Lavender Farm Nursery

Speech and language work gives Lavender Farm Nursery a clear identity: WellComm screens children through play, while Early Talk Boost uses stories, songs and small-group activities to develop communication. These are practical additions to the nursery day, with activities for parents to continue at home. The setting occupies a purpose-built building on Brookfields Road in Oldbury, with gardens serving its toddler and preschool rooms.

At the July 2025 inspection, Ofsted rated the nursery Good and found effective safeguarding, a carefully sequenced curriculum and strong communication support, alongside weaknesses in activity organisation and staff deployment. Those reservations matter because they affected children's experiences and support with toileting and hygiene.

Lavender Farm has capacity for 133 children, accepting babies from 2 months through the preschool years. Its room structure separates babies, younger toddlers, two-year-olds and older children rather than treating the whole capacity as one group. Full-day care, term-time days and funded sessions serve different family schedules.

Rooms and Ages

Baby Nest, whose room description spans 6 weeks to 18 months, is upstairs, with treasure baskets, age-appropriate toys and an outdoor soft play area; eating, sleeping and play follow each baby's individual routine.

Little Lambs, for 18 months to two years, holds up to 12 children on the ground floor and opens directly into the large garden, combining practitioner-planned activities with independent exploration.

Barn Yard, for children aged two to three, holds 24 children and has an outdoor play area immediately beside the room, plus indoor spaces for quiet time or sleep.

Barn Owls, for ages three to five, accommodates up to 32 children per session upstairs and uses the large garden shared with the downstairs preschool room.

HayBarn, also for ages three to five, holds 32 children on the ground floor, with direct garden access and an emphasis on children choosing and exploring resources indoors and outside.

These physical differences are useful when comparing rooms. Direct garden access shapes the younger toddlers' and HayBarn children's opportunities to move between environments, while Barn Yard explicitly makes room for rest. The two youngest rooms also have daily diaries, giving parents a written account alongside the personal relationship with their child's key carer.

Learning and Activities

The Early Years Foundation Stage connects play with children's development, including language, physical skills, relationships and early literacy. Lavender Farm uses observations of children's interests to plan activities within that framework. Parents contribute achievements and interests from home, so planning can draw on more than what a practitioner sees during a session.

Progress Matters is the assessment programme used each term to identify children's next steps across the learning areas. Those next steps inform group times, activities led by adults and changes to the play provision. Parents can read assessments through reviews and Tapestry, the online learning journal that accepts contributions from both home and nursery. The curriculum and assessment page explains how these systems connect.

WellComm adds a specific speech and language pathway. A key carer screens children when they start, using play to assess their understanding and use of language. Children with red or amber results receive activities at nursery and a home activity pack, followed by another screening after 12 weeks. This gives families a defined intervention period and a shared set of activities.

Early Talk Boost supports three- and four-year-olds through small groups using songs, stories and planned play. Sessions run three times a week for 20 minutes in both older rooms. Listening, conversational turn-taking and learning new words are among its aims, and parents are encouraged to share the supplied stories daily. Language support therefore has a practical home component rather than ending with the nursery session.

In July 2025, children practised matching letters with sounds and identifying words beginning with the same letter as their name. Physical activities also emphasised larger movements as preparation for finer movements such as controlling a pencil. However, activities and routines were sometimes arranged in ways that narrowed children's learning opportunities. The organisation of the day deserves as much attention as the programme names.

Relationships and Communication

For babies, an allocated key carer provides continuity, and daily diaries record their day. Little Lambs also has dedicated key carers and written diaries handed to parents at collection. These arrangements give younger children's families both a regular adult relationship and a practical channel for exchanging information.

Tapestry extends that communication into learning: practitioners add observations and photographs, while parents can contribute memorable moments from home. Progress Matters assessments are shared through the app and parent reviews. Families can see the next steps being worked on and contribute relevant experiences, rather than receiving only a retrospective description of activities.

In July 2025, staff gave new children additional comfort and stayed nearby as they settled. Home visits before children started helped establish relationships with families. These were useful features of the settling process at that time, especially for children who needed extra emotional reassurance.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

At the July 2025 inspection, Ofsted found that children with SEND received effective help through early identification, coordination with parents and professionals, and support plans that contributed to good progress. The current staff structure includes a SENDCo role and designated safeguarding lead roles, giving families identifiable responsibilities within the team.

The July 2025 findings also exposed a specific care weakness: staff did not always notice older children going to the toilet, which meant help with intimate care and reminders about handwashing could be missed. This is a practical supervision issue, not simply a matter of how tidy a timetable looks. It sits alongside the positive relationship findings and should remain part of a family's assessment.

Baby Nest follows individual sleep and feeding routines, while Barn Yard provides quiet spaces where children can sleep if needed. Rest is therefore described within the relevant rooms rather than as a single routine for every age.

Sessions and Attendance

The address is Lavender Farm Nursery, Brookfields Road, Oldbury, B68 9QR. Telephone enquiries can be made on 0121 285 6633. The main paid patterns are a full day from 8am to 5pm and a term-time day with the same hours; the latter is charged during term time only.

Funded attendance has a different structure. For two-year-old disadvantaged funding and Universal funding, the split-week options are Monday and Tuesday from 8.30am to 2.30pm plus Wednesday from 8.30am to 11.30am, or Wednesday from 11.30am to 2.30pm plus Thursday and Friday from 8.30am to 2.30pm. The Wednesday session determines which half of the week a child attends.

Working Parent Funding sessions run Monday to Friday from 8.30am to 2.30pm, during school term time. Extra wraparound hours can be purchased, and Barn Owls has a separately charged wraparound window from 8am to 3pm. Breakfast Club runs from 7.30am until school starts, while Afterschool Club runs from school finishing until 5.30pm; these are separate services from the nursery's full-day pattern.

All-year-round contracts still include closures. The nursery closes for two summer weeks and over Christmas, as well as bank holidays. For the coming Christmas period, all children are affected by the closure from 21 December 2026 to 1 January 2027. Training closures can apply to all children or specifically to funded and term-time contracts, so these calendars have different implications for working families.

Funding and Paid Extras

Funded childcare is offered, including two-year-old disadvantaged funding, Universal funding and Working Parent Funding. Eligible babies can access funding from 9 months, with up to 30 hours of funded childcare. Funded sessions operate during school term time, and additional paid hours sit outside those sessions.

In Little Lambs, Barn Yard and the older rooms, parents can send a packed lunch or purchase a hot lunch separately; the catering assistant serves hot meals on site. Parents supply nappies, wipes, creams and any formula their baby needs, so these items remain part of the family's own provision.

The fees and contract terms distinguish attendance from payment obligations. Fees remain payable for sickness and family holidays, bank holidays and the Christmas closure, while the two-week summer shutdown is not charged. Training days are not charged, and weather-related closure can still attract fees. Current prices come in the nursery's written quotation.

A non-returnable deposit is taken, with credit against the final invoice conditional on a month's written notice. A month's notice is also required to withdraw or change sessions. These conditions matter when a family's working pattern changes: ending attendance and ending the financial commitment are separate decisions.

• Toileting supervision. In July 2025, staff deployment sometimes left older children's toileting and hygiene needs unnoticed. During a visit, ask how staff now cover toilet use and support children who still need help.
• Funded attendance. Universal and disadvantaged funded patterns divide the week around Wednesday, while Working Parent Funding uses weekday sessions ending at 2.30pm. Compare the relevant pattern, extra hours and training closures with your working week before choosing a contract.
• Holiday payments. Christmas closure and bank holidays remain chargeable, whereas the summer shutdown is not. The distinction affects the cost across the year, especially where families must arrange care during closures.
• Baby starting age. Baby Nest's description begins at 6 weeks, while the nursery's accepted age range begins at 2 months. For a very young baby, confirm the starting-age requirement and how the room will follow their feeding and sleep routine.

Lavender Farm suits families comparing term-time days, funded split-week patterns and full days, especially those who value a clearly explained speech and language pathway and shared learning records. WellComm, Early Talk Boost and Tapestry give substance to that offer, while the room descriptions make garden access and rest arrangements understandable.

The Good judgement from July 2025 provides a positive inspection position, but the activity-organisation and toileting-supervision weaknesses should carry weight. This is a nursery to assess through both its communication programmes and the practical organisation of care.