Wollaton House Day Nursery

A covered garden gazebo and preschool spaces stretching from the Home Corner to the Conservatory give Wollaton House Day Nursery a character built around movement between activities. Children can use different parts of the setting during the day, rather than remaining in one area. Outdoor play continues throughout the year.

At its September 2023 inspection, Ofsted rated the nursery Good and found safeguarding effective. That judgement provides a positive starting point, alongside two specific improvements concerning babies’ interactions with adults during feeding and children’s opportunities to handle cutlery. These are practical matters for families to explore, rather than details to lose beneath the overall grade.

The nursery occupies 5 Bridge Road in Wollaton, Nottingham, NG8 2DG, and accepts children aged six months to five years. Full-time and part-time childcare are offered, with funded hours stretched across the year for eligible families.

Rooms and Ages

Preschool children use the Main Room, Quiet Room, Home Corner, Craft Room and Conservatory. These are shared activity spaces within the preschool provision, rather than a sequence of age groups through which every child progresses. The arrangement gives children opportunities to change their surroundings as their play changes, with quieter time sitting alongside construction, creative work and imaginative play.

The emphasis is on access to different spaces. For a family choosing preschool care, that matters as much as a room label: children have more than one setting for their activities during the day. The garden adds another learning space, with a covered gazebo, all-weather grass and a rubber safety surface supporting outdoor use across the seasons.

Learning and Activities

The early years foundation stage is the statutory framework for children’s learning, development and care; here, the day combines play led by adults, children’s own play and quieter periods. Cooking, music and construction sit alongside painting, role play, tabletop games, and exploration with sand and water. The mix gives children different ways to practise movement, language and working with others.

For children aged three to five, an infant teacher coordinates the Foundation Stage learning programme, which develops early reading and writing alongside number work and sounds through educational play. These activities introduce skills children will use at school while keeping play as the means of learning. The education page explains this preschool emphasis.

In September 2023, a book of the month gave stories a recurring place in the nursery day. Adults returned to the same book and used related activities to extend children’s learning. Toddlers drew with crayons and used words to describe their marks, while staff responded in sentences. Repetition gave children opportunities to become familiar with a story and hear language used in context.

Other September 2023 examples connected ideas across activities. Children tackled the problem of making a brick house, including its walls and roof, with adults demonstrating and posing challenges. Storytelling also led into a garden search for number cards, followed by putting the cards in sequence. These examples show how construction and outdoor play could carry learning beyond a single activity.

In September 2023, children settled into activities with help from their key person, and staff had established relationships with families. Adults used individual praise to recognise positive behaviour, while classical music helped children calm down. These are concrete examples of how emotional support and everyday routines worked at that time.

At the September 2023 inspection, Ofsted found that the special educational needs coordinator worked promptly with families and other professionals to put support in place, helping children with special educational needs and/or disabilities make good progress. The practical mechanism matters: support involved coordination between the nursery, parents and professionals, rather than resting solely with the child’s room staff.

Communication in September 2023 included daily updates, assessments each term and parents’ evenings. Families also received guidance on early reading, oral health and smaller behavioural difficulties. Those different forms of contact gave parents both an account of the day and opportunities to discuss development over a longer period.

Mealtimes carried the clearest limitations in September 2023: some adults fed babies from a standing position, reducing babies’ view of their faces, and children were sometimes given too little choice of cutlery to practise coordination. Food is prepared in the nursery kitchen, with the following week’s menus displayed in reception; dietary requirements are accommodated where possible, although families may need to supply particular foods.

Sessions and Attendance

Both full-time and part-time childcare are offered from Monday to Friday. Opening hours are 8am to 6pm, with the nursery operating throughout the year and closing on bank holidays. This makes the attendance offer relevant to families seeking either a full-time arrangement or fewer hours within a year-round setting.

Enquiries can be made by telephone on 0115 928 1181 or by email to wollatonhouse99@gmail.com. The address is 5 Bridge Road, Wollaton, Nottingham, NG8 2DG.

Funding and Paid Extras

Eligible working families may access 15/30 hours funded childcare for children from nine months old. The entitlement is stretched over the whole year, rather than confined to term time. Eligibility depends on the family’s circumstances, including work and earnings requirements, so the offer should be understood as conditional entitlement rather than an assurance that every child qualifies.

Food and non-food consumables carry no additional charge, including alongside the funded offer; particular foods needed for some dietary requirements may instead come from home. Additional services also carry no extra charge. A discounted attendance rate applies when a child attends five days, and current prices come in the nursery’s written quotation. For parents comparing childcare arrangements, the inclusion of everyday food and consumables is a useful part of the cost structure to weigh alongside their chosen attendance pattern.

• Babies’ mealtime contact. In September 2023, feeding positions sometimes limited babies’ view of adults’ facial expressions. During a visit, ask how feeding is arranged now so babies can see and respond to the adult caring for them.
• Independence at the table. The September 2023 improvement points included more opportunities to use cutlery and develop coordination. Ask how children choose and practise using utensils as their skills develop.
• Dietary requirements. Some particular foods may need to come from home even though food otherwise carries no extra charge. Families managing allergies or dietary restrictions should confirm the current arrangements for their child.

Wollaton House suits families seeking full-time or part-time childcare within a year-round routine, with stretched funding for eligible children. Its strongest practical combination is preschool access to several activity spaces, outdoor play supported by a covered gazebo, and food and consumables included without an additional charge.

The September 2023 Good judgement gives the review a positive foundation, but the mealtime improvement points deserve attention, especially for parents of babies. For preschool families, the teacher-coordinated work on reading, writing, numbers and sounds adds a clear educational emphasis to a day that also includes imaginative, creative and outdoor play.