Blossoms Day Nursery, The New Mill

A mud kitchen with its own water pumping station gives The New Mill a clear starting point: children have space to experiment, build and make things happen. Bridges, balancing blocks and a sensory garden add different ways to explore outside. This Hambleton setting takes babies and children aged 0 to 60 months, with separate spaces for successive stages of nursery life. The nursery is registered for 65 places.

Ofsted rated Blossoms Day Nursery, The New Mill Good at its 21 June 2021 inspection. That dated judgement matters: the account of children's relationships, learning and care below describes June 2021 practice, while the outdoor facilities and room arrangement form the current offer.

The strongest thread is practical, imaginative play. In June 2021, children combined mud and water, invented stories and helped grow and harvest vegetables. The improvement points were equally concrete: activities needed clearer links to children's learning needs, and older babies needed more engaging experiences.

Rooms and Ages

Four rooms organise the day: baby room, infant room, toddler room and pre-school room. Their layouts include pathways that let children move between resources and explore their surroundings. For parents, the useful distinction is between the nursery's total capacity and the separate spaces children use as they develop. The nursery is registered for 65 places, a whole-setting figure.

In June 2021, the youngest babies explored paint with their hands and made marks on paper. Photographs of an animal visit also prompted them to point and make animal sounds. These were tangible starting points for sensory exploration and early communication, connecting something children had experienced with pictures they could revisit.

Older babies were a specific improvement priority in June 2021. Some lost interest because the experiences offered did not sufficiently draw them into learning. Families choosing care for this stage should give the daily activities as much attention as the room's appearance.

Learning and Activities

The early years foundation stage sets the requirements for children's learning, development and care. In everyday terms, it brings learning and care together: play, conversation, physical exploration and increasing independence all belong in the nursery day.

In June 2021, an imagination station in each room gave children a starting point for inventing stories. A visiting travelling animal farm supplied another shared experience, which the youngest children revisited through photographs and animal noises. These examples show different routes into communication: creating a story, recalling an encounter and connecting a sound with an animal.

The same period brought speech and language training for staff. Older children learnt the word hydrate during hot weather and connected it with drinking enough to look after themselves. Vocabulary had a practical purpose, rather than being an isolated exercise.

Planning was less consistent. In June 2021, mud-and-water play sometimes passed without staff using it to develop mathematical understanding. The issue was the next step in learning: an appealing activity still needed adults to recognise what children could explore or understand through it.

Outdoor and Community Life

The outdoor area offers construction materials, a mud kitchen and a water pumping station, alongside bridges and balancing blocks. A bug hotel sits within the natural storytelling area. These resources give children different reasons to use the garden, from making and balancing to observing and imagining.

A gazebo supplies shade and a quieter space for activities; the sensory garden adds another setting for exploration. In June 2021, children also took part in outdoor yoga and mindfulness sessions and grew vegetables that they helped harvest. Movement, quieter moments and hands-on growing each had a place in that inspection-era day.

Relationships and Communication

At its June 2021 inspection, Ofsted found effective safeguarding, close relationships between children and their key person, and good communication and language progress for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities. These findings give substance to the Good judgement, while remaining an assessment of that period.

In June 2021, staff spent time building relationships with babies, who shared snacks together as an early social experience. For children needing additional help, support included nursery rhymes during play and individual assistance with listening to stories. The detail matters: support was woven into familiar activities rather than described only as a general intention.

The curiosity cube linked home and nursery in June 2021. Families took its contents home to explore with their child and used a diary to record the learning. It gave parents a concrete activity to share and a way to bring that experience back into nursery conversations.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

In June 2021, safeguarding champions helped circulate updates through the staff team. Recruitment included suitability checks, and staff supporting children with medical needs received training for emergency treatment. These are dated arrangements, separate from the current room and outdoor offer.

Food also formed part of care in June 2021: babies ate healthy snacks together, while growing and harvesting vegetables introduced children to food beyond the plate. The shared snack experience combined eating with time alongside other children.

The address is The New Mill, 16 Gateforth Lane, Hambleton, Selby, YO8 9HP. Enquiries can be made through the nursery's contact form, by telephone on 01757 228403 or by email at info@blossomsdaynursery.co.uk.

Opening hours are 7.30am to 6pm, Monday to Friday. The nursery operates across the year, closing for bank holidays and Christmas. That calendar is a practical consideration for families organising care around work and holiday cover.

In June 2021, the setting provided funded early education for two-, three- and four-year-old children. That is a dated participation statement, rather than a promise of an individual child's entitlement or attendance arrangement.

• Older babies' activities. June 2021 improvement work centred on keeping older babies interested and extending their learning. During a visit, ask how staff now adapt experiences for babies ready for more challenge.
• Learning through outdoor play. The mud kitchen and water pumping station offer an immediate example to discuss. Ask how practitioners turn children's experiments into further language or mathematical learning, addressing the June 2021 planning concern.
• Attendance and costs. The opening window runs from 7.30am to 6pm, with bank holiday and Christmas closures. Which booking pattern, funded-hours arrangement and charges for meals or consumables would apply to your child?

The New Mill suits families who value separate nursery-stage spaces and an outdoor offer built around making, balancing and exploring. Its June 2021 Good judgement provides a useful quality reference, with specific strengths in relationships and support alongside clear learning priorities. The most useful decision is whether today's activities, especially for older babies, match your child's stage and interests.