Playhouse Nursery & Pre-School

Water experiments, puppet play and balance beams gave Playhouse’s day a practical, hands-on character in May 2023. Based at The Moonshot Centre in London, the nursery has capacity for 51 children, with an age range of three months to five years. That spans early baby care through to preparation for school.

Ofsted rated Playhouse Good at its 31 May 2023 inspection. The useful detail beneath that judgement is a day built around conversation, movement and growing independence, alongside two clear areas for improvement: checking children’s understanding and coordinating staff support during activities.

Attendance includes all-year-round full-day plans, with a minimum booking of two consecutive days including a Monday or Friday. The weekly commitment matters as much as the daily hours.

Learning and Activities

The early years foundation stage sets the requirements for children’s learning, development and care: in parent language, play, conversation and everyday routines all contribute to learning. At Playhouse in May 2023, this took concrete forms rather than relying only on adult-led group activities. Children explored water quantities using containers and made rain-cloud experiments in jars. These offered opportunities to investigate what happened and talk about it.

Language work in May 2023 included puppets, singing and Makaton signing, used to support communication from the baby room through to preschool. Adults introduced vocabulary during play and left children time to answer questions. Regular music sessions also involved singing and listening to instrumental sounds and rhythms. Conversation had several entry points, including for children still developing spoken language.

Early mathematics in May 2023 was similarly woven into practical tasks. Children measured ingredients for play dough, counted their jumps outdoors and explored how much different containers held. That connects number and quantity to something a child can handle, change and compare, rather than making mathematics solely a sit-down exercise.

Outdoor and Community Life

In May 2023, toddlers practised climbing and jumping with adult support, while preschool children used balance beams. Pipettes and coloured water provided a smaller-scale physical challenge, exercising the hands as children transferred liquid between containers. Large movements and careful hand movements both had a place in the day.

The nursery occupied a purpose-built building within a community centre in May 2023. Its garden was used for physical play and counting activities. For families weighing the environment, those are useful concrete examples of how indoor exploration and outdoor movement were connected.

Relationships in May 2023 were visible in everyday behaviour: children approached staff for help or comfort, joined stories and responded to instructions for small-group activities. Adults used praise and consistent expectations to guide behaviour. Babies also practised feeding themselves, with independence continuing through later stages of nursery life. Care routines doubled as opportunities to try a skill for oneself.

At its May 2023 inspection, Ofsted found effective safeguarding arrangements and individualised support for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), with staff working alongside other professionals and providers to support development. These are dated findings about the nursery’s practice, rather than guarantees about any individual child’s experience.

In May 2023, safeguarding practice included ongoing checks on staff suitability, accident reviews and risk assessments. Staff had safeguarding and paediatric first-aid training and understood how to raise concerns about a child or a colleague. The practical emphasis was on recognising concerns and taking action.

Communication with families in May 2023 included information about children’s learning, plus ideas and resources for continuing it at home. This gave parents something useful to do with an update: nursery learning could become a shared activity beyond the nursery day.

Sessions and Attendance

The address is The Moonshot Centre, Angus Street, London SE14 6LU. Opening hours are 8am to 6pm, Monday to Friday, with year-round operation and a Christmas closure.

Full Days run from 8am to 6pm. All Year Round Booking Plans cover two, three, four or five days a week, and full-day bookings require at least two consecutive days with either Monday or Friday included. Families arranging a working week therefore need to consider the permitted combination of days, as well as the length of each day.

Funding and Paid Extras

Playhouse offers privately paid childcare and funded hours. Its funding options include Working Parent, Two Year Old Offer, Universal and Extended Entitlement. Working-parent support depends on eligibility and a valid code; the two-year-old offer also depends on eligibility. Universal funding begins from the term after a child’s third birthday.

For all-year-round bookings, funded hours are stretched over 51 weeks: the 15-hour schemes become 11 hours a week and the 30-hour scheme becomes 22. This spreads support through the year, so families should distinguish their funded weekly hours from their total booked attendance.

Breakfast, lunch, tea and snacks are included in the quoted booking-plan fees, including the plans with funded hours. A private-place offer carries a non-refundable registration charge and a deposit payable on acceptance; the deposit is credited at the end of attendance, while cancellation before starting has separate refund conditions.

If a private place is cancelled at least six weeks before its agreed start, the deposit is returned; cancellation closer to the start means it is retained. An optional Green LEYF contribution supports sustainability programmes. Current prices come in the nursery’s written quotation, which should match the chosen days and funding arrangement.

• Checking understanding. In May 2023, staff did not consistently revisit earlier teaching to establish what children had understood. On a visit, ask how adults now check understanding before extending an activity.
• Staff coordination. In May 2023, communication between staff sometimes left children uncertain about activities or receiving less support. Ask how practitioners decide who supports each activity and how they communicate changes.
• The weekly commitment. Full-day plans require consecutive days and a Monday or Friday. Compare that rule with your working pattern before choosing a booking plan.
• Baby care routines. Playhouse accepts children from three months. During a visit, ask how settling and sleep would work for your baby.

Playhouse suits families seeking an all-year-round arrangement, whether a two-day consecutive booking or a fuller five-day week. Water investigations, communication through puppets and signing, and garden movement gave its May 2023 provision a recognisable practical character.

The decision also needs to take account of the consecutive-day booking rule and the dated concerns about checking learning and staff coordination. Those are concrete subjects for a visit, alongside the care routines that matter most for your child.