play objects for children to explore. It adds a physical space for sensory experiences to the nursery's other activity rooms. In July 2025, staff development was informed by observations and reflective supervision, with training directed towards the care children needed.

A full-time cook prepares meals at the nursery each day. The nursery's dietary policy covers allergies, intolerances, vegetarian diets and religious requirements, making individual food needs part of meal planning.

Sessions and Attendance

Opening hours are 8am to 6.30pm, Monday to Friday, for 51 weeks of the year. The nursery closes on bank holidays and during Christmas. This is an across-the-year operation, so families planning care need to account for those closures as well as their usual weekly routine.

Preschool attendance includes full-day and half-day patterns, alongside funded attendance. These choices are relevant to families seeking different lengths of nursery day. The opening window describes when the nursery operates; it should be considered separately from the attendance pattern a family books.

Getting There

The address is 262-264 Stanstead Road, Forest Hill, London SE23 1DE. Enquiries can be made through the Forest Hill option on the enquiry form, by telephone on 0208 291 8580 or by email at info@faithnursery.co.uk.

Funding and Paid Extras

Forest Hill offers 15 and 30 Hours funded childcare, alongside privately paid care. The branch's fees page separates its full-fee information from its funded-fee information, making the distinction between those arrangements important when planning attendance. For current prices, ask the nursery for a quotation.

• Preschool attendance. Full-day and half-day patterns are offered for preschool. At a visit, discuss how your chosen pattern would fit the activities and routines your child would experience.
• Settling and sleep. Babies' home routines inform settling, and the baby provision includes cots and a sleep room. Use a visit to discuss how your child's current sleep and feeding routine would work in that arrangement.
• Food needs. Meals are prepared on site and the dietary policy covers allergies and intolerances. Families affected by allergies should confirm current handling arrangements for their child's needs.
• Funding and extras. Forest Hill offers 15 and 30 Hours funded childcare alongside paid care. What would your proposed booking include for meals, nappies and other consumables?

Faith Nursery Forest Hill suits families looking for Montessori learning alongside the EYFS, with separate provision from babies through preschool and several dedicated activity spaces. Its preschool offer serves both full-day and half-day attendance, while its opening calendar supports care across the year.

The July 2025 Outstanding judgement carries weight, but the practical details make the choice easier to assess: babies' routines inform settling, toddlers have connected activity rooms, and parents contribute information to developmental reports. For a family choosing this nursery, the strongest fit will be between those arrangements, the child's stage and the attendance pattern required.