Stepping Stones Day Nursery

A woodland corner, a garden suspension bridge and a dedicated space for soft play give Stepping Stones Day Nursery plenty of room for different kinds of childhood exploration. This family-run nursery on Arboretum Street in Nottingham combines age-based rooms with shared spaces for movement, sensory play and creative activities. Its outdoor provision is a substantial part of the offer, rather than a single playground serving every purpose.

There are 217 places in total, with an accepted age range of two months to five years. At its February 2022 inspection, Ofsted rated the nursery Good and found safeguarding effective, with staff and the special educational needs coordinator working with families to arrange support promptly. That is a dated judgement. The practical attractions today are the room-by-room approach, free settling sessions and funded childcare with no additional charges, alongside a requirement for families to supply babies’ personal care items.

Morning, afternoon and full-day attendance patterns give families different ways to use the nursery. The details matter here, including an opening-time discrepancy and an additional-needs booking rule that deserve attention before committing.

Rooms and Ages

The Yellow Room serves babies up to 12 months, with feeding and weaning adapted to their routines and preferences, while the Red Room takes children aged 12 to 24 months through sensory activities, cooking, stories and free play. These are different stages of the nursery day: babies’ care follows their individual rhythm, while toddlers have opportunities to explore materials and make things to share with their families.

Green Room 1, for approximately 24 to 36 months, emphasises early vocabulary and communicating needs, with toilets next door to support toilet training at the child’s pace. Green Room 2 serves the same age band, combining language activities and opportunities for independent or group play with toilet and changing facilities inside the playroom. The physical arrangement makes this growing independence part of everyday care.

For children around 36 to 48 months, Blue Room 1 combines construction, messy play and a musical instrument centre with opportunities to choose materials and develop ideas. Blue Room 2 supports language, reasoning and social cooperation through spaces including a book corner and an area for group discussion. Blue Room 3 links creative and small-world play with daily activities shaped around children’s interests and observations of their development. These are practical preparations for school: making choices, expressing an idea and learning alongside others.

Learning and Activities

The Early Years Foundation Stage provides the framework for learning through play, communication, movement and relationships, with literacy, mathematics and creative exploration developing as children grow. It is the foundation of the nursery’s work. Here, activities can be initiated by children, and staff use observations to plan what comes next rather than treating every child’s development as identical.

Books, sound-and-letter work and counting sit alongside investigating the natural world and experimenting with materials. The preschool programme includes weekly planning across the specific areas of learning. This gives families a clearer picture of school preparation than a promise of readiness alone: children have opportunities to practise language, explore numbers and represent their ideas through art, movement and play.

The Playroom gives Green Room and preschool children space for visiting activities and indoor movement when outdoor play is impractical. Yoga Beamz provides yoga classes, while dance activities take their starting point from the book children are reading. A story can therefore become something children move through and interpret, as well as something they hear.

Outdoor and Community Life

Four enclosed outdoor areas serve different purposes, with three reached directly from children’s playrooms. Play Area 1 serves the Yellow and Red Rooms with equipment including trikes and a seesaw. For the Green Rooms, Play Area 2 includes a climbing frame and growing spaces for fruit and vegetables. Age-based provision helps connect outdoor activity to the stage children have reached indoors.

Playforce designed the shared playground and garden. Play Area 3 includes a play cabin, musical panels and a rollover bridge; Play Area 4 adds a woodland corner, a worm world discovery place and a timber trail with a suspension bridge. Digging, investigating creatures and balancing have specific places here. Seating for storytelling and posts for den-making extend the garden beyond energetic play.

Relationships and Communication

A key person gives each child and family a consistent relationship within the larger nursery. The Learning Journey uses observations and evaluations to track development, and parents can see it whenever they wish. It also supplies information to the child’s school when they move on, helping the next setting understand their learning rather than starting from scratch.

Free trial sessions are arranged after registration around parents’ or carers’ needs, usually on separate days before the child starts. Each is approximately two hours, with flexibility over length. This gives families time to share care information while their child becomes familiar with the room. Parents can also telephone their child’s room to speak to a carer, while daily information-sharing and regular discussions help connect home and nursery life.

In February 2022, children were choosing accessible resources, babies were practising independent movement and older children were cooperating over tidying. These examples give substance to the nursery’s emphasis on independence. However, the February 2022 inspection identified uneven support for listening, leaving some children less involved, and an excess of equipment that sometimes disrupted concentration. Both points matter: choice is useful only when children can participate and sustain their attention.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

A SENCO role is part of the team structure, alongside room leaders and a head chef. The application terms also set a significant condition for children with additional needs: only one such child is allowed per room session, with a possible waiting list; if needs become apparent after joining, sessions are transferred to that list only if a waiting list is already in place for the room. Families affected by this rule need to understand its consequences for their proposed attendance pattern.

The Sensory Room & Soft Play separates active physical exploration from a calmer area where children can relax and engage at their own pace. For babies, care includes keeping to their routines and adjusting food texture during weaning. Fresh meals, snacks and drinks are included in private fees and can be adapted to dietary needs; baby food can be blended or chopped as needed.

A biometric fingerprint system controls access, and the nursery has arrangements for staff training in paediatric first aid and safeguarding. These are practical measures, distinct from the dated safeguarding judgement. They do not remove the need to understand how a particular child’s health, dietary or additional care requirements will be managed.

Sessions and Attendance

Stepping Stones operates at 3 Arboretum Street, Nottingham NG1 4JA. Morning sessions run from 7.45am to 1pm, and afternoon sessions from 1pm to 6pm; full-day attendance is also offered. The nursery operates Monday to Friday across 51 weeks, with bank holidays and a Christmas week excluded. Families can make enquiries by telephone or through the contact form, which includes options for trial sessions and funding help.

Fees are paid monthly in advance, with the monthly calculation intended to keep payments consistent. A nursery place-holding payment is credited towards the first month’s fees. Removing a child or changing sessions requires four weeks’ notice by email, and fees remain payable throughout that period. Holidays and sickness absences do not attract refunds, so the financial commitment extends beyond days actually attended.

Getting There

The nursery is beside Nottingham’s Arboretum, and the Nottingham High School tram stop is only 2 minutes walk away. That gives public-transport users a specific connection to consider alongside the city-centre address.

Funding and Paid Extras

Funded childcare includes 15-hour provision for eligible two-year-olds and three- and four-year-olds, plus the expanded 30-hour offer for eligible working families from nine months until school age. Funding can be used over 38 term-time weeks or stretched, with the 30-hour stretched option stated as 22 hours each week across the year. Eligibility and the chosen arrangement determine how this fits a child’s attendance.

Funded places carry no additional charges across age groups, including meals and consumables charges; families using the Yellow Room nevertheless supply their baby’s milk, sterilised bottles, nappies and wipes. Private fees include meals, snacks and drinks, while those baby supplies remain the parents’ responsibility. Current prices come in the nursery’s written quotation, and the funding and fees information explains the offer.

• Opening time and room allocation. Morning sessions start at 7.45am, but opening information gives both 7.30am and 7.45am. Confirm the contracted start time and your child’s room during a visit, especially for a baby under two months or a child approaching five.
• Additional-needs attendance. The one-child-per-room-session rule and possible transfer to a waiting list could affect continuity of care. Discuss how the policy applies to your child and what happens if their needs change after starting.
• Listening and concentration. In February 2022, some children had fewer opportunities to be heard, while clutter sometimes distracted them. Ask to see how group activities and resources are organised now.
• The cost of changing plans. Four weeks’ paid notice applies to session changes or leaving, and sickness and holiday absences are charged. Build those terms into the family budget, alongside the baby supplies you provide.

Stepping Stones suits families seeking morning or afternoon sessions as well as full-day attendance, with age-based rooms and substantial shared spaces for movement and outdoor investigation. The garden equipment, sensory provision and Learning Journey give concrete substance to the offer. Funding with no additional charges is another practical attraction.

The decision needs closer attention where additional needs affect booking, or where an early start is essential. Its February 2022 Good judgement is useful context, while the listening and organisation concerns provide precise questions for a visit. For families comfortable with those arrangements, this is a nursery with plenty of purposeful space and several ways to structure attendance.