Astwood Smiles

A nursery oak tree in Overdale Park, children helping build scarecrows for the Astwood Bank Scarecrow Trail, and a baby room capped at fifteen: Astwood Smiles combines village involvement with practical detail about its youngest children. The family-run setting serves children from three months to five years in Astwood Bank, Redditch. Its community connections give children something concrete to join in with, beyond activities inside their rooms.

At its January 2022 inspection, Ofsted rated Astwood Smiles Good and judged safeguarding effective. That judgement belongs to that visit. The current offer includes individual baby routines, daily outdoor play and a purpose-built preschool space, with term-time preschool alongside two nursery day patterns.

For parents, the strongest combination is continuity of care and opportunities to explore. Babies have a key person and records of feeds and sleep; older children can borrow books, investigate materials and spend time in local green space. There is substance beneath the homely presentation.

Rooms and Ages

The baby room accommodates up to fifteen children from three months to two years, combining sensory exploration, singing and stories with care organised around each baby's feeding and sleeping routine. That published room limit is useful for families weighing the scale of their baby's first childcare setting. It is a room maximum, rather than a statement about how many babies attend together on a particular day.

Up to twenty children can be accommodated in the light, spacious Toddlers room, where sand, water, imaginative play and creative materials sit alongside quieter periods. The age progression is two to three years. Exploration has a place here, but so does rest: the balance matters for children who are becoming more active while still needing a predictable rhythm.

From age three, pre-school provides a purpose-built room with places for creative work, pretend play, sensory activities and books that children can take home. Its technology centre adds another resource to explore. These are practical differences between stages, rather than simply new room names as children get older.

Learning and Activities

EYFS is the statutory framework for children's learning, development and care: here, play, conversation and everyday routines give children practice in communicating, understanding feelings and managing relationships. It is the foundation every nursery must work from. Astwood Smiles' explanation gives particular attention to personal, social and emotional development, including friendships, empathy and looking after oneself.

Preschool activities add concrete early literacy, numeracy and science experiences. Children encounter phonics through games, numbers through counting activities, and problem-solving through hands-on experiments. Music includes instruments, movement and singing. These experiences give families a clearer picture of the day than a general promise of school preparation.

Messy play also has a practical purpose. Pouring, mixing and measuring let children explore materials while practising hand movements; outdoor water play uses pipes and funnels. The emphasis is on doing and investigating. Clothes suitable for getting wet or muddy are part of the arrangement, rather than an occasional extra.

In January 2022, adults used conversations and questions to extend children's vocabulary, while stories involved sound buttons, puppets and actions. There were also occasions when help arrived before children had enough time to manage a task themselves, or quieter children received too little encouragement to contribute. The improvement priorities were therefore quite specific: more perseverance, more independence and a stronger voice for less confident children.

Outdoor and Community Life

Outdoor play happens daily across the rooms, and a covered area keeps outdoor access possible in poor weather. The wildlife area introduces insects and their place in the environment, while growing vegetables connects food with the work of planting and tending. These are tangible ways of bringing environmental learning into ordinary nursery life.

Overdale Park is a regular destination for nature walks, with visits also extending to neighbouring allotments. The nursery planted its oak there in November 2024, giving children a familiar living thing to revisit and watch change. Parents are informed about off-site plans and can choose for their child not to participate.

Community events involve making as well as attending. For the 2025 Astwood Bank Scarecrow Trail, children helped develop, paint and stuff a Gruffalo scarecrow. Astwood Bank Carnival is an annual community connection, while Astwood Bank in Bloom supports planting initiatives. These activities give shared projects a purpose beyond the nursery room.

In January 2022, older children used tricycles, balancing beams, ladders and tractor tyres outside, while less mobile children used resources beneath a canopy. Developing outdoor learning for babies and younger children was a separate improvement priority. That distinction matters: an active outdoor offer for preschool children does not answer every question about a baby's experience.

Relationships and Communication

For babies, a key person provides a familiar adult, and daily records cover sleep, feeds and activities. Individual routines are followed rather than replaced by a single timetable for the whole room. This makes communication between home and nursery especially useful when naps or feeding patterns change.

Settling sessions usually take place in the week before a child starts. Comforters may come from home, and staff support toilet training with reward or sticker charts when families begin that process. These are specific arrangements for transitions that can otherwise dominate a young child's first weeks.

Parents receive updates through online records, have regular opportunities for progress discussions and hear about food, drinks and sleep at the end of a session. The All-Inclusive package uses Famly, an app for sharing observations and wellbeing information, with an aim of daily updates and a more detailed weekly observation. Face-to-face conversations remain useful alongside that stream of information.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

At the January 2022 inspection, Ofsted found that staff identified developmental concerns promptly and supported children with SEND through close work with families and other professionals; dietary checks had also been strengthened following an incident. That is dated evidence of practice, rather than a general assurance about every child's present experience.

Current physical arrangements include monitored CCTV, facial recognition access, a double-door entrance and electric gates. These describe how access is managed. Baby, toddler and preschool rooms are air conditioned, and the sickness policy requires children with vomiting or diarrhoea to remain away until forty-eight hours after the final symptom.

The All-Inclusive package provides a catered hot lunch with pudding, fruit-based snacks and a cold tea menu that changes each term. Breakfast, lunch, tea and snacks fall within its separately charged consumables package, alongside nappies and wipes, including when funded hours are used.

School preparation includes dressing, tidying and personal hygiene, alongside listening and following instructions. Those everyday tasks deserve as much attention as letters and numbers. They also provide a practical connection with the January 2022 priority of letting children persist before an adult steps in.

Sessions and Attendance

The address is 18 Feckenham Road, Astwood Bank, Redditch, B96 6DS. Opening hours are 7.30am to 6pm, Monday to Friday, with nursery day bookings running from 8am to 5.30pm or from 7.30am to 6pm. The setting opens for fifty-one weeks, closing on bank holidays and between Christmas and New Year.

Preschool offers both full-time and term-time attendance for children aged three and above. That gives families a choice between a nursery day routine and attendance organised around school terms. The Term Time Only Plus offering adds flexibility for care outside term and includes graduation costs and some external events.

For children already attending Astwood Bank Primary School, term-time wraparound care serves ages four to ten. Before-school care begins at 7.30am, with breakfast and delivery to classrooms; after-school collection is followed by care ending at either 5.30pm or 6pm.

Getting There

A private car park includes a turning circle, making collections and drop-offs easier to organise. Enquiries can be made by telephone or through the contact form.

Astwood Smiles describes a partnership with Astwood Bank Primary School, including joint initiatives and before- and after-school care. Nursery attendance does not guarantee a Reception place: families still apply through the local authority admissions process.

Funding and Paid Extras

Funded childcare is offered, including fifteen-hour arrangements for eligible two-year-olds, fifteen hours for three- and four-year-olds, and thirty-hour arrangements subject to eligibility. Funding is stretched across fifty-one weeks; the thirty-hour example uses twenty-two funded hours over three days. Additional private hours are charged separately.

For the All-Inclusive package, meals and non-food consumables are separate charges from funded childcare, rather than part of the funded entitlement itself. Nappies and wipes are supplied through that package. Fees are annualised and paid monthly, and current prices come in the nursery's written quotation.

• The youngest children's outdoor day. Daily outdoor play and a covered area are part of the current offer, but January 2022 identified scope to improve experiences for babies. On a tour, ask how outdoor activities now work for children who are not yet mobile.
• Independence and quieter voices. January 2022 highlighted adults helping too quickly and insufficient encouragement for some quieter children. Ask how practitioners give children time to try, and how they bring less confident children into shared activities.
• The funded booking total. Stretched funding, additional private hours and the All-Inclusive consumables charge are separate parts of the arrangement. A written quotation should show how they apply to the chosen nursery day or term-time preschool pattern.
• School links and attendance. The Astwood Bank Primary School relationship includes wraparound care, but Reception admission follows a separate process. Families combining preschool with school-age care should discuss the two booking arrangements during their viewing.

Astwood Smiles suits families who value individual baby routines, hands-on preschool learning and involvement in Astwood Bank's community life. It serves both nursery day bookings and term-time preschool, with a further practical connection for families using Astwood Bank Primary School wraparound care.

The published baby room limit, regular Overdale Park visits and clear examples of creative learning make this a setting parents can assess in concrete terms. Its Good judgement is dated January 2022, and the priorities around independence, quieter children and the youngest children's outdoor learning remain useful questions for a visit. The appeal is specific: care connected to home routines, and learning connected to the village around it.