The Butterfly Preschool Wimbledon Montessori

Montessori learning in a church building and hall gives The Butterfly Preschool Wimbledon Montessori its character. Children make choices within activities selected to suit their age, combining practical exploration with learning alongside others. The setting accepts children aged two to five and has 67 places in total. That is whole-setting capacity, rather than the size of an individual group.

At its June 2022 inspection, Ofsted rated the nursery Outstanding, finding that activities were adapted to individual children and that children made substantial progress from their starting points. The detail behind that judgement matters: practical tasks, language development and consideration for other children were visible parts of the day.

Term-time attendance includes morning and afternoon patterns, with Breakfast Club and Lunch Club providing additional options around those sessions.

Learning and Activities

Montessori means children choose practical activities and learn through handling materials and playing collaboratively, with staff providing age-appropriate guidance. It sits alongside the Early Years Foundation Stage: in June 2022, children practised pouring, counted beads with tweezers and developed vocabulary through conversation. Those examples show how physical coordination, number work and language can meet within a child's activities.

In June 2022, younger children transferred water between small vessels, working on control and accuracy. Older children picked up beads with tweezers while counting them. These were purposeful uses of small tools, giving children something concrete to manipulate as they learnt. The tasks also made care and concentration part of the activity itself.

Birthday walks brought another dimension to learning in June 2022. Children explored the passing of time through birthdays, changes as they grew and the places their classmates' families came from. During stories, children could share words from their home languages, with other children learning how to say them. Family backgrounds became material for learning together.

Knowledge was also revisited. In June 2022, children remembered distinctions between insects and arachnids and used vocabulary from an activity about a book's author. For parents, these examples give substance to the nursery's Montessori identity: children were handling objects, talking through ideas and recalling earlier learning.

Outdoor and Community Life

The nursery uses both the main church building and the church hall.

Garden time formed part of the June 2022 visit. Everyday responsibility was visible too: children put resources away after using them and dealt with spills. These small actions linked participation in nursery life with care for shared space.

In June 2022, Ofsted found safeguarding effective and praised SEND support, including meetings with families and other agencies, achievable individual targets and teaching that helped children make rapid progress. These are dated findings, but they give parents a clear account of the support assessed at that visit.

Language support in June 2022 included short, straightforward sentences to help children acquire English vocabulary. Staff training had informed how activities were adjusted for children learning English as an additional language. The practical value was access to the activity through language children could understand and build upon.

Social learning was equally concrete in June 2022. One child helped another cut a snowflake design when the task became difficult. Such an example gives a parent more to work with than a general claim about friendliness: children were noticing another child's difficulty and responding with practical help.

Health learning in June 2022 used laminated teeth, toothbrushes and toothpaste. Children removed marks representing dirt and explained the need to clean the whole tooth. A familiar care routine became something they could practise and discuss.

Moving on to school involved sharing children's targets and visits from their future teachers in June 2022. Teachers observed children playing, helping carry knowledge about their learning into the next setting. The nursery describes itself as a feeder for Bishop Gilpin. Attending the nursery does not guarantee a place at Bishop Gilpin.

Sessions and Attendance

The address is St Mark's Church, St Mark's Place, Wimbledon, London, SW19 7ND. The nursery operates during term time, so its regular preschool pattern needs to sit alongside a family's arrangements for school holidays.

The session timetable introduced in September 2025 gives mornings from 9am to noon, Monday to Friday, and afternoons from 1pm to 4pm, Monday to Thursday. These are genuinely different attendance options. Friday has a morning session in that timetable, which matters when planning a consistent working week.

Breakfast Club runs from 8.15am to 9am, Monday to Friday. Lunch Club occupies noon to 1pm, Monday to Thursday. The separate midday slot is important for families considering how morning and afternoon attendance fit together; it should be treated as its own booking option.

For children who have just turned two, the preschool sign-up pattern is five mornings a week or three to five afternoons. That makes regular attendance part of the offer. Families wanting occasional sessions should weigh that commitment before registering.

Funding and Paid Extras

Registration involves a non-refundable registration charge, followed by a deposit when a place is confirmed. Withdrawal requires a full term's written notice, with a term's fees payable if that notice is not given. These terms make the financial commitment extend beyond the sessions a family initially chooses.

For current prices, ask the nursery for a quotation.

Initial enquiries and registration can be made through the online registration form or by emailing wimbledon@thebutterflypreschool.co.uk.

• Regular attendance. For newly two-year-old children, the sign-up pattern is five mornings or three to five afternoons. Consider whether that rhythm fits your child and your weekly commitments.
• Church spaces. Activities take place in the main building and hall. On a show-round, ask how children use those spaces and how outdoor time fits into their session; Open Days take place once a term.
• Funding and everyday costs. Before committing to the registration charge and deposit, ask which funded entitlements apply to your chosen sessions and how meals and non-food consumables are handled.
• Notice commitment. Leaving requires a full term's written notice or a term's fees in lieu. Factor that lead time into any planned change of childcare.

This nursery suits families seeking Montessori preschool learning with regular term-time mornings or afternoons. Breakfast Club and Lunch Club add useful options around those core sessions, while the minimum attendance pattern asks for a sustained weekly commitment.

Its Outstanding June 2022 judgement has concrete detail behind it, from practical counting activities to individual support. The church building and hall give the setting a recognisable home. For a family whose timetable fits, the combination of child-directed practical learning and structured attendance makes a clear proposition.