Little Poppets Nursery

Original wooden floorboards, wood panelling and a garden shaped for outdoor play give Little Poppets Nursery a recognisable character. This family-run setting on Wharf Road in Ellesmere combines a former classroom for preschool children with a younger children's room that has its own outdoor space. The building contributes to the experience. So does the emphasis on children choosing and developing their play.

At its January 2023 inspection, Ofsted rated the nursery Good and found safeguarding effective, with good teaching and progress overall, positive support for children with SEND and strong relationships with parents. The same visit identified two priorities: helping staff introduce and reinforce vocabulary more effectively, and making planning build more precisely on each child's previous learning.

Little Poppets accepts children from 3 months to 5 years and has 33 places in total. Its attendance choices include full days, morning sessions and afternoon sessions, giving families several ways to organise childcare.

Rooms and Ages

The Little Room serves the birth-to-2 age band and combines a bright room with its own outdoor play space overlooking the garden, giving the youngest children a dedicated base for play. The nursery's overall starting age is 3 months.

For children aged 2 and above, the Big Room emphasises children planning their own play, with practitioners joining activities to help extend learning. Its preschool area occupies the building's former classroom, retaining wooden floorboards and panelling. These physical details give the room a character of its own, while the approach makes children's choices part of how activities develop.

Learning and Activities

The EYFS is the framework for learning and care here: curricular goals include exploring books, language and rhyme, investigating questions through play, and encountering numbers through everyday experiences. These are aims that help parents understand what staff want children to gain from their time at nursery. Children leading their learning, developing empathy and building a healthy relationship with food also feature in those goals.

Activities are planned around children's interests, developmental needs and seasonal or cultural celebrations. In January 2023, an interest in ice led to staff freezing water and exploring its melting with children. That example shows how a child's question could become something tangible to investigate. At the same visit, babies took part in group activities involving animals and their sounds, while children used an outdoor story game to recall familiar stories and play together.

French Lessons and Diddi Dance are among the additional services supported by voluntary contributions for families using the 30 hours funding for 3- and 4-year-olds. Visits from the Animal Man are also included among these extras. Their place in the offer is as additional experiences alongside the EYFS; the contribution remains voluntary.

Outdoor and Community Life

The garden is used as an outdoor classroom, with differing surfaces and slopes intended to support physical development through children's chosen play. This gives outdoor activity a practical purpose: movement, exploration and seasonal change can become part of learning. The younger children's separate outdoor space also connects their room with the garden setting.

In January 2023, outings included choosing books at the library, visiting the park, buying activity resources in shops and travelling by bus to a theatre and museum. Those experiences connected nursery learning with everyday places and transactions. The extras supported through voluntary contributions also include café visits and trips to Park Hall Farm, extending the offer beyond the building.

Relationships and Communication

An agreed induction period precedes a child's first day, when their key person helps them become familiar with the routine. Parents receive an account of the day at collection, and the youngest children have a communication book that travels between home and nursery. That arrangement gives families a way to share information across both parts of a child's day.

In January 2023, staff gathered information about babies' and younger children's home routines and used it when providing care and comfort. Children formed relationships with their key person, who offered reassurance when needed. These dated observations add useful detail to the current induction arrangements, especially for families preparing for a first experience of childcare.

Longer conversations require an appointment so that staff can arrange cover and give parents sufficient time. This is a practical distinction: the usual collection handover gives an account of the day, while a discussion needing more attention has its own appointment.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

The deputy manager also holds the SENCO role, providing a named responsibility within the staff structure for special educational needs. In January 2023, staff had undertaken additional SEND training and worked with external agencies. The important mechanism is that support involved both staff development and contact with professionals beyond the nursery.

Room doors have digital locks, unexpected collecting adults are checked through an intercom password system, and the garden has a high wall and locked gate. These are concrete collection and access arrangements. Staff receive paediatric first aid, food safety and safeguarding training; the team includes practitioners with different qualification levels and staff working towards childcare qualifications.

Food is cooked fresh on site each day, with a nursery cook in the team. The dietary policy includes vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free and nut-free requirements. Parents of an unwell child are contacted to arrange collection, and children can rest in a quiet space while waiting; prescription medication can be administered during their nursery day.

Sessions and Attendance

The address is Wharf Road, Ellesmere, Shropshire, SY12 0EJ. Children's hours are 8am to 6pm, Monday to Friday; business hours begin at 7.30am. Little Poppets operates across the year, closing for bank holidays and a week at Christmas. That Christmas closure matters for families planning childcare around work.

Full-day sessions run from 8am to 6pm, mornings from 9am to noon, and afternoons from 1pm to 4pm. Extended morning and afternoon options allow parents to specify the requested extension. Breakfast care runs from 8am to 9am and after-school care from 3.30pm to 6pm; wraparound care is also a booking option.

Permanent and temporary session amendments have separate forms. Reducing the number of sessions requires one month's notice, so a change to working hours may need advance planning. Enquiries can be made by telephone or email.

Funding and Paid Extras

Government-funded childcare is accepted, including funding for eligible children from 9 months and eligible 2-year-olds. Up to 15 hours of nursery education funding applies from the term after a child turns 3; some 3-year-olds qualify for an additional 15 hours. Applications and codes are required for the 30 hours funding, while 24U funding requires an application and a confirmation letter.

For families receiving the 30 hours funding for 3- and 4-year-olds, the nursery requests a voluntary contribution towards extras. This supports snacks, consumable items, additional services, family events and trips. The contribution is added to invoices but remains voluntary, so families should distinguish it from privately paid childcare and meal charges.

Breakfast, lunch and tea are charged separately. Parents provide sun cream, alongside suitable seasonal clothing and spare changes when needed; on funded hours, the voluntary contribution also supports consumable items. The nursery accepts Tax Free Childcare payments and childcare vouchers. For current prices, ask the nursery for a quotation.

• Language and individual learning. The January 2023 improvement priorities concerned vocabulary-building and planning from children's existing knowledge. During a tour, ask how staff now introduce new words and use each child's next steps when arranging activities.
• Funded extras. Families using the 30 hours funding for 3- and 4-year-olds are asked for a voluntary contribution covering snacks, consumables and enrichment. Ask how opting out works in practice and how the invoice separates meals from the contribution.
• Baby care and dietary needs. The Little Room has its own outdoor space overlooking the garden. Use a visit to discuss the induction and care routine for your baby; families managing allergies should confirm current practice for their child's particular requirements.
• Attendance changes and closures. Morning, afternoon and full-day bookings have different time windows, and reducing sessions requires one month's notice. Include the week-long Christmas closure when deciding whether the arrangement fits your working year.

Little Poppets suits families seeking either morning or afternoon sessions, as well as full-day childcare, in a setting with a younger children's room with its own outdoor space, a characterful preschool space and purposeful outdoor play. Key-person induction, communication books for the youngest children and a SENCO role give the care arrangements useful substance.

The January 2023 Good judgement sits alongside clear priorities for language teaching and individual planning. For families receiving the 30 hours funding for 3- and 4-year-olds, the voluntary contribution towards snacks, consumables and extras is central to understanding the arrangement. The strongest reasons to consider Little Poppets are its room structure, child-led learning aims and connections between nursery activities and the wider town.