Pippa's House Nursery Reigate

Two gardens give babies and older children their own space to explore at Pippa's House Nursery Reigate. A dedicated outdoor area supports babies as they develop movement skills, while toddlers and preschool children share a second garden throughout the year. Forest School adds nature exploration to the offer, with a dedicated area for outdoor adventures.

At its June 2021 inspection, Ofsted rated the nursery Good overall. The setting now caters for children aged 3 months to 5 years and has capacity for 110 children in total. That whole-setting figure should be kept separate from the size of an individual room or the number of children attending on a particular day.

A renovated building close to Reigate town centre houses the nursery. Its strongest practical attractions are the separate outdoor provision for babies, an on-site chef and daily communication with families. In June 2021, upstairs noise and the arrangements for introducing children to their next room needed improvement.

Rooms and Ages

The Baby Room combines sensory toys, musical instruments and quiet corners for reading, with communication about home routines helping staff respond to each baby's individual needs. These are useful details for parents weighing the move from care at home to nursery: familiar routines have a place alongside opportunities to explore sound, texture and books.

Toddler Rooms use resources that encourage discovery and increasing independence. For preschool children, the emphasis shifts towards self-care and skills for starting school. The practical thread is learning to do more for themselves, alongside their play and activities.

Outdoor space follows the same separation by stage. Babies have their own area for developing mobility; toddlers and preschool children can use the larger second garden year round. This gives parents of the youngest children a concrete feature to weigh, rather than treating all outdoor provision as one shared space.

Learning and Activities

The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) provides the framework for learning here, expressed through activities supporting physical development, relationships and children's emotional development. Creative work, sensory exploration, music, movement and drama contribute to the nursery day. Activities are tailored to children's interests and developmental stages, so the emphasis can change with what engages them.

Forest School Sessions provide opportunities to investigate nature in the grounds or at a nearby location, and the nursery has a dedicated Forest School area. Spanish Lessons and Playball are additional activities for older children. The language sessions add Spanish to their experiences; families considering Playball should use the visit question below to understand what participation involves.

In June 2021, children's interests shaped practical learning. Dinosaurs prompted work with numbers and letters, while fitting pieces of train track together gave children a problem to solve. Creative activities included making a monster from a paper plate. These examples show how familiar play materials were used to introduce challenges children could tackle themselves.

Outdoor and Community Life

Regular outings take children into the Reigate area, giving them opportunities to explore their community beyond the nursery. The frequency is regular, with no need to turn that into a fixed weekly timetable.

In June 2021, an interest in insects led to an ant farm and searches in the garden. Staff also used bubbles drifting in the wind to start conversations about other things that fly. That linked something children were already watching or enjoying with a further question, giving outdoor exploration a conversational purpose.

Relationships and Communication

Communication has several routes. A nursery app provides updates as the day unfolds, while families receive daily information about their child's progress and maintain contact with staff through the week. Parents can discuss individual care and additional sessions with the team. For a family balancing work and childcare, this makes communication part of the routine.

Babies' home routines receive specific attention in discussions with families. The team also works on relationships with children as they settle. Those mechanisms matter because settling involves both the child's experience and the information parents bring about how their child is cared for at home.

In June 2021, children sought closeness with staff during feeding, stories and play. Room moves involved several introductory sessions, although upstairs staff were slow to involve some children during one such session. Children sometimes wandered before an adult engaged them. Settling between rooms therefore deserves as much attention as the initial start at nursery.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

At the June 2021 inspection, Ofsted found safeguarding effective and described SEND coordinators working with physiotherapists and paediatricians, alongside Portage advisors and speech and language therapists to support children with additional or medical needs. This describes the support arrangements at that date, rather than promising an outcome for an individual child today.

An on-site chef prepares fresh meals at the nursery. For families, having food prepared on the premises is a practical part of the care offer; individual dietary requirements still need a clear conversation about the child's needs.

Sessions and Attendance

Opening hours are 7am to 6.30pm, Monday to Friday. The nursery operates across the year, closing on bank holidays and for one week at Christmas. The Christmas closure is worth building into family plans early, especially where parents' working calendars do not follow school holidays.

Getting There

The address is 100 Blackborough Road, Reigate, RH2 7DG, close to the town centre. Parking options comprise on-street parking and nearby public car parks, so the practical consideration is how those options fit the family's collection and drop-off routine.

• Upstairs noise and room moves. In June 2021, high noise levels interrupted concentration, and some children were slow to become involved in an upstairs transition session. During a visit, ask how staff now manage noise and organise moves into preschool.
• Playball participation. Playball is an additional activity for older children. Ask what the sessions involve and how they fit into your child's day before treating the name alone as a reason to choose the nursery.
• The working calendar. Opening runs from 7am to 6.30pm on weekdays, with bank holidays and a week at Christmas excluded. Those closures need to fit the family's care arrangements.

Pippa's House Nursery Reigate suits families seeking care across the year, with early weekday opening, separate outdoor provision for babies and regular communication about their child's day. Forest School and outings around Reigate add concrete opportunities for exploration, while the Baby Room's sensory resources and attention to home routines give younger children a different starting point from preschool's self-care emphasis.

The June 2021 Good judgement is useful context, with noise and room transitions the clearest matters to pursue during a visit. The gardens, food preparation and communication arrangements give families practical reasons to consider the nursery; the fit depends on how its daily routines work for their child.