Kids Planet Lowdham

A garden with direct access from every room gives Kids Planet Lowdham a clear outdoor identity. Its dedicated Udeskole area brings learning outside through den building, tools and stories beside a fire pit, while community outings include litter picking. For children who enjoy making and exploring, there is plenty here to get their hands into.

The nursery cares for children from three months to five years in Lowdham village. At its July 2024 inspection, Ofsted rated it Good overall and judged safeguarding effective. The strengths included older children's conversation and engagement; the improvement priorities concerned younger children's language and the sharing of learning information between staff.

Learning and Activities

The early years foundation stage sets the framework for children's learning, development and care: play, conversation and physical exploration help children build skills for their next stage. Lowdham's outdoor provision gives that learning a practical setting. Direct garden access from all rooms makes outdoor experiences part of the environment available to each age group, rather than a feature reserved for preschool children.

Udeskole is the nursery's outdoor learning approach, with a dedicated garden area for tool use, building dens and telling stories around the fire pit. These are concrete activities with different demands: handling materials, working out how to construct something and listening together. The garden offers room for exploration alongside those shared experiences.

In July 2024, toddlers and preschool children explored play dough with herbs and spices after staff responded to their interest in it. Kneading the mixture gave them practice using their hands, while discussing changes in texture brought language into the activity. It is a useful example of learning growing from something children already wanted to do.

Stories also had a substantial place in older children's day in July 2024. Children recalled fictional characters and considered what might happen next, giving them reasons to explain their ideas rather than simply listen. Physical play included balancing on tyres and ladders, with movement and coordination taking their place alongside conversation.

Outdoor and Community Life

Regular outings and litter picking extend the nursery's activities into the local community. Litter picking gives children a practical way to contribute to the place around them, rather than treating community involvement as an abstract idea. The nature-based learning area and large garden also provide outdoor experiences within the nursery itself.

For families, that combination is the main attraction: children can explore outside at the setting and take part in activities beyond it. The outdoor offer deserves attention when weighing whether this nursery matches a child's interests and preferred ways of playing.

Relationships and Communication

Famly, the parent app used here, provides updates during the day. It gives families another connection with nursery life alongside conversations with staff, especially when parents want to understand what their child has been doing while they are apart.

In July 2024, staff gathered information from parents about children's interests and development when they started. Newer children received comfort and reassurance when they needed it, and parents could receive practical help such as potty-training advice. These examples show how care extended from immediate comfort to everyday changes that families were managing at home.

There was also a weakness in how information travelled within the team in July 2024. Some handovers concentrated on care routines and gave insufficient attention to learning, leaving some practitioners less able to help children develop their play. Knowing a child's immediate needs and knowing how to extend their learning are both important; the improvement priority concerned the connection between them.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

At the July 2024 inspection, Ofsted found that children with special educational needs and/or disabilities received effective support through targeted plans, strategies and advice from external professionals, and were progressing well. The practical mechanism mattered: staff had specific approaches to use with children who needed additional help.

Younger children's communication needed more attention in July 2024. Staff sometimes missed opportunities to respond to babies' babbling, reducing the conversational exchanges that support early language. This is a meaningful consideration for families choosing care for a baby, even though older children were confident speakers at that time.

In July 2024, the nursery employed 12 childcare staff, nine of whom held early years qualifications at level 3 or above. These are staffing details from that period, rather than a description of today's deployment in individual rooms.

Sessions and Attendance

Opening hours are 7.45am to 6pm, Monday to Friday, across 52 weeks of the year. The booking choices include a Full Day from 7.45am to 6pm, Morning from 7.45am to 1pm and Afternoon from 1pm to 6pm. A Short Day runs from 9am to 3pm, giving families a different daytime pattern from either of the shorter sessions.

Full Time means five Full Days, with the same 7.45am to 6pm hours. The rate structure also includes morning and afternoon top-up sessions and an ad hoc hourly option. This is a broader attendance offer than opening hours alone would convey: families can compare a morning, an afternoon or a shorter daytime booking with a complete day.

Getting There

The address is 63 Main Street, Lowdham, Nottingham, NG14 7BD. Onsite parking provides a practical option for families travelling by car.

Funding and Paid Extras

Funded childcare and privately paid sessions are offered. Private fees include meals and snacks, together with wipes, nappies, sun cream and formula milk; freshly prepared food is provided with provision for dietary needs.

On days when early years funding is applied, meals, consumables and activities are charged separately. The charge category depends on the funded hours used that day, with different structures for a half day, short day and full day. Funded childcare therefore needs to be considered alongside the additional charges attached to the chosen pattern, rather than treated as an identical cost arrangement to privately paid attendance.

Current prices come in the nursery's written quotation. For parents comparing sessions, the useful comparison is the whole booking: care hours, any private hours and the meals, consumables and activity charges that apply when funding is used.

• Baby communication. In July 2024, staff sometimes missed babies' attempts to communicate. During a tour, ask how practitioners now respond to babbling and encourage exchanges with the youngest children.
• Learning handovers. The July 2024 improvement priority included sharing information that helps staff extend children's play. Ask how learning priorities reach everyone caring for your child, alongside feeding, sleep and other care routines.
• Funding and extras. Meals, consumables and activities attract separate charges on funded days. A written quotation for your chosen Morning, Afternoon, Short Day or Full Day pattern will make the cost structure easier to compare.

Kids Planet Lowdham suits families seeking outdoor learning alongside a choice of morning, afternoon, short-day and full-day attendance. Direct access from every room to outdoor space, the Udeskole area and practical community activities give the nursery a recognisable character.

The July 2024 Good judgement provides a positive assessment, with specific improvement priorities that deserve attention for younger children and continuity of learning. The strongest fit is for families who value garden exploration and hands-on activities, and whose preferred session pattern matches the nursery's published choices.