My Favourite Nursery

A converted church hall, a private garden and daily written updates give My Favourite Nursery a recognisable character in East Dulwich. This voluntary nursery works from New Life Assembly Church Hall on Upland Road, with a Christian ethos that welcomes families of every denomination. Its capacity is 54 children, with a current age range of three months to five years.

At its 21 December 2022 inspection, Ofsted rated the nursery Good and found safeguarding effective. The practical detail behind that judgement matters: in December 2022, babies had furniture low enough to help them stand, children used climbing equipment indoors and outside, and mealtimes gave them opportunities to practise doing things for themselves. These are dated observations, rather than a description of today's staffing or daily practice.

Full-time and four-day attendance sit alongside an established key-person system, meals included in childcare costs and communication that covers care routines as well as learning. The strongest decision value lies in those concrete arrangements. Families can weigh the nursery's everyday organisation against their child's needs, rather than relying on broad promises about care.

Rooms and Ages

Budding Discoverers Baby Room combines soft furnishings with sensory resources such as musical shakers, touch-and-feel books and shape sorters, with small-group activity supporting movement and early expression.

Little Explorers Toddler Room has a toddler tent and slide alongside sand, water, finger painting and malleable materials, giving children ways to explore texture and practise handling objects.

Keen Investigators Pre-School Room uses monthly topics, construction, role play and messy play alongside work with numbers, letters and their sounds, combining more structured activity with free play as children approach school.

The admissions arrangements give room limits of 20 for the baby room, nine for Little Explorers and 25 for Keen Investigators. These are room maxima, distinct from the nursery's total capacity, and do not describe the number of children present on a particular day. The baby-room ceiling is especially relevant for parents weighing the scale of their child's first care setting.

Learning and Activities

The EYFS framework guides learning through play, relationships and experiences suited to each child's development. Here, planning starts with information from parents and continues through observations of what children do, allowing practitioners to return to skills and build on them. That gives family knowledge a practical role in the day, rather than confining it to an application form.

The routine alternates free play with individual and small-group activity, songs, discussion and outdoor play. A midday rest period accommodates sleep or quieter activity. This makes room for both activity and recovery, rather than treating every part of the day as a teaching session.

In December 2022, children explored shapes through model making and towers, while babies handled dried cereal and older children tore paper for dinosaur pictures. These activities brought early mathematical language and hand control into ordinary play. Craft areas also gave children opportunities to practise writing their names.

Music provided another route into participation in December 2022: children played drums, sang with toy animals and joined in when staff paused. The useful detail is the pause that invites children to respond. It made the activity participatory rather than simply something to listen to.

Outdoor and Community Life

Daily garden access adds a clear physical dimension to the offer. The private outdoor space contains a swing set, slide and play house; resources from the garden shed include scooters, tricycles, bean bags and sand and water trays. Different equipment can be brought out for planned activities, so outdoor time includes both movement and exploration.

Children usually play outside in groups organised by age, with mixed-age play at particular points in the day. For families, that means outdoor experience includes contact with younger and older children as well as their usual peers. Suitable seasonal clothing matters, and parents supply sun lotion in summer.

Community outings form part of the preschool topic work. The emphasis is on extending children's understanding of what they are learning, rather than claiming a fixed excursion schedule. Within the room, questions and investigation connect those experiences with play and discussion.

Relationships and Communication

A key person is allocated early and helps with settling, communication and tracking development. Children also spend time with other staff during the day, so the arrangement provides a main contact for parents while allowing relationships across the team. During the first settling session, parents can remain with their child and become familiar with the routine.

Daily verbal feedback is supplemented by a communication book sent home. For the younger rooms, reports cover food, bottles, sleep, nappy changes, activities and achievements. This is useful detail for parents managing the transition between home and nursery: care routines receive attention alongside developmental milestones.

Preschool families have review afternoons or evenings twice a year and can take achievement records home to add comments. The MFN Newsletter, distributed in January and September, provides another channel for nursery news and events. Daily handovers and scheduled reviews therefore serve different purposes: one covers the immediate day, the other gives time to consider development over a longer period.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

Ground-floor accommodation, wheelchair access and double entrance doors provide concrete access features. The nursery's admissions approach welcomes families across denominations and backgrounds. These arrangements are more useful to a parent than an unsupported assurance that every possible need can be met.

In December 2022, staff used calm speech and breathing exercises when children needed help managing feelings, and books introduced differences in culture, skin colour and disability. Staff also worked with other professionals and maintained links with local schools to prepare children for their next educational stage. Those links support transition; they do not establish an admissions advantage.

Current collection arrangements require advance notification if another adult will collect a child, followed by identification or a password. A camera and buzzer control entry, and visitors sign in and out. Staff recruitment includes enhanced DBS checks and references, followed by induction into nursery procedures; these are arrangements, rather than a separate judgement about their effectiveness.

Sessions and Attendance

The address is New Life Assembly Church Hall, 55a Upland Road, East Dulwich, London SE22 0DA. Opening hours are 8am to 6pm, Monday to Friday. Attendance options include full-time and four-day places, while extra days and morning or afternoon sessions use a booking form.

The nursery operates for 49 weeks, with Easter, summer and Christmas breaks, and closes on bank holidays. For parents organising work, the holiday closures matter alongside the daily opening window. This is care across the year with planned breaks, rather than a term-time-only offer.

Funding and Paid Extras

Eligible families can access up to 30 funded hours from nine months to school age, and the nursery offers 15-hour funding for children aged three and four. Funding and private childcare are separate parts of the offer: a funded entitlement should not be read as covering an entire booked week. Current prices come in the nursery's written quotation.

A non-refundable registration charge accompanies the application, and joining requires a deposit equivalent to a month's fees. The deposit is returned after departure when fees are paid up and one month's written notice has been given; ending the contract or reducing attendance requires one month's written notice. The fees page sets out these arrangements and the forms for changing or adding sessions.

The nursery cook prepares meals on site, with fruit or vegetables accompanying each meal and menus drawing on food from different countries. Meals and snacks are included in childcare costs; pork and beef are excluded, and parents identify dietary requirements so arrangements can be discussed.

Parents provide sun lotion for summer garden play. That is a separate practical responsibility from the included food provision and belongs on the family's preparation list alongside appropriate outdoor clothing.

• Attendance and room allocation. The minimum-attendance wording gives both three and four full days, while room descriptions and admissions age bands also differ. At a visit, settle the required weekly commitment and which room your child would join before agreeing a pattern.
• Challenge in play. In December 2022, Ofsted identified inconsistent use of interactions and questioning to deepen children's thinking. Ask how practitioners now extend an activity when a child has already mastered its starting point.
• Funding and care supplies. Meals and snacks are included in childcare costs, while parents supply summer sun lotion. How will funding be scheduled within your booking, and what funded-hours food charges or other care supplies will apply?
• Visit and dietary planning. Viewings last up to 30 minutes and run on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Use that appointment to discuss your child's settling needs and, where relevant, confirm current dietary or allergy arrangements.

My Favourite Nursery suits families seeking full-time or four-day attendance who value daily written care updates, a main practitioner contact and access to a private garden. Its room resources give babies sensory exploration, toddlers hands-on materials and preschool children topic work alongside free play.

The December 2022 judgement provides a dated quality benchmark, with a specific improvement point about stretching children's thinking. The decision now rests on how the nursery's attendance requirements, room allocation and funding arrangements fit the family. The practical offer has substance: included meals, detailed communication and planned outdoor play all have a clear place in the child's week.