Banana Moon Day Nursery Caversham

A Story Teepee, a planting station and a pet tortoise give Banana Moon Day Nursery Caversham plenty of material for learning through play. Muddy Moons, its outdoor learning environment, puts gardening, storytelling and investigating nature into the nursery day. Indoors, a dedicated communications room gives stories and older children’s phonics their own space.

At the 13 December 2024 inspection, Ofsted rated the nursery Good and found safeguarding effective. The improvement priorities concerned helping children handle their emotions and making staff development more effective. Both matter when judging the consistency of everyday care.

The nursery accepts children from three months to five years and has 74 places in total. Baby Moons, Mini Moons and Full Moons are its three rooms. Full-day and half-day attendance sit alongside an opening window of 7.30am to 6.30pm.

Rooms and Ages

Baby Moons introduces babies to colour, shapes and textures through sensory play, with home routines informing their care. The group-wide age-stage descriptions place Mini Moons at two to three years, when choosing activities and practising independence become important, while Full Moons covers three years to school age, with a key person recording individual learning.

Recent activities make those broad stages easier to picture. Mini Moons children connected a caterpillar story with toy fruit, drawing, painting and outdoor building. Full Moons explored a curiosity box by fitting keys into padlocks and matching pictures. The tasks give children something tangible to manipulate while staff introduce language, recall and problem-solving.

Learning and Activities

The EYFS provides the shared framework for learning, development and care: children learn through play, with adults observing their interests and planning what comes next. Alongside it, the group-wide Banana Moon Early Learning & Development Programme uses children’s fascinations as a starting point for teaching and open-ended resources. It complements the EYFS, which remains the statutory framework against which Ofsted inspects.

Boogiemites brings singing and dancing into the daily routine. Senior staff leading the sessions have completed the programme’s training, and the activities include socialising and taking turns.

Big Play, Little Play is an approach used at Caversham. A garden activity involving Mini Moons and Full Moons used paint rollers and larger equipment to create shared artwork. The practical difference is scale: children can make broad movements and work together on a common piece, rather than each completing a small picture.

Other recent examples include potion-making with lavender and lemons, which introduced scent and discussion about the mixture. Cooking activities involve measuring ingredients, mixing and following recipes.

Outdoor and Community Life

Muddy Moons deserves particular attention. Its Mud Kitchen supports pouring, measuring and pretend cooking; the Explorer’s Box contains binoculars, magnifying glasses and real tools. A Story Teepee provides a place for imaginative play and stories, while the planting station lets children sow, water and care for growing things. The environment gives children several different ways to investigate the same natural world.

Tree stumps, logs, bug hotels and a fire pit are also part of the space. The Fire Pit is used for experiences such as marshmallow roasting and campfire songs, while the Herb Wonder Wall brings herbs into sensory exploration. Outdoor play takes place daily throughout the year, so the garden forms part of the routine rather than depending on special outings.

Crush, the tortoise, gives caring for living things a familiar face. Full Moons children have helped with vegetables and a bath, linking gentle handling with discussion about food and animal care. In December 2024, children also discussed what the nursery’s tortoise ate and connected its diet with their own fruit and vegetables.

Banana’s Swap Shop extends the idea of reuse to families. Located in reception, it allows outgrown clothing, shoes and hats to be passed on for others to take. It is a practical community feature with a clear purpose.

Relationships and Communication

Settling is flexible and shaped around the individual child and family. Parents can attend settling sessions to discuss routines and particular needs, while babies’ established home routines inform their care. This makes the handover about the child’s actual habits rather than expecting every family to fit the same starting pattern.

The group-wide Parent App records sleep, snacks and learning, shares photographs and holds personalised learning journals. Parents can add comments from home and give named family members access. That creates a route for exchanging information in both directions, with daily care and longer-term development kept together.

In December 2024, staff gave parents updates about learning and ideas to use at home, including books and potty-training resources. Parents’ and children’s suggestions also influenced activities: an interest in camping led to tent-building and marshmallow toasting.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

At its December 2024 inspection, Ofsted found that children with special educational needs and/or disabilities were supported well through targeted work involving parents and other professionals, but identified inconsistent help with older children’s emotional self-regulation and staff development that did not sufficiently personalise improvements in teaching. The practical issue was uneven interaction: some children needed more help to understand how their behaviour affected others and stronger support for their next learning steps.

Sleep has a dedicated room with natural wood cots and soft lighting. Each child has separate bed linen, laundered on site, and staff make regular checks alongside CCTV monitoring. The nursery aims to follow established sleep routines, giving families a specific arrangement to discuss during settling.

Current protective arrangements include fingerprint entry and CCTV; cameras are excluded from toileting and nappy-changing areas.

Food is cooked on site, with hot meals, snacks and a separate weaning menu for younger babies. The allergy policy uses individual care plans, yellow plates to identify dietary needs, and a daily kitchen allergy form checked by kitchen and senior staff.

Sessions and Attendance

The address is 371 Gosbrook Road, Caversham, Reading, RG4 8ED. Opening hours are 7.30am to 6.30pm, Monday to Friday, with year-round operation and closures for bank holidays and Christmas. Families can contact the nursery by telephone or use its callback form.

Full days and half days are attendance options. The recommended pattern is at least two half-day sessions or one full day each week; this is a recommendation, rather than a stated compulsory minimum. It gives families a concrete attendance rhythm to weigh against their working week.

Funding and Paid Extras

Funded childcare opportunities and paid childcare are offered. In December 2024, the nursery was eligible to provide funded early education for children aged nine months to four years. Current prices should come in the nursery’s written quotation, with the fees page providing the enquiry route.

Fees are payable for 51 weeks each year, including bank holidays, and remain payable when a child is absent through sickness or holiday. That affects the annual childcare budget even when a family takes time away from nursery.

• Emotions and teaching consistency. The December 2024 improvement priorities concerned emotional self-regulation and personalised staff development. On a visit, ask how practitioners now respond to frustration and how leaders help staff improve individual interactions.
• Attendance and absences. The recommended weekly pattern is two half days or one full day, while sickness and holiday absences remain payable. Consider both the attendance rhythm and the charging terms when comparing a quotation with your usual week.
• Funding and everyday extras. When discussing your child’s funded or paid pattern, ask which entitlement and delivery arrangement apply, and how meals and non-food consumables are treated in the written quotation.
• Allergy arrangements. Individual plans, yellow plates and kitchen checks form the allergy policy. Families managing an allergy should confirm how those arrangements would work for their child, including weaning and food preparation.

Caversham suits families considering either full-day care or half-day sessions who want music, practical exploration and outdoor learning to feature in the nursery routine. Muddy Moons, Boogiemites and the communications room give that preference substance; the sleep room and Parent App add useful care arrangements. The Good judgement provides a positive starting point, with emotional support and teaching consistency remaining the central questions arising from December 2024.