Twinkle Star Day Nursery

A kitchen children can use for cooking, a dedicated baby sleep room and two different outdoor spaces give Twinkle Star Day Nursery a practical, domestic character. This North End setting occupies a converted surgery in a large semi-detached building on Chichester Road. Babies use the upstairs accommodation, while older children play and learn downstairs. The organisation matters: the youngest children have spaces for sleep and messy activities, rather than doing everything in their main room.

The nursery cares for children aged 3 months to 4 years. At its May 2025 inspection, Ofsted rated it Good, found safeguarding effective and judged that children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), were progressing well. There is a material qualification for parents of babies: staff deployment and the organisation of lunch needed attention.

Attendance choices include Full Day, School Day and shorter morning or afternoon sessions. That gives families several ways to use the nursery, rather than a single daily booking pattern.

Rooms and Ages

Little Stars serves babies from 3 months to around their first birthday, with confident walking also shaping the move onwards; its first-floor accommodation includes access to a craft room, a sleep room and outdoor experiences twice daily. Its capacity is nine children. For a baby family, that room limit is a more useful measure than the nursery's total capacity, because it describes the scale of the baby's immediate setting.

Milky Ways takes confident walkers aged roughly 1 to 2 years, using first-floor accommodation beside Little Stars, the craft room for activities such as painting and water play, and the garden twice daily. This room also has capacity for nine children. The shared creative space means messy activities have a place alongside the main room's day.

Comets, for children aged 2 to 3, combines child-chosen play with a daily adult-led activity, encourages participation in snack preparation and tidying, and uses the garden for bikes, climbing, gardening and water play. Its capacity is 12 children. Practical jobs are part of the learning here: children contribute to the routines around meals as well as taking part in planned activities.

Planets, for children aged 3 to 4, emphasises preparation for school through daily work with letters and sounds, participation in activity planning and snack choices, and access to the garden. Its capacity is 16 children. Children help shape topics, giving their interests a place in the preschool programme.

Room progression follows school-year cohorts running from September to August. Families therefore have both an age-stage structure and a cohort arrangement to consider, rather than assuming moves happen solely on birthdays.

Learning and Activities

The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) provides the common educational framework: children develop communication, social and physical skills alongside early literacy, number work, creativity and understanding of the world. Twinkle Star plans across these areas, with resources children can use indoors and outside. The practical emphasis is on activities appropriate to each stage, rather than expecting babies and preschool children to follow the same programme.

In May 2025, children extended cooking activities by buying ingredients at a local shop and making dishes associated with other countries. This connected an everyday errand with food preparation and learning about different cultures. Older children also explored a weekly sound, which was shared with parents so learning could continue at home.

Outdoor and Community Life

A small garden with a soft play surface serves the babies, while a larger playing area supports football, bikes, gardening and water play. These are different physical opportunities, rather than one outdoor space being used identically by every age group. The children's kitchen adds another hands-on setting: food preparation can become an activity in its own right, alongside play in the rooms and garden.

Relationships and Communication

Every child has a key person who acts as their principal carer during the session, keeps developmental records and plans learning experiences. That role also gives parents a specific member of staff with whom to discuss their child's development. For babies, information gathered during settling helps bring familiar home routines into nursery care.

The recommended settling sequence begins with an hour alongside the key person and other children. During the second hour, a confident child may try half an hour apart from their parent; the third gives another opportunity to spend time with the group while the parent leaves. The sequence is adjustable, and extra settling time can be arranged. It is a gradual introduction, with the child's response shaping the separation.

An electronic app gives Little Stars families daily information including sleep, milk feeds and nappy changes; Milky Ways families also receive updates about their child's day. For parents of the youngest children, those details help connect the nursery session with what happens at home, especially around feeding and rest.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

At the May 2025 inspection, Ofsted found that staff exchanged information with parents and other professionals to support children with SEND, but identified a need for more consistent, purposeful baby-room interactions and observed babies becoming unsettled after spending too long in high chairs at lunch. These concerns deserve attention alongside the overall Good judgement, because they affect ordinary parts of a baby's day.

In May 2025, staff also gathered words from families' home languages and used them with children learning English. Behaviour support involved helping children recognise feelings and responding when they struggled to manage them. These were concrete ways of supporting communication and participation, rather than relying only on verbal instructions in English.

The nursery supplies water, milk and morning and afternoon snacks, plus cooked tea at 4pm for Comets and Planets. Feeding bibs, wipes, bed linen, crockery, cutlery and a nursery bag are also provided.

Sessions and Attendance

The address is 34 Chichester Road, North End, Portsmouth, PO2 0AD. Opening hours run from 7.30am to 6pm on weekdays, across 51 weeks of the year; closures are bank holidays and Christmas week. Telephone and email enquiries provide a direct contact route.

Full Day runs from 7.30am to 6pm, while School Day runs from 8.30am to 4pm. Morning and afternoon sessions are offered from 9am to 1pm and 1pm to 5pm. There is also an Early Morning option from 7.30am to 1pm, alongside sessions running from 8am to 1pm or 1pm to 6pm. These are booking patterns with different start and finish times, so the choice affects both the length of the nursery day and the practical handover with work or other care.

School Day is an attendance label. It should be read separately from the specific term-time funding option below, rather than treated as a promise that every School Day booking follows school terms.

Funding and Paid Extras

The nursery accepts two-year NEG funding and offers 15 or 30 hours of NEG funding for children after the term of their third birthday. The 15-hour entitlement can be used across nursery sessions; the 30-hour offer is restricted to Full Day or School Day. That restriction matters when comparing the longer patterns with shorter morning or afternoon attendance.

For children in the Planet Room using only 15 funded hours each week, a term-time-only arrangement is an option. Other NEG funding is stretched over 51 weeks. This is a meaningful difference for families choosing between attendance during school terms and attendance across the year: the funded pattern needs to match the intended booking, as well as the child's entitlement.

Private paid sessions are offered alongside funded childcare. Current prices come in the nursery's written quotation; the opening hours and fees page sets out the session choices and funding arrangements.

Preparation for school takes place in Planets, and staff work with local schools on transition. The emphasis is on helping children make the move from nursery to school, rather than presenting a named school destination as part of the nursery offer.

• Baby-room interactions and lunch. In May 2025, staff deployment needed strengthening and babies spent too long in high chairs. During a visit, ask how staff now organise interactions and lunch in Little Stars and Milky Ways.
• Funding and session fit. The 30-hour NEG offer applies to Full Day or School Day, while the term-time-only option is for Planet Room children using only 15 funded hours. Compare those conditions with the attendance pattern your family needs.
• Food and everyday supplies. Snacks, drinks, some cooked teas and several care items are provided. Ask how food and everyday supplies affect the total cost of your chosen private or funded booking.
• Room moves. Children progress in September-to-August cohorts, with walking confidence also relevant to the youngest stages. Discuss how that arrangement would work for your child's development and settling.

Twinkle Star suits families wanting a choice between Full Day, School Day and shorter morning or afternoon attendance, with a room structure extending from babies to preschool. The strongest practical features are the nine-child limits in the two youngest rooms, dedicated sleep and creative spaces, and opportunities for children to take part in cooking and everyday jobs.

The May 2025 baby-room concerns temper that recommendation. Parents choosing care for an infant should give the organisation of lunch and the quality of everyday interactions as much weight as the rooms themselves. For older children, the combination of garden activity, growing independence and school preparation gives a clear picture of the day.