Building Blocks Child Care, Preston

A water wall, a well-being garden and a book club for the youngest children gave this Preston nursery a recognisable character in May 2025: exploration sat alongside quieter spaces and reading shared with families. At its May 2025 inspection, Ofsted rated Building Blocks Outstanding and found safeguarding effective.

Building Blocks Child Care, Preston accepts children from babyhood through the preschool years. Its address is 32 Cottam Avenue, Preston PR2 3XE.

In May 2025, children explored how water could produce a rainbow at the water wall, while the well-being garden offered a space for feeling settled. These were different uses of the nursery's environment: one encouraged investigation, the other supported emotional comfort.

The early years foundation stage sets the framework for children's learning, development and care. Here, its everyday meaning was visible in play, conversation and practical exploration. In May 2025, staff extended children's interest in frogs into learning about life cycles and digestion, then linked that interest to practising scissor skills. An absorbing subject became a route into several kinds of learning.

Community experiences widened that work. In May 2025, children encountered animals through a local petting farm visit and explored differences between minibeasts. Visits from police and local dentists, alongside trips to the local library, connected nursery learning with people and places beyond it.

At the May 2025 inspection, Ofsted found that children with special educational needs and/or disabilities received highly effective support, with individual learning plans, professional collaboration and additional funding helping them participate alongside other children and make excellent progress.

In May 2025, staff gathered information from families when children started, using it to shape experiences around their backgrounds and interests. Family events helped sustain those relationships. The book club for the youngest children extended shared reading into the home, giving parents a practical part in children's language development.

Food also became a learning opportunity. In May 2025, the nursery's chef prepared healthy, home-cooked meals and regularly led cooking activities using raw ingredients; children practised independence by pouring drinks and clearing their plates.

Opening hours are 7.30am to 6pm, Monday to Friday. The nursery operates across the year, closing for bank holidays, one week in August and one week at Christmas. Those closures matter for families arranging continuous childcare around work.

In May 2025, the nursery provided funded early education for children from nine months to four years and received the early years pupil premium. This is an inspection-time account of funding provision.

• Holiday cover. There are closures for bank holidays and a week each in August and at Christmas. Families needing year-round cover should build these breaks into their plans.
• Your funded booking. Funded early education formed part of the offer in May 2025. At a visit, ask how funded hours, meals and non-food consumables would fit your intended attendance pattern.

Building Blocks suits families seeking care across the year. At the May 2025 inspection, children's days combined practical investigation, conversation and connections with home. The May 2025 examples give that character substance: frog learning developed into scissor practice, cooking brought ingredients into children's hands, and the book club connected nursery reading with family life. The Outstanding judgement provides a strong inspection position; the planned holiday closures remain a practical consideration.