Robins Nest Day Nursery

A garden with climbing equipment, planting space and daily outdoor play gives Robins Nest Day Nursery a clear character: children have room to explore beyond the activity table. Inside, the Baby Room centres on sensory discovery, while Nursery School adds weekly music and movement sessions. This Haywards Heath nursery has capacity for 37 children, accepting ages from 3 months to 5 years.

At its July 2024 inspection, Ofsted rated the nursery Good and judged safeguarding effective, with positive findings about babies’ relationships, children’s behaviour and communication with parents. There were also specific teaching weaknesses: routines sometimes interrupted adult involvement in learning, and training needed to help staff adjust their teaching more effectively. Those points matter alongside the grade.

Full-day and shorter school-day attendance sit alongside funded-only term-time sessions. The practical distinction is important: families can choose different lengths of day, but funding has its own attendance rules and meal arrangements.

Rooms and Ages

The Baby Room combines natural materials with painting, sticking and play involving water and sand, with individual care routines and time with a key person shaping the day. Its dedicated room description gives a daily maximum of 12 babies. That is a room limit, separate from the nursery’s overall capacity; families considering baby care should resolve the differing baby-room limits before booking.

Nursery School caters for children aged 2 to 5, placing emphasis on independence, social and physical development, activities built around children’s interests and daily group experiences. Older children can move between their room and the garden during the day. That gives outdoor activity a place within everyday learning, rather than confining it to a separate outing.

Learning and Activities

The EYFS provides the shared framework for early learning and care: here, children explore through play, with activities responding to their developing interests and individual next steps. Art, construction, imaginative play and physical activity take place indoors and outside. Younger children also explore treasure baskets and heuristic play, handling materials as part of their sensory learning.

Two weekly visitors add concrete variety for Nursery School children. Music Bus brings singing, dancing and instrument-based rhythm activities led by a qualified leader. Tatty Bumpkins is children’s yoga, combining movement with stories, music and sensory experiences. These sessions add different ways to listen, participate and move; they sit alongside the EYFS rather than replacing it.

In July 2024, an interest in a passing ice-cream vehicle became an imaginative activity involving pretend scooping, colour vocabulary and counting. Books, songs and rhymes also featured in the day. The useful thread is the connection between something children notice and something staff can help them practise.

Later activities show that same breadth in tangible ways. During 2025, transport-themed play included building bridges together, vehicle-based mark making and car washes. World Book Day celebrations extended across a month that year, using favourite stories as starting points for activities. These examples connect familiar subjects with making, talking and working alongside other children.

Outdoor and Community Life

The enclosed garden is used daily, with a climbing frame, rope and balance beams giving children opportunities to practise movement and judge manageable challenges. A shade sail provides summer cover. Planting space, a digging area, a sand pit and a garden kitchen offer quieter alternatives to running and climbing, so outdoor time is not restricted to physical exercise.

Regular walks reach woodland, local parks and the duck pond, and there is an annual trip for children leaving for school. A 2023 leavers’ outing went to Washbrooks Family Farm, where children met animals, took a tractor ride and used the soft play area. That was a particular trip, rather than a promise of the same destination each year.

Summer 2026 brought Sports Day, a Graduation Party, carrot growing and encounters with tortoises. Children also watched caterpillars become butterflies before releasing them. These experiences give changing seasons and living things a practical presence in the nursery day.

Relationships and Communication

Each child has a key person responsible for their learning and wellbeing. For babies, individual routines are paired with a daily diary and meetings with parents, giving families a regular account of progress as well as opportunities for discussion. Learning journeys also welcome contributions from home, helping staff connect nursery experiences with a child’s wider life.

In July 2024, babies spent time sharing books outdoors and exploring wet and dry sand with staff; tiredness prompted preparation for sleep. Older children practised pouring drinks, washing hands and clearing up after meals. These are useful examples of care and independence working together, with adults responding to younger children while helping older ones do more for themselves.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

A SENCO role supports a staged process of assessment, planning and review. An initial developmental assessment takes place after six weeks, followed by discussion with parents where additional needs emerge. Children may have an Individual Support Plan or a one-page profile, with outside agencies involved with parental permission when appropriate. Plans are reviewed with families and, where needed, specialists.

At the July 2024 inspection, Ofsted found that work with speech and language therapists supported children with SEND and that parents understood their children’s next learning steps, while identifying occasions when staff deployment and insufficiently targeted training reduced the effectiveness of teaching. The practical question is how those plans translate into adult support during an ordinary busy routine.

Practitioners hold paediatric first aid qualifications and receive safeguarding and child protection training. Prescribed medicines can be administered by trained staff with parental consent and a written record. Before school, children receive a final assessment; for children with SEN, additional information from the key person and SENCO accompanies their latest support plans, helping the receiving school understand their needs.

Sessions and Attendance

The address is Ross House, Perrymount Road, Haywards Heath, RH16 3BJ. The nursery operates Monday to Friday across 51 weeks, closing for public holidays and the working days between Christmas and New Year. Standard opening is 8am to 6pm; an early-riser option starts at 7.30am for an additional charge.

Paid attendance includes full days and a shorter school day running from 8.30am to 4pm. Funded-only term-time attendance has different patterns: afternoon sessions run from 1pm to 6pm for universal funding and funding for 2-year-olds, while extended funding uses full days from 8am to 6pm. Those distinctions are useful when matching childcare to working hours or the school calendar.

An enquiry form provides the route to arranging a show round. Before a child starts, changing or cancelling the reserved place requires two months’ written notice, reduced to one month for funded-only places. After attendance begins, one month’s written notice applies to changes or termination.

Funding and Paid Extras

Funded childcare includes extended entitlement from the term after a child turns 9 months, universal entitlement from the term after age 3, and funding for some 2-year-olds. The extended and universal entitlements are stretched over 51 weeks, providing 22 and 11 funded hours a week respectively. Funded-only term-time attendance is a separate option.

For stretched funding, hours are allocated in daily blocks of 5.5 hours, across no more than four funded days each week. Access requires attendance on at least two days; receiving the maximum weekly allocation requires four or more days. Families should compare the funded allocation with the total attendance they intend to buy, rather than treating entitlement as covering every booked hour.

Private day fees include meals and snacks; on funded attendance, the meals-and-snacks package is charged separately, with eligible parents able to supply food under the Meals & Snacks Policy. Consumable items are included in nursery fees, and activities outside the funded entitlement carry no additional activity charge.

An in-house chef prepares meals using a three-week menu rotation and caters for medical and personal dietary requirements. That makes food part of the daily arrangement, while funded families retain the food-supply option described above.

A non-refundable registration charge and a deposit apply, with the deposit credited against the first month’s invoice and excluded for funded-only places. Current prices come in the nursery’s written quotation; the fees and funding page provides the contact route and access to the funding policy.

• Baby-room numbers. The dedicated Baby Room description gives a maximum of 12 babies daily, while other nursery descriptions give nine. Ask which limit applies to the room your child would join and how the space is organised at that number.
• Teaching during routines. In July 2024, daily tasks sometimes drew adults away from learning, and training needed closer targeting. During a show round, ask how staff now sustain interaction through meals and other transitions, including for children needing adapted activities.
• Funded attendance and food. Stretched funding requires at least two attendance days, with four or more needed for the maximum weekly allocation; funded meals have a separate package or parent-supplied option. Request a written quotation for your intended pattern, including food, and discuss any medical dietary needs against current practice.

Robins Nest suits families seeking full-day attendance, a shorter school day or the relevant funded-only afternoon pattern, with outdoor activity and weekly music and yoga adding substance to the nursery day. The Baby Room’s sensory emphasis and the structured SEND planning give parents concrete arrangements to assess. The Good judgement provides a positive inspection position, but the July 2024 teaching concerns and conflicting baby-room limits deserve direct questions before a booking.