Nicki Day Nursery

Sensory baskets for babies, language lessons for older children and dance twice a week give Nicki Day Nursery a day built around doing, talking and moving. Its classrooms occupy a semi-detached house in Camberwell, with babies upstairs and older children on the ground floor. That layout gives the different stages their own spaces rather than treating the nursery as one undifferentiated room.

At its March 2025 inspection, Ofsted rated the nursery Good overall and judged safeguarding effective. The strongest practical threads are communication with families, hands-on learning and opportunities for physical activity. There is also a clear improvement point: in March 2025, children needed more help to understand technology, including how to protect themselves when using it.

Children can start from three months. The nursery operates throughout the year, and its current opening hours are 8am to 4pm, Monday to Friday. Extra paid hours can sit alongside funded attendance, making the distinction between the opening day and the funded-hours window important for family planning.

Rooms and Ages

Baby Room - Little Explores combines play dough, sensory and treasure baskets, pretend domestic play and early mark-making, with outings to soft play and the local library extending the learning beyond the classroom. These are concrete opportunities to handle materials and explore, rather than a day organised solely around adult demonstrations.

Toddlers - Little Oaks is the room for two-year-olds, with equipment for play inside and outside and an emphasis on growing independence. A key worker supports each child and keeps development records. For parents, the useful distinction is that independence is practised through exploration, with an adult tracking how the child is getting on.

Preschool - Bright Sparks serves three- and four-year-olds, combining child-led play with adult-guided phonics and mark-making activities. Its preparation for primary school therefore includes both exploration and more structured learning. The room also uses an online learning journal to maintain communication with parents, so the classroom's work can become part of conversations at home.

Learning and Activities

The EYFS provides the framework for children's learning, development and care: here, play, conversation, movement and early literacy give those areas a practical shape. The nursery adds language lessons, dance and learning through songs. These additions sit alongside the framework rather than replacing it.

Music includes dance classes twice a week, with children making up their own choreography. That gives movement a place in the timetable and lets children contribute ideas to the activity. Art takes a different route into expression, using collage, painting and mark-making.

From age two, language classes introduce short phrases for everyday interaction. Spanish and French lessons are also part of the support programme, while children whose first language is not English are encouraged to use their home language. This makes language learning relevant to classroom exchanges, including asking politely for something or thanking another person.

Mathematics is woven into familiar actions. Children count while using the stairs, help prepare the table and connect numbers with homes and passing buses. The value is the connection between a number and something they recognise, rather than keeping early maths separate from the rest of the day.

In March 2025, babies explored instruments alongside rhymes, while older children acted out stories using scarves to represent animal features. These examples show two different ways of participating in language activities: sound and movement for the youngest children, and imaginative retelling for those ready to take a story further.

Outdoor and Community Life

Three outdoor sections contain scooters, cars, climbing frames and a built-in soft play area. Park outings add another setting for active play. The combination gives children opportunities to move in the nursery's own outdoor spaces and experience a different environment beyond them; park trips are frequent, but there is no fixed weekly claim here.

In March 2025, children practised taking turns at the slide and moving clear after reaching the bottom. Physical activity was therefore accompanied by everyday safety routines. That is a useful example of learning through an ordinary shared activity rather than a separate lesson about rules.

Graduation marks the move towards primary school, with caps and gowns, children's performances and a certificate. Attendance is optional. For families who take part, it gives the end of nursery a recognisable occasion and allows children to share something of their classroom experience.

Relationships and Communication

Settling is planned with management and classroom key workers. The initial visits run over two to four days, lasting one to two hours each, with the arrangement decided for the child. This creates a sequence of shorter experiences before regular attendance begins, rather than treating the first booked day as the whole introduction.

Tapestry, the online learning journal, carries daily observations from the baby room and gives toddler-room parents access to development information and care records. Parents can comment and contribute observations of their own. That two-way route matters because a child's interests and routines do not stop at the classroom door.

In March 2025, staff also gave families spoken feedback at the end of the day and used the online system to suggest learning activities for home. Information about development was gathered early in the relationship and used when planning settling and activities. Communication had a practical purpose, linking what adults knew about the child with what happened next.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

At the March 2025 inspection, Ofsted found that teaching was adapted to include children with special educational needs and/or disabilities, and that staff started individual learning plans while awaiting outside advice. The important mechanism is that support did not depend entirely on an external response: staff worked with parents and agencies while beginning their own plans.

Current staff roles include safeguarding leads and SENCO training, alongside speech and language training. These describe the nursery's arrangements and areas of staff preparation. In March 2025, staff monitored children's development to identify where additional help was needed, giving those support arrangements a concrete inspection-time example.

The Healthy Eating Program links food with participation: hot lunch is cooked on site, menus are planned termly, and children help with serving and clearing up. Dietary requirements are discussed with parents. In March 2025, children also brushed their teeth after eating, connecting mealtimes with a practical health routine.

Sessions and Attendance

The address is 190 Southampton Way, London, Camberwell, SE5 7EU. Opening hours are 8am to 4pm on weekdays; bank holidays are excluded. The nursery is open across the year, so its operating calendar extends beyond school terms.

Funded hours run between 9am and 3pm. Parents can arrange additional paid hours, which should be distinguished from the funded window when deciding how the nursery fits work or other commitments. Opening hours describe the nursery's operating day; they do not, by themselves, define a particular morning, afternoon or full-day booking package.

Enquiries can be made by telephone, email or the contact form. The joining process includes a viewing appointment, an application, settling dates and a discussion of funding or payment before the child begins. Families attending the viewing are asked to bring the child's birth certificate and red book; the child can attend too.

Funding and Paid Extras

Funded childcare and additional private hours are offered. Food is charged separately from the childcare quotation, including for children attending through government funding; families can instead send food that follows the nursery's healthy-eating guidance. Current prices come in the nursery's written quotation, so the meal arrangement belongs alongside the hours when assessing the overall commitment.

The funding and charges information sets out the funded-hours window and extra-hours arrangement. It is the distinction between funded attendance, extra time and food that matters here, rather than treating them as one inclusive package.

Moving towards primary school is supported by a transition programme and a parent information meeting each November about the application process. The nursery describes a relationship with St Georges. Attendance does not guarantee a school place: families still apply through the local authority admissions process, and transition support should be understood separately from an admissions advantage.

• The day ends at 4pm. Funded hours fall within the shorter 9am to 3pm window, with extra time charged separately. Compare both windows with the care you need before choosing an attendance arrangement.
• Settling is a sequence of short visits. The initial plan spans two to four days, with visits of one to two hours. At the viewing, discuss how those visits would fit your child's routines and your own working arrangements.
• Technology learning needs attention. In March 2025, the improvement point concerned understanding technology and staying protected while using it. Ask how that learning now appears in activities for the older children.
• Food is a separate decision. Meals carry an additional charge, with a home-provided alternative subject to healthy-eating guidance. Families managing allergies should confirm current practice and how their child's requirements would be handled.

Nicki Day Nursery suits families looking for hands-on nursery learning within an 8am to 4pm weekday opening day, including those combining funded hours with additional paid time. The strongest reasons to consider it are concrete: named age-stage rooms, regular dance, everyday language learning and an online journal that parents can contribute to.

The March 2025 Good judgement gives the choice a clear inspection position, while the technology improvement point deserves a direct conversation. For families comfortable with the closing time and separate food arrangement, the mix of classroom play, outdoor movement and planned settling offers a practical, recognisable nursery experience.