The Collegiate Montessori Nursery

A Giant Land Snail, a wormery and an ant farm give older children something living to care for at The Collegiate Montessori Nursery. In Nether Edge, Sheffield, landscaped gardens surround a setting whose classrooms move from babies’ individual routines to practical preparation for school. Montessori equipment has a concrete role here: older children use it for mathematical language, phonics and writing.

At its 1 August 2025 inspection, Ofsted judged the nursery Good overall, found safeguarding effective and praised a curriculum adapted to children’s interests and development. That assessment came with specific improvements around adult questioning and advice from professionals supporting individual children. These matter alongside the appealing activities.

The nursery accepts children from 3 months to 5 years and has 94 places in total. Full-day care runs from 8am to 6pm, with funded attendance subject to a minimum booking pattern. The year-round attendance model, rather than a term-time-only place, is an important part of the family decision.

Rooms and Ages

The youngest children have a useful physical advantage: outdoor play connects directly to their room. Age-based classrooms then give the day a changing emphasis as children develop, from songs and sensory exploration towards independence, early writing and looking after living creatures.

The Woodland Baby and Toddler Room takes children from 3 months to rising 15 months, combines familiar songs, books and toys with individual routines, and has direct outdoor access plus use of a big music room for instruments, singing and dance.

The Teddies Room, for 18 months to 2 years, uses rhymes and stories for language development, with creative exploration through painting, baking and messy materials, alongside outdoor play.

The Moonbeam's Room, for 1½ to 2 years, brings conversation about the surrounding world together with craft, movement and music, while outdoor experiences include vegetable growing and searches for mini beasts.

The Beehive Room Room, for 2½ to 3 years, combines turn-taking and consideration for friends with playful work on colours, shapes, numeracy and literacy, plus outdoor growing and cultural celebrations.

The Sunshine Room, for rising 3 to 3½ years, links early name recognition and meaningful writing with practical independence, including coats, toileting and playing with friends.

Rainbow Room, for rising 4 years and above, uses Montessori equipment for mathematical language, phonics and writing, with living creatures including stick insects and a Giant Land Snail giving children responsibilities before school.

These are different emphases, rather than one activity list applied to every age. A baby’s familiar book and an older child’s developing ability to put on a coat each have a clear place in the progression.

Learning and Activities

The early years foundation stage sets the framework for learning, development and care: children build language, social understanding and practical skills through play and everyday experiences. Montessori adds a specific resource here, with equipment used in Rainbow Room to explore early mathematics and literacy. The practical examples make the approach easier for parents to assess than its name alone.

Space Week, Around The World Month and Science Week are Rainbow Room topics explored through play and experiences. They give older children different subjects to investigate, alongside the continuing work on writing and understanding the world. Caring for the wormery and ant farm makes that learning tangible: children have living things to observe and protect.

Weekly music includes dance and opportunities to use instruments. French and Spanish club introduces named language activities, while drama events are for older children. World Book Day includes staff dressing up; summer concerts and classical music concerts add performance experiences across the year. These sit alongside classroom learning rather than replacing it.

Outdoor and Community Life

Growing food runs through more than one room: vegetables feature in The Moonbeam's Room, while The Beehive Room Room includes fruit as well. For children, that connects time outdoors with watching living things change, rather than treating the garden only as somewhere to run around.

In August 2025, children spent time outside daily and used collected natural materials to make a shared collage. Annual life-cycle experiences involved caterpillars and eggs, allowing children to watch changes happen. Community activity included fundraising for the local children’s hospital and carrying food donations to nearby charities. These were practical encounters with nature and helping other people.

Relationships and Communication

Settling for the youngest children starts with their own preferences and routines. Familiar toys, books and songs are part of The Woodland Baby and Toddler Room’s approach, so the move into nursery can retain recognisable pieces of home life. Individual needs remain the starting point.

In August 2025, parents and staff exchanged information about children’s changing interests and development. Moves between rooms included preliminary visits, followed by children moving alongside friends. That gives room changes a social as well as a practical dimension: children are getting used to a new space with familiar company.

The same visit showed a deliberate difference between younger and older children’s routines. Babies’ spaces were quiet, with soft background music and adults talking to them during feeds. Older children practised queuing and eating lunch in a bigger space, introducing an everyday part of school life before the eventual move.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

At the August 2025 inspection, Ofsted found that staff identified learning gaps and arranged referrals such as speech and language therapy, but individual support plans needed more input from other professionals; questioning also sometimes gave children too little thinking time or asked more than younger children could answer. These are specific limits to weigh, especially if a child needs additional communication support.

Respect also appeared in ordinary care routines in August 2025. Adults sought children’s permission before helping with personal care, and polite exchanges were encouraged from an early age. Staff learned about children’s home languages and celebrated festivals important to their families. Those examples show how relationships and differences were handled in the daily routine.

Sessions and Attendance

The address is The Towers, 6 Brincliffe Crescent, Sheffield, S11 9AW. Opening hours are 8am to 6pm on weekdays, with weekends closed; enquiries can be made by telephone or email.

The full-day booking runs from 8am to 6pm. For funding, the minimum attendance is 9am to 3.30pm on two days. These are different planning points: the full day establishes the paid session window, while the funding minimum sets a core attendance commitment for families using entitlement hours.

The nursery opens for 49 weeks annually. Closures cover the week before the August Bank Holiday and two weeks around Christmas. There is no term-time-only attendance option, so families need to plan the nursery year separately from school holidays. Extra days during playscheme or non-funded weeks are charged separately and remain subject to availability.

Funding and Paid Extras

Up to 15 hours of funding and, from September 2025, up to 30 hours are offered during term-time weeks, subject to eligibility. Funding delivered in term time does not turn the overall booking into a term-time-only place. That distinction is central to understanding the attendance commitment.

Breakfast, lunch and tea each carry a separate charge; on funded hours, snacks are covered by the separately charged consumables package. The nursery team designs the menu.

For funded hours, non-food consumables are also charged separately. The package covers items including wipes, nappy creams and nappy sacks, alongside craft materials and activities. It also covers baking, planting, festival experiences and special visits, so its scope extends beyond personal-care supplies.

Examples within that package include Christmas reindeer visits, Easter chick or duckling hatching, a summer petting zoo, musicians and butterfly experiences. These details help explain what families are paying for alongside the entitlement hours. Taster sessions for additional activities are included in the package too.

Private childcare has hourly and full-day rates. Current prices come in the nursery’s written quotation; the fees page sets out the attendance and charge structure. Comparing the whole arrangement means considering private hours, separately charged meals and the funded-hours consumables package together.

• Attendance across the year. Term-time funding sits within a nursery that opens for 49 weeks and has no term-time-only option. The two-day funding minimum and holiday attendance arrangements need to fit the family’s wider childcare plan.
• The total charge structure. Meals are separate charges, and funded hours carry a consumables package covering snacks, supplies and experiences. A comparison based only on entitlement hours would miss parts of the cost.
• Communication and individual support. The August 2025 findings identified questioning and collaboration with other professionals as areas for improvement. During a visit, ask how staff now allow thinking time and incorporate specialist advice into a child’s support plan.
• The move between rooms. The classrooms have their own age bands and emphases, and children used visits and familiar friendships when changing rooms in August 2025. A visit can include time in a classroom; ask how the progression would work for your child, including the practical steps towards school.

The Collegiate Montessori Nursery suits families seeking full-day attendance and those organising care around funded hours, provided they can use an arrangement extending beyond term time. Its strongest practical details are the baby room’s direct outdoor access, age-based learning and older children’s hands-on responsibilities for living creatures.

The August 2025 Good judgement provides a clear inspection position, while the improvements around questioning and specialist input keep the assessment balanced. For families, the decision turns on the fit between that classroom progression, a child’s individual support needs and an attendance model with separately charged meals and funded-hours consumables.