Montys Nursery & Pre-School

A converted house, a secluded rear garden and activities shared with older adults give Montys Nursery & Pre-School its character. This Richmond nursery combines rooms arranged around children's development with Brighter Together, a charity partnership bringing children and older people together for stories, games and creative activities. The appeal is concrete: children have a home-sized setting for their nursery day and opportunities to build relationships beyond their own age group.

Montys accepts children from 3 months to 5 years and has 34 places in total. At its August 2024 inspection, Ofsted rated the nursery Good and found safeguarding effective, with positive findings about children's learning and relationships alongside improvements required in mealtime organisation and communication with other settings. Those two points deserve attention alongside the strengths.

Attendance includes full days and fully funded term-time arrangements involving full or half days. The distinction matters: the ordinary minimum booking and the funded-only patterns serve different family routines.

Rooms and Ages

The room sequence makes development, rather than a single shared space, the organising principle. Yellow Room accommodates babies of approximately 3 to 12 months in a self-contained part of an open-plan space, with a gentle approach to early play and care. Red Room provides an additional area for 6 toddlers from 12 months to 2 years, with French doors opening onto decking beneath an all-weather canopy and then into the garden. That published room cap is useful for parents weighing the scale of toddler care; it is separate from the nursery's total capacity.

Blue Room is upstairs and takes children from 2 years, emphasising social development, independence and confidence alongside early language, literacy and mathematics. Pre-School serves children aged 3 to 5, with more structured activities shaped by their interests and resources for early reading and maths. The progression is towards greater independence and participation, rather than simply moving children into a larger room.

Moves between rooms are gradual. Children preparing to leave the toddler area spend progressively more time playing upstairs before the change becomes permanent. This gives them time to become familiar with the space and its routines. The ground-floor open-plan arrangement also supports the move between the baby and toddler areas.

Learning and Activities

The Early Years Foundation Stage provides the framework for the day: children develop communication, physical and social skills through play, stories, practical maths and creative activity. This is the common early-years foundation; Montys adds named activities and community experiences alongside it. Its curriculum overview connects early literacy with mark-making and letter sounds, and mathematics with counting, shapes and measuring.

Sports with Sporkids adds activities aimed at movement skills, agility and fitness, with no extra charge to parents. This gives physical development an organised addition to the play available indoors and outside. It sits alongside the broader curriculum rather than replacing it.

In August 2024, practitioners used questions about books to draw out children's understanding of words including gravity and crater. Stories and songs also incorporated letters and numbers. These examples give parents a clearer picture of the teaching than a general promise of school preparation: conversation, vocabulary and early mathematical ideas were worked into activities children already enjoyed.

Outdoor and Community Life

The rear garden is available to all children, and the covered decking gives the toddler area a sheltered connection to outdoor space. In August 2024, children practised balance on wooden planks and played together in the mud kitchen. The planting area also supported learning about food growing. These were practical experiences involving movement, cooperation and the natural world.

Brighter Together takes children to a community centre used by older adults for shared activities, including stories, crafts, games and conversation. Its value lies in the experience itself: children spend time with people of another generation and take part in activities together. The partnership broadens the social setting of nursery life.

Outings in August 2024 included a supermarket and nature reserves. Practitioners also introduced greetings in Italian, Portuguese and Romanian. Together, these examples show how everyday places and different languages contributed to children's understanding of the world, beyond resources within the nursery.

Relationships and Communication

A key worker system gives children a familiar adult relationship within the room structure. In August 2024, settling arrangements drew on information gathered from parents, and recently enrolled children adjusted comfortably to nursery life. That makes the exchange of information about a child's routines and preferences an important part of starting care.

Daily take-home reports accompany care in the toddler and upstairs rooms. Children spending the day in the toddler area nap after lunch, while those upstairs can sleep after lunch. For families managing the transition from toddler routines towards preschool, that combination of rest and daily communication is a useful practical detail.

In August 2024, parents valued regular communication, but links had not been established with every other early-years setting children attended. The improvement required was about consistency across a child's care, rather than simply the frequency of messages home. Montys' funding policy now includes liaison and information exchange where a child attends another setting; families dividing attendance should discuss how that works for their child.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

For children with long-term medical conditions requiring ongoing medication, arrangements include a risk assessment and an individual healthcare plan developed with parents. The plan sets out information for other adults caring for the child and emergency measures, with reviews every six months or sooner when needed. This is a specific planning mechanism, useful for families whose child's care depends on more than routine medication administration.

Medicines require written parental permission, and each administered dose is recorded with a witness; parents acknowledge the daily medication record. The safeguarding arrangements include a designated lead role, staff training and procedures for reporting and escalating concerns. These are arrangements parents can discuss in relation to their child's circumstances, alongside the dated safeguarding judgement above.

A nursery chef cooks on site using natural ingredients, mostly organic and locally sourced, and Montys holds a Soil Association Gold award for its organic meals. Food therefore has a clear place in the nursery's identity, although the August 2024 improvement point about children's engagement at mealtimes remains a useful subject for a visit.

Sessions and Attendance

Montys is at 32 Thompson Avenue, Richmond, TW9 4JW. Full Day Sessions run from 8am to 6pm, with a minimum booking of 2 full days each week. The nursery operates throughout the year, closing for bank holidays and a week at Christmas. For ordinary paid attendance, the minimum matters as much as the length of the day when matching care to a working week.

Fully funded arrangements are term-time only. The 15-hour pattern can be a full day plus a half day, or 3 half days, depending on availability; the 30-hour pattern consists of 3 full days. These are specific funded attendance arrangements, so families should distinguish them from the ordinary full-day minimum when considering their weekly routine.

Enquiries can be made by telephone on 0208 392 2336 or by email to montysnursery@aol.com. Fees are due monthly in advance, with payment due on the first day of the month; parents are asked to pay by standing order, and agreed ad-hoc attendance is billed separately.

Funding and Paid Extras

Montys accepts the universal 15-hour entitlement for children aged 3 and 4, the eligible working entitlement from 9 months, and funding for eligible 2-year-olds whose families receive additional government support. The working entitlement is now accepted for 30 hours, following its introduction at Montys in January 2026. Entitlement hours are delivered over 38 weeks, rather than spread across the full year.

For children combining entitlement hours with paid attendance, lunch and tea are charged separately during funded weeks, with the option of bringing a packed lunch; this meal charge does not apply to funded-only places. That distinction affects the total family bill and should remain separate from the funded hours themselves.

Fully funded places carry neither a deposit nor a registration charge. Entitlement arrangements require four calendar weeks' notice to change hours or move provider. Changes are permitted only once per term, and entitlement hours cannot begin at another provider until the week following the notice period. Leaving or reducing sessions also requires four weeks' notice. The finance and funding information explains payment arrangements and participation in the entitlements.

• Two different booking structures. Ordinary attendance requires 2 full days weekly, while fully funded term-time care has specific full-day and half-day combinations. At a visit, discuss which arrangement matches your intended attendance.
• Mealtimes and shared care. In August 2024, improvements were required in mealtime engagement and links with other early-years settings. Ask how meals are organised now and, if your child attends elsewhere, how information is exchanged.
• The complete cost of care. Funded-week meal charges have a packed-lunch option and a funded-only exemption. Request a current written quotation for your chosen attendance arrangement.
• Room moves and rest. Toddler care includes a post-lunch nap, and the move upstairs involves familiarisation visits. Discuss how your child's sleep routine and readiness for the next room will shape that transition.

Montys suits families looking for ordinary full-day attendance or eligible fully funded term-time patterns using full and half days. Its appeal is the combination of a converted-house setting, a toddler area with covered outdoor access, gradual room transitions and activities extending beyond the nursery, especially Brighter Together and Sports with Sporkids.

The August 2024 judgement provides a positive basis for consideration, with two concrete improvement points to keep in view. Parents should weigh the actual booking pattern and complete charge structure alongside the room arrangements and community programme. Those details make the choice more useful than the grade alone.