Felicity's Fledglings

A separate preschool building, a baby sleeping room and weekly outings to Rock Park give Felicity's Fledglings a clear character: different spaces for different stages, with Barnstaple beyond the nursery part of children's experience. The setting takes children from 3 months to 5 years and has capacity for 60 children in total. That whole-setting figure is not the size of an individual room.

Ofsted rated the nursery Good at its inspection on 7 July 2021. Its strongest practical features are the separation of younger children and preschool children, everyday communication through Famly, and opportunities to borrow books for home. Full-day, term-time and year-round care sit alongside flexible sessions.

Rooms and Ages

The Baby Room, for children aged 3 months to 2 years, combines age-appropriate toys with a separate area for eating and messy activities and an adjoining sleeping room with cots, so sleep has its own space away from the main play room. Each child has individual bedding, replaced daily.

For children aged 2 to 3 years, Toddler Room supports growing independence through resources children can choose themselves, a reading corner, two low toilets and a changing area beside the room, with the playground directly outside. These are useful details for a stage when choosing an activity and managing personal care become part of the day.

Pre-School, for children aged 3 and above, occupies a separate building with musical instruments, a PC, role play and small-world resources, alongside a reading room, a creative area with hard flooring, separate dining space and a ball pit used daily. Children can move between different kinds of activity rather than relying on a single multipurpose room. Its toilets include low fittings for children and a disabled toilet in the changing area.

Learning and Activities

The Early Years Foundation Stage guides learning through play, covering language, relationships, physical development and early experiences of reading, number, creativity and the wider world. This is the shared early-years framework. Here, activities combine children's own choices with experiences organised by adults, with individual interests informing planning.

Resources are organised so children can make choices, and projects they start can be revisited. That gives an unfinished idea somewhere to go: a child can return to it rather than having every activity determined by the timetable. Observations from home also contribute to planning, connecting what interests a child outside nursery with their next experiences there.

The home library scheme lets preschool children borrow books to share at home. It extends access to reading beyond the nursery's reading room and gives families a concrete activity to continue together.

Outdoor and Community Life

An enclosed playground has safety flooring and outdoor equipment. Toddlers use it daily, while weekly Rock Park trips offer opportunities to climb, run and explore beyond the nursery's own outdoor space. These are two different parts of the offer: everyday playground access and recurring outings into town.

Regular weekly community visits also include the library, church, church garden and a nursing home. Outings are entered on Famly beforehand, and parental consent is required. Families therefore receive advance information about activities beyond the setting, rather than learning about a trip only afterwards.

Relationships and Communication

Each child and family has a nominated key worker who gets to know them and brings together observations used to plan learning. Learning Stories combine written observations and photographs, with parents able to add comments. The mechanism matters: information flows both ways, rather than treating parents only as recipients of updates.

Famly is the online portal for photographs, observations and events. Daily diaries and report sheets also cover children's food, mood, play and experiences, giving families practical detail about the day as well as examples of learning. Parent consultations take place twice a year.

The separate sleeping room is especially relevant for families choosing baby care. Individual bedding and daily changes are concrete routines, while the adjoining location keeps sleep close to the baby's main room. For toddlers, low toilets and nearby changing facilities make the physical layout part of support for independence.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

Two SENCOs, the special educational needs coordinators, provide a defined support role within the staff team. Planning takes account of individual interests, needs and levels of support, and observations from families contribute to decisions about next steps. These are identifiable arrangements for discussing a child's needs.

Staff safeguarding training is refreshed regularly, alongside training in child protection, food hygiene and health and safety. These are arrangements for staff preparation; the dated Good judgement remains the inspection position.

Sessions and Attendance

Opening hours are 7.30am to 6pm, Monday to Friday. Families can choose full-day care, term-time care or year-round care, with flexible sessions also offered. The opening window and the attendance choices serve different purposes: one sets the nursery's operating day, while the other determines the pattern a family books.

Term-time funding forms part of the offer. A term-time arrangement suits a different calendar from year-round attendance, so the choice has consequences for childcare during school holidays as well as the weekly routine.

Getting There

The address is 12 Trinity Street, Barnstaple, Devon, EX32 8HX, opposite the bus station. There is parking immediately outside for collection and drop-off, with 20-minute short-stay spaces on nearby Summerland road and a car park close to the nursery.

Enquiries can be made through the contact form. This provides a direct route for discussing the nursery's full-day, term-time, year-round or flexible attendance options.

• Baby sleep and settling. The Baby Room has an adjoining sleeping room and individual bedding changed daily. At a visit, discuss how these arrangements would fit your baby's sleep routine and how settling would be organised.
• Two buildings. Babies and toddlers occupy one nursery building, while preschool children use a separate building. Consider how that layout would work for siblings and for a child preparing to move between stages.
• Outings and consent. Weekly Rock Park visits and other community outings are part of nursery life, with consent required and plans shared through Famly. This suits families who value experiences beyond the playground and want advance information about trips.

Felicity's Fledglings suits families seeking either term-time care or year-round attendance, with full-day and flexible options adding further choice. Its appeal lies in concrete arrangements: separate spaces for babies and preschool children, a substantial preschool activity layout, books to borrow and weekly community outings. The Good judgement dates to July 2021. For parents, the most useful combination is the physical separation of stages and the everyday detail shared through Famly and diaries.