Evergreen Lodge Nursery and Preschool

A stationary double-decker bus, a working allotment and timber buildings give Evergreen Lodge Nursery and Preschool a recognisable rural character. At Alpaca Park Farm in Snarestone, children follow food from planting to preparation and use the bus for imaginative journeys.

At its January 2025 inspection, Ofsted rated the nursery Good and found effective safeguarding, good progress across the areas of learning and successful support for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). The improvements required were specific: give children longer to answer questions and make better use of opportunities to deepen their learning. That is a positive judgement with a clear teaching challenge attached.

There are 57 places in total. Robins, Wrens and Sparrows serve babies, toddlers and preschool children respectively, with Wrens now occupying a separate, larger space. Full-day attendance and term-time places form part of the offer, alongside stretched funded hours.

Rooms and Ages

Robins is the baby room, giving the youngest children a named base within the nursery. Wrens is the toddler room and has moved into a larger, self-contained cabin, with more space for play and developing independence. Sparrows is the preschool room; the toddler move has also freed space for older children in the main building.

Underfloor heating and natural light give the main lodge comfortable spaces for play with natural materials and open-ended resources. A former staffroom now adds space for role play and learning.

Learning and Activities

The EYFS provides the framework for learning, development and care, covering language, physical development, relationships, early reading and mathematics, understanding the world and creative expression. Here, activities respond to children's interests and developmental needs. Everyday play is the means of learning, rather than a separate break from it.

The Curiosity Approach adds an emphasis on exploring everyday objects and making things to play with. Planning also responds to interests as they emerge, allowing an activity to develop from something a child notices or wants to investigate. Natural materials and open-ended resources suit that approach: their use is not fixed to a single game or prescribed answer.

In January 2025, preschool children collaborated on large-scale drawing and art using different tools. Planned and spontaneous music brought instruments and movement into the day, with familiar rhymes for babies and more complex action songs for older children.

Outdoor and Community Life

The Bus of Imagination is an engine-free double-decker that stays on site. Its purpose is pretend travel, songs and shared celebrations, rather than transport to outings. For children, it supplies an unusually concrete setting for imagining destinations and playing together.

At the allotment, small groups make regular visits to sow, grow, gather and prepare produce. Contact with neighbouring gardeners brings other people into the experience, while the changing plants give children something to revisit over time. In January 2025, digging and shovelling were also part of the outdoor activity, connecting the growing work with physical effort.

Walks extend around the farm site and into the village. AviNature UK, a neighbouring organisation, introduces children to tropical birds and other animals on site. Everyone Active makes recurring visits about water safety and provides a venue for Christmas and graduation celebrations. These links give the rural setting a social dimension as well as space to explore.

Relationships and Communication

Three recommended hour-long settling visits introduce children to their room and its people, with a parent or carer staying for the first. Where possible, visits span two weeks, allowing time for more if needed.

In January 2025, staff used information gathered from families to select experiences that interested children. Regular key-person contact linked home and nursery life.

Independence was evident in ordinary routines that January. Younger children practised washing their hands and managing their shoes with adult help, while older children served food and took part in washing and drying their dishes. The emphasis was on attempting real tasks, with support when the task became difficult.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

The Evergreen Hub provides office and family-support space. The existing office is intended to become a SEN and Reflection Room, a planned addition rather than a room already in use.

A nursery chef prepares home-cooked food, with menus rotating over four weeks. Before a child starts, the All About Me form collects dietary requirements and allergy information for use when meals are prepared and served.

The nursery can store and administer certain recently dispensed medicines prescribed by a health professional, supplied in their original packaging with administration instructions. Non-prescription pain relief is restricted to emergencies and requires parental permission to be recorded. Children who cannot manage the normal daily routine because they are unwell should remain at home, with exclusion periods applying to some illnesses.

Sessions and Attendance

Opening hours are 7.30am to 6pm, Monday to Friday, excluding bank holidays, with a closure between Christmas and New Year. The two full-day choices run from 7.30am to 5.30pm or from 8am to 6pm. The opening window and the booked day therefore need to be distinguished when organising collection.

A reduced funded arrangement also uses a seven-and-a-half-hour session across three full days of attendance, with private hourly charges covering additional time at the beginning and end of the day. Term-time places operate with a waiting list. The allocation policy may put full-time bookings ahead of part-time ones, and full-day, year-round attendance ahead of shorter or term-time patterns.

Agreed sessions cannot be exchanged casually from one day to another. Permanent changes require a written request, and a reduction needs one month's notice. Missed sessions through illness or holidays remain chargeable, as do bank holidays; these terms matter when comparing the cost of a booking with the hours a child actually attends.

Getting There

The address is Alpaca Park Farm, Main Street, Snarestone, Swadlincote, DE12 7DB. Enquiries can be made by telephone or email, and there is a registration-of-interest form.

Funding and Paid Extras

Both funded 15 hours and funded 30 hours are offered, with funding stretched over 51 weeks and term-time attendance also provided. Stretching distributes the entitlement across more weeks; it does not turn the headline entitlement into that number of hours every week throughout the year. Tax-Free Childcare is accepted, and extra private hours are charged separately.

The Enhanced Gold Offer adds separate weekly charges for meals, the care package covering consumables, and activities and services. The Silver Offer is the alternative for families who do not opt into those extras. Meals and non-food consumables are therefore separate paid components of the enhanced funded package, rather than included within funded hours themselves.

Current prices come in the nursery's written quotation. Childcare invoices are issued ahead of the month they cover, and fee increases come with 28 days' notice. A non-refundable deposit forms part of securing a booking, subject to space at the time of enquiry.

• Conversation and challenge. In January 2025, children sometimes needed more thinking time before answering, and activities were not always developed far enough to sustain engagement. At a visit, ask how practitioners now extend a child's idea and make room for their response.
• The funded package. Gold adds meals, consumables and enhanced activities, while Silver provides an alternative. Compare the written package terms against the attendance pattern you need, including any private hours around a funded session.
• A fixed weekly pattern. Ad-hoc session swaps are not permitted, reductions require a month's notice and the allocation policy may prioritise full-time, full-day and year-round bookings. This deserves attention if working days change regularly.
• New support space and dietary needs. The Evergreen Hub is established, while the SEN and Reflection Room is planned. Families needing additional support can discuss how current spaces would be used; families affected by allergies should confirm current meal-preparation practice during their visit.

Evergreen Lodge suits families who want rural, practical learning with recognisable places and experiences: growing produce, imaginative play on the stationary bus and contact with neighbouring organisations. The January 2025 judgement supports that picture, with further work needed on response time and extending learning.

The attendance offer serves families seeking full-day bookings and those seeking term-time attendance, with stretched funding providing another way to organise the year. Its fixed-session rules and separately charged enhanced funded package are central to the decision. The strongest match is a family that values the outdoor character and can make a settled booking pattern work.