Aunty Sue's Day Care

Guinea-pig care, food served with tongs and stories about worried characters give Aunty Sue's Day Care a practical, everyday character. These were features of children's experience in January 2025, with learning built around doing things for themselves and understanding their feelings.

Ofsted rated the nursery Good on 3 January 2025 and judged safeguarding effective. Based at St Johns Centre in Mansfield, it accepts children aged 3 to 60 months and has 60 places in total.

In January 2025, the early years foundation stage provided the framework for children's learning and care: language, practical skills and emotional understanding were developed through activities and everyday routines. Singing introduced descriptive vocabulary, while staff modelled correct pronunciation when children mispronounced words.

Younger children explored objects with magnifying glasses; older children practised positioning their fingers to cut with scissors. Mixing paint introduced colours. These were concrete opportunities to experiment and develop control, rather than learning confined to adult-led discussion.

Independence also had a place at mealtimes. Children used tongs to help themselves to food, and staff broke dressing tasks into manageable steps when a child struggled with an apron. Caring for the nursery guinea pigs involved feeding, cleaning and gentle contact, giving children a practical role in looking after animals.

Group activities needed more care. Written song names on sticks did not help younger children understand which rhyme they were selecting, so a choice offered by an adult was not always a meaningful choice for the child.

At the January 2025 inspection, Ofsted found that key persons understood children's next learning steps, including those with SEND, and that additional funding supported learning through extra group work on quantity; parents also valued referrals to other professionals. However, knowledge about individual children did not consistently reach colleagues covering staff absences.

In January 2025, settling sessions introduced children to staff and their surroundings before attendance began. Adults offered comfort and shared books at children's level. Emotional learning continued through facial expressions with younger children and discussions about worried story characters with older ones, making feelings something children could recognise and discuss.

Staff supervision included reflection on practice, and training addressed adapting activities to different ways of learning. The important qualification was consistency: individual knowledge needed to travel across the team.

The address is St Johns Centre, St John Street, Mansfield, NG18 1QH. Opening hours are 7am to 6pm, Monday to Friday, across the year, with closures on bank holidays and for one week at Christmas.

In January 2025, session times ran from 7am to 6pm, and funded early education was offered for children aged nine months upwards. That funding position belongs to the inspection date.

• Choices for younger children. In January 2025, written rhyme labels made some group-time choices difficult to understand. Look for how activities now make children's options clear.
• Continuity between staff. January 2025 findings identified incomplete sharing of key-person knowledge. Discuss how colleagues covering absences receive each child's learning priorities.
• Attendance and funding. Which booking pattern would fit your week, and how would funded hours, meals and consumables be handled within it?

Aunty Sue's Day Care suits families who value practical independence and emotional learning, with a weekday opening window extending from early morning into the evening. Its January 2025 experience included purposeful everyday tasks and animal care. Clearer choices for younger children and stronger information-sharing between staff are the two issues to weigh alongside those strengths.