Brambly House Montessori School

Pouring drinks, tracing sandpaper letters and learning outdoors give Brambly House Montessori School a clear identity. At The Georgian House in Merstham, practical independence sits alongside an outdoor learning lodge and a quieter inclusive space. The appeal is concrete: children can practise everyday skills, explore natural materials and spend part of their learning time outside.

Brambly House has capacity for 40 children aged two to five. At its 21 January 2025 inspection, Ofsted rated it Good and found safeguarding effective, with specialist resources and individual support plans helping children with SEND access learning.

Montessori here means carefully arranged materials, choices for children and learning at their own pace. It works alongside the Early Years Foundation Stage, which brings together children's communication, physical development, relationships and learning through play. Morning and afternoon sessions give families two different attendance patterns, rather than requiring the same length of day for everyone.

Rooms and Ages

Squirrels emphasises communication, movement and children's emotional and social development, with staff helping children settle and gradually move towards playing together. This makes the early nursery experience about relationships and participation as well as learning activities.

Rabbits adds more adult direction as children prepare for preschool, using individual and group activities to develop early writing skills, number understanding, creativity and knowledge of the world. The progression builds on earlier learning rather than treating each class as a fresh start.

Owls combines exploration and independent thinking with Montessori resources for early reading and number work, while encouraging children to cooperate. Practical materials give children something to handle and investigate alongside the ideas they are learning.

Foxes Outdoor Learning Class takes classroom themes into the grounds, with a learning lodge supporting outdoor activity across different weather conditions and planting, bug hunts and nature exploration giving those themes a physical setting.

Robins Inclusive Space offers a quieter place accessible to children across the classes, with Emotional Literacy Support Assistants helping them recognise feelings and develop ways to manage them. Four spaces each day are set aside for children with special educational needs or involvement from outside professionals; that is an allocation within the inclusive provision, rather than a whole-nursery group size.

Learning and Activities

The Montessori curriculum has useful everyday detail. Practical Life activities include pouring, polishing and learning to manage shoelaces, linking independence with hand control and concentration. Sensorial materials introduce differences in texture, colour, sound and shape. These are tangible tasks: children work with objects and actions, rather than meeting every new idea through explanation alone.

Language work uses sandpaper letters before progressing towards phonetic words, while mathematics materials connect written numerals with quantities and patterns. Cultural Awareness introduces continents through a globe and colour system, alongside plant care, science experiments and questions about how things work. The curriculum overview brings these strands together with imaginative play, art and daily singing and movement.

Several activities add another rhythm to the week. A visiting music teacher works with children on Tuesday mornings, and an external sports coach leads Wednesday morning activity without an extra charge. Thursday-morning French is an optional, separately charged activity in small groups. MiniMovers introduces dance through movement and playful technique, while Playball uses rolling, throwing, catching and bouncing to develop coordination and turn-taking.

Outdoor and Community Life

Forest School provides a weekly session involving nature walks, camp fires and seasonal exploration, alongside daily opportunities to learn in the grounds. Waterproof clothing, boots, gloves and hats are supplied for these sessions. For families who value outdoor learning, the useful distinction is between the weekly organised session and the everyday use of outdoor space.

Planting flowers and vegetables, caring for plants and following natural cycles connect outdoor time with the curriculum. In January 2025, children made feeders for birds and shaped clay birds using gathered leaves and twigs. The activities joined making, observation and conversation in the outdoor classroom, giving children several ways to engage with the same theme.

Relationships and Communication

Settling begins with an induction week covered by the registration charge. Squirrels staff work with parents during the move into nursery, and observation of children's development informs the support they receive. The practical question for a family is how that introduction will work for their child, especially when they need extra time or a familiar routine.

In January 2025, staff spoke with parents as children began their day and offered activities to help them settle. Leaders also discussed children's learning targets so these could be supported when children used different classrooms. That movement between spaces matters here because the nursery offers both mainstream classrooms and quieter provision.

Staff development was organised through induction, supervision, training and weekly policy discussions in January 2025. Leaders watched activities and gave practitioners feedback afterwards. This describes the support around staff practice at that time, rather than treating a staffing headcount as a measure of how much attention a child receives.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

A SENCO role sits within management, alongside safeguarding lead roles. The inclusion provision draws on work with speech and language therapists, educational psychologists, community paediatricians and portage. Smaller afternoon classes on Mondays and Fridays during term time offer another arrangement for children who find mainstream sessions overwhelming.

Robins accommodates children with individual support plans or education, health and care plans in a quieter setting alongside children of different ages and abilities. Half-termly family workshops address support, educational next steps and wider family needs. These are specific mechanisms parents can discuss in relation to their child's circumstances.

At the January 2025 inspection, Ofsted identified that some support strategies were not passed to every member of staff, making moves into unfamiliar areas less smooth for children receiving targeted help. The improvement priority was better preparation and communication around those transitions. This is the material qualification to the nursery's inclusion offer.

Children who need daytime sleep have an individual raised bed, with bedding supplied and stored in their own bag; familiar items from home can be added. Meals are cooked on site, using locally sourced meat and seasonal produce. Menus rotate monthly and change with the seasons, with provision for dietary requirements.

Sessions and Attendance

Brambly House opens Monday to Friday, from 8am until 6pm. Morning sessions run from 8am to 1pm; afternoon sessions run from 1pm to 6pm. The nursery operates across the year, opening for 50 weeks, with bank holidays and Christmas closures.

Enrolment involves a registration form and charge, followed by confirmation where the requested sessions can be accommodated. An invoice for one month forms part of the process and is credited towards the first month's fees if the sessions remain unchanged. A child profile and parental contract follow on enrolment, giving families a formal point at which to agree arrangements.

The deposit terms require six weeks' notice when a family no longer needs the place or changes its sessions. With that notice, the deposit is refunded; without six weeks' notice of session changes, it is retained. These conditions matter when choosing a pattern that may need to change with work or family commitments.

Getting There

The address is The Georgian House, Rockshaw Road, Merstham, Redhill, RH1 3DB. The contact form handles booking enquiries and requests to view the nursery, so families can discuss their intended attendance pattern before enrolment.

Funding and Paid Extras

Funding is accepted for children aged three and over through the 15 hour and 15 hour plus entitlements, and for working parents through the 15-hour entitlement for two-year-olds. Funded-only places follow a first-come-first-served allocation rule each term, subject to availability. Tax-free childcare payments are also accepted.

Extending attendance beyond funded hours or attending outside term time attracts an additional charge. Under the stretched funding terms, out-of-term care, education, food and materials are charged, with those costs spread across the nursery's 50-week year; funded families therefore have a monthly payment under that arrangement. French is separately charged and optional, while the Wednesday sports session carries no additional charge.

• Funding pattern. The funded-hours statement sets an 8am to 2pm window, Monday to Friday, over 38 term-time weeks, while the funding terms describe a stretched arrangement and exclude term-time-only places. These positions conflict. Before agreeing attendance, ask which arrangement applies to your child and request a written quotation covering meals, non-food consumables and additional hours.
• Support between classrooms. January 2025's improvement priority concerned the sharing of targeted support strategies when children moved into less familiar spaces. Families using Robins or other additional support should discuss how those strategies now follow their child between staff and classrooms.
• Choosing attendance days. Music falls on Tuesday mornings, the sports coach attends on Wednesday mornings and optional French takes place on Thursday mornings. A visit can help establish how your intended morning or afternoon pattern fits the activities and induction week.
• Changing arrangements. Six weeks' notice governs deposit refunds and session changes. Choose an initial pattern with those terms in mind, especially if work arrangements may change soon after enrolment.

Brambly House suits families seeking morning or afternoon nursery sessions with practical Montessori learning and regular outdoor activity. Its strongest attractions are specific: everyday independence tasks, a weekly Forest School session, the Foxes lodge and the quieter support available through Robins.

The January 2025 Good judgement provides a positive inspection position, qualified by the need for better communication during supported transitions. For families considering additional support, that handover deserves close attention. The funding arrangements also need resolving before a contract is agreed, so the educational appeal and the chosen attendance pattern work together in practice.