Shapes Day Nursery, Reigate

A pirate ship outside, cot rooms for babies and dance classes with Inspire Academy of Dance give Shapes Day Nursery, Reigate a recognisable character. Its heritage building on Lynn Walk houses a setting for children aged 0 to 5, with capacity for 104 children. The strongest practical appeal is the combination of separate baby provision, substantial outdoor play and visiting specialists.

At its 15 March 2023 inspection, Ofsted rated the nursery Outstanding, judged safeguarding effective and found that children with special educational needs and/or disabilities received excellent support and made excellent progress. That is a dated judgement. A subsequent regulatory visit in April 2025 identified a failure to notify significant events, which families should weigh alongside the earlier assessment.

Full days and mornings are both offered. The attendance commitment and the separate arrangements for funded-hours-only care deserve close attention before a family chooses its pattern.

Rooms and Ages

The Baby Centre separates younger and older babies across two rooms, with sensory activities, messy exploration and familiar songs, plus a garden reserved for babies and little toddlers. That separation gives the youngest children their own outdoor space rather than making the main garden their only option.

For children from 18 months to 2.5 years, the Toddler Room combines pretend play, creative activities and parachute games with a place to sleep or rest. The Nursery Room brings cooking, messy activities and weekly visiting dance teachers into a routine that encourages children to share and take turns. In the Pre-school Room, children explore art, technology and nature, while visiting Dance and Spanish teachers contribute weekly sessions.

The open-plan layout allows children to see activity in other age groups. Displays sit at children's eye level, making their own work part of the surroundings they use each day. These are useful details for families who value a setting where children's creations remain visible rather than being confined to a folder.

Learning and Activities

The Early Years Foundation Stage guides learning through play across language, relationships, movement, early reading, mathematics, creativity and understanding the world. It is the common foundation for early years provision; the added experiences here include visiting teachers, animal encounters and cooking activities.

Inspire Academy of Dance runs classes on site, giving children a recurring opportunity for movement with a visiting specialist. Preschool children also have Spanish teaching. Regular Zoo Lab visits bring nature-related experiences into the nursery, while hatching ducklings gives children something living to observe as it changes. The appeal is concrete: movement, another language and encounters with animals broaden the subjects children can explore through play.

In March 2023, babies used signs to communicate simple requests, while toddlers developed vocabulary through stories, rhymes and singing. Children also talked enthusiastically about science week and their experiments. These examples show the kinds of activity taking place at that time, rather than promising that an identical timetable runs today.

Outdoor and Community Life

Our Garden includes a sensory garden where children grow flowers and vegetables, then harvest produce for cooking. A pirate ship supports climbing and imaginative play; garden roads provide space for bikes and toy cars. Sand, water, construction materials and opportunities to paint or draw outdoors add quieter or more exploratory choices alongside active play.

Children use the garden throughout the seasons, with summer shade and clothing suited to colder weather. Indoors, the Soft Play area has an underwater theme, a whale slide, a ball pool and blocks for building and balancing. Together, these spaces provide several ways to practise movement, rather than relying on one piece of climbing equipment.

Parents from different cultures are invited, where possible, to contribute conversations about food and festivals, including Diwali and Chinese New Year. That makes family knowledge part of children's experience. It also gives celebrations a connection to people they know, rather than limiting them to craft activities.

Relationships and Communication

Each child has a key person who helps them become familiar with nursery life, adapts care to their needs and develops a relationship with their family. Written observations and photographs inform planning and form a learning journey. Parents receive daily feedback, newsletters and invitations to parents' evenings, so communication includes both everyday care and a longer view of development.

Babies follow their own routines, and a daily diary records feeding, sleep and nappy changes. Separate cot rooms make sleep provision a physical part of the baby centre. For parents of younger babies, those arrangements matter as much as the activity programme: the day has to accommodate rest and feeding as well as exploration.

In March 2023, staff accompanied children through room moves to help them settle, and clear panels allowed children to see their friends. Staff also worked with parents and other professionals in children's homes on communication needs. Those dated examples make room transitions and individual support useful subjects for a visit discussion.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

First aid training, medicine procedures, fire evacuation arrangements and a video entry system form part of the nursery's current care arrangements. Collection procedures restrict handover to parents or people they authorise. These are descriptions of the arrangements, rather than a new safeguarding judgement.

Food is cooked on site, with a six-week menu cycle, vegetarian alternatives and provision for individual dietary requirements. Staff share mealtimes with children, making eating a social part of the day as well as a care routine.

For children aged two to three, the stated staffing arrangement is one adult to four children, compared with the legal minimum of one to five for two-year-olds. That is a meaningful enhancement for this age group. The figure describes staffing, however, and does not establish the number of children sharing a room.

Sessions and Attendance

The address is 11 Lynn Walk, Reigate, RH2 7NZ, and the telephone number is 01737 221441. Opening hours run from 7.30am to 6pm on weekdays. Full-day sessions use that same window; mornings finish at 1pm. A minimum booking means two full days or three half days, with the half days falling on separate days.

Care runs across the year, with closures on bank holidays, Christmas Eve and the period between Christmas and New Year. Fees include the bank holiday and Christmas closures, and absence through illness or family holidays does not bring a refund. These terms affect the annual cost even when a child misses a booked day.

There is a non-refundable registration charge and a deposit credited against the final month's fees when the child leaves. Withdrawal requires written notice of one calendar month. Payments can be made weekly or monthly, and childcare vouchers and Tax Free Childcare are accepted.

Funding and Paid Extras

Universal 15 Hrs Funding Only and Working Parent Entitlement are offered, with working-parent arrangements covering eligible children from the term after nine months. Funding is stretched across 51 weeks; the weekly allocation for children aged three and four depends on the term in which funding begins. Additional attendance beyond funded hours is charged separately. Current prices belong in the nursery's written quotation.

Private fees include meals, snacks and formula milk. During funded hours, meals and snacks carry separate charges, and additional services are also charged separately; the funding terms describe these as voluntary and allow discussion of reduced or waived charges. The same terms rule out packed snacks and lunches because of children's food allergies and say children are not excluded from activities they wish to join.

Funded-hours-only attendance follows specific days. The working-parent pattern is Monday and Friday from 8am to 4.30pm, plus Wednesday from 8am to 1pm. The universal pattern is Monday and Friday mornings from 7.30am to 1pm. These arrangements differ from buying ordinary sessions with funding applied, so the timetable matters as much as the entitlement.

• Notification failure in April 2025. At a regulatory visit on 24 April 2025, Ofsted found that the nursery had failed to notify significant events. Ask what happened and how notification procedures now operate; the earlier Outstanding judgement does not answer that question.
• Your weekly pattern. Ordinary bookings require two full days or three half days on different days, while funded-hours-only care uses specified weekdays. Match these patterns to work and family commitments before choosing attendance.
• Baby care and room moves. Separate cot rooms, individual baby routines and a key person are part of the offer. On a tour, discuss how settling and movement between rooms would work for your child.
• Dietary needs and funded extras. Funded meals and additional services have voluntary charges, with alternatives including reductions or waivers. Families managing allergies should confirm current food practice and discuss the packed-food restriction alongside their child's needs.

Shapes suits families considering either full days or morning sessions who value a separate baby centre, varied physical play and visiting dance and language teaching. The sensory garden and animal experiences give the nursery day concrete points of interest, while daily diaries and learning journeys provide different kinds of parent feedback.

The decision also needs to account for the minimum booking commitment, the fixed funded-hours-only timetable and the April 2025 notification failure. There is plenty here to explore, but the dated Outstanding assessment should be read alongside that later regulatory finding.