Daisychain Childcare

An allotment that supplies the kitchen, a sheltered outdoor play area and a dedicated sleep room give Daisychain Childcare a practical identity: growing, exploring and resting each have space of their own. This purpose-built nursery on Monkton Avenue in Weston-super-Mare combines provision for its youngest children with the Rainbow Room for older learners.

The nursery accepts children from 3 to 60 months and has 33 places in total. These are whole-setting places, rather than the size of either room. At its April 2022 inspection, Ofsted rated Daisychain Good overall and found safeguarding effective, with positive findings on support for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).

Full days, shorter days and morning or afternoon sessions give families several attendance patterns to consider. The strongest reasons to look closely are the younger children's home-routine approach, the practical outdoor environment and the emphasis on adapting activities to individual children.

Rooms and Ages

Little Stars serves the youngest learners, with sensory experiences and individually planned activities in a home-style room supported by wooden cots in a dedicated sleep room and a rocking chair.

For children aged 2 to 4, the Rainbow Room combines child-led play with mathematics and literacy, using construction, role play and small-world resources alongside space for creative and messy activities. Supervised opportunities to take manageable risks also form part of this room's approach to preparing children for school.

Learning and Activities

EYFS provides the shared early-years framework for children's learning, development and care: here, play and practical experiences give children ways to explore ideas, communicate and practise emerging skills. Daisychain also uses principles from Portage and Makaton to adapt learning to individual needs. A preschool lead practitioner trained in both approaches supports this adaptation of activities.

In April 2022, older children investigated their ideas about buoyancy by choosing objects and trying them in a water tray. Staff also picked up on children's interest in a bear-hunt story and helped them remember its events. These examples show two routes into learning: following an interest that children introduce and giving them a practical way to test a prediction.

Babies' experiences in April 2022 included exploring wet cornflour and working out how to retrieve a ball from beneath a chair, with gestures supporting communication. The activities were simple, but purposeful. They gave very young children something to investigate and a problem to persist with, rather than requiring an adult to solve it immediately.

Outdoor and Community Life

The outdoor space has distinct uses. Canopies shelter an all-weather area with natural materials and loose parts for open-ended play; the grassed space adds puddles, a sandpit and an evergreen tree that provides shade and climbing opportunities. Trikes, slides and mud kitchens give children further ways to move and play. This is an environment with several kinds of activity built into it, from construction to physical exploration.

The allotment connects the garden to the kitchen. Children help plant and water crops, watch them develop and harvest produce for the chef, including potatoes, tomatoes and radishes. That makes food growing a hands-on experience with a visible destination: ingredients for meals. It also gives the outdoor offer a quieter, sustained activity alongside the more energetic play equipment.

Relationships and Communication

Home routines matter in Little Stars. Staff aim to follow them as closely as possible, and parents receive both spoken and written handovers about their child's day. For a family balancing nursery and home care, that combination has practical value: the routine guides care, while the handover helps parents understand what happened during the session.

In April 2022, everyday tasks were used to encourage independence. Older children prepared their places for lunch, poured drinks and practised managing coats and fastenings; babies used spoons and located their belongings. The value lay in manageable responsibilities. Children had opportunities to try for themselves while adults adjusted the help they gave.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

The current team includes an inclusion and SEND specialist working alongside the SENCO, as well as practitioners with experience of individual support. The manager holds the designated safeguarding lead role, with a deputy lead also in place. These are identifiable responsibilities and support mechanisms; the dated inspection judgement remains the basis for assessing their effectiveness.

In April 2022, staff used technology to help children learning English as an additional language, identified developmental gaps and sought outside help where needed. Everyday health activities included practising toothbrushing on dolls, handwashing around meals and toileting, and discussing vegetables children enjoyed. These examples connect support and wellbeing to things children actually did.

Fresh food is cooked on site by the nursery chef, and the allotment contributes produce to the kitchen. Meals included with attendance depend on the session: full days include a morning snack, a hot lunch with two courses and afternoon tea; mornings include the snack and lunch, while afternoons include tea.

Sessions and Attendance

Daisychain is open from 8am to 6pm, Monday to Friday, across 51 weeks of the year. Full days run from 8am to 6pm, short days from 8am to 4pm, mornings from 8am to 1pm and afternoons from 1pm to 6pm. The shorter day is a separate option from either morning or afternoon attendance, giving families a choice between covering most of the working day and booking one part of it.

Additional hours must be arranged with the nursery beforehand. Late collection attracts a charge. Fees are payable in advance on the first day of each month, and the nursery charges neither a registration fee nor a deposit or retainer. Current prices come in the nursery's written quotation; the sessions and fees page sets out the booking options and payment structure.

Closures include statutory bank holidays, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Years Day, Good Friday and Easter Monday. Families planning attendance around work should account for that calendar as well as their chosen session length.

Funding and Paid Extras

Funded childcare is accepted from the term after children turn 9 months, for eligible 2-year-olds and under universal and extended funding for 3- and 4-year-olds. Universal funding starts from the term after a child's third birthday and can be taken as 15 hours per week for 38 weeks or 12 hours per week for 47.5 weeks. Eligible families may receive extended funding of up to 30 hours per week term-time or 24 hours per week across the year. Term-time and stretched arrangements sit alongside privately paid sessions.

The session packages include the food described above. Funded attendance and any additional paid hours need to be considered together when choosing a pattern, rather than assuming an entitlement matches the length of a full or short day. The nursery accepts payment by bank transfer or Direct Debit and participates in the Government Tax Free Childcare Scheme.

Getting There

The address is Monkton Avenue, Weston-super-Mare, BS24 9DA. Enquiries can be made through the contact form or by calling 01934 812397.

• Questions and parent influence. The April 2022 improvement priorities were to give children more thinking time, extend vocabulary through better questioning and involve parents more regularly in evaluating provision. During a viewing, ask how these priorities now shape interactions and parent feedback.
• Little Stars routines. Individual planning, home routines and a dedicated sleep room are central to the younger children's offer. A viewing is the opportunity to discuss how your child's rest and comfort routines would fit that arrangement.
• Funded attendance costs. Food is included in the session packages, and both term-time and stretched funding patterns are offered. What would your proposed funded booking include for meals and non-food consumables, and what would you need to supply or pay for separately?

Daisychain suits families choosing either a full or short day, as well as those who want morning or afternoon attendance. Its most persuasive features are practical: a separate place to sleep, individual planning for the youngest children, child-led learning in Rainbow Room and outdoor spaces that connect play with growing food.

The April 2022 Good judgement provides a positive inspection position, with specific improvement priorities around questioning and parental involvement. For parents drawn to this combination of adaptable care and hands-on activity, those priorities give a useful agenda for a viewing.