Wem Playmates Nursery

Monday swimming, a woodland learning space and trips to Theatre Severn give Wem Playmates Nursery a day that reaches beyond its rooms. There is substance indoors too: babies have a quiet sleeping area, parents can contribute to an online learning journal, and babies visit Busy Beehive before moving from Crawling Caterpillars. These are useful details for families weighing both the experiences on offer and the continuity of everyday care.

At its 20 May 2024 inspection, Ofsted rated the nursery Good, found safeguarding effective and identified successful support for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities through outside agencies and targeted plans. The assessment also carried clear improvement priorities, especially around the learning planned for older children. Both sides matter when choosing between rooms for a baby and provision for a child approaching school.

Wem Playmates accepts children aged 3 months to 5 years and has 50 places in total. Its address is Unit 1, Wem Business Park, New Street, Wem, SY4 5JX. Morning, afternoon, all-day and extended-day bookings give families several attendance patterns to consider.

Rooms and Ages

Crawling Caterpillars takes babies from 3 to 18 months, combining activities matched to development with a quiet sleeping area and an outdoor space for crawling. A daily care diary sits alongside photographs and entries in the learning journal. Parents' routines guide care, while visits to the next room prepare babies for the move. For a family starting childcare early, that combination makes sleep, daily information and continuity practical parts of the arrangement.

Busy Beehive starts at 18 months and runs to 2.5 years, with painting and craft materials, outdoor bikes and summer involvement in the fruit and herb garden. The room's activities follow individual development, and the new key person continues the child's online journal. That gives parents a way to follow the change in room while contributing the interests their child brings from home.

Penguin Paradise develops early number and literacy skills through creative work, role play and group activities, alongside everyday independence such as managing coats and preparing snacks. In Lion’s Den, the year before primary school brings more adult-led work and daily jolly phonics to prepare children for reading and writing. Independence remains part of the day, rather than something reserved for a formal school-preparation activity.

Learning and Activities

The EYFS links learning through play and adult-led activities with children's communication, physical development, relationships and later literacy and mathematics. Weekly planning takes account of individual interests and development. This is the shared early-years framework; the more revealing details here are how activities change between rooms and how learning moves outdoors.

In May 2024, toddlers explored changes in a wormery they had helped make and arranged natural materials into faces using their knowledge of shapes. Older children compared buildings in their drawings and experimented with measuring their own height. Those examples show ideas being explored through objects and problems children can investigate, rather than only through an adult explaining them.

The May 2024 inspection identified a clearer learning sequence for babies than for older children and asked for more precise progression across the curriculum, together with better checks on teaching. This is the important qualification to the busy programme: an appealing activity needs a clear purpose and a next step. For parents of preschool children, the progression behind the timetable deserves as much attention as the timetable itself.

Outdoor and Community Life

Two outdoor spaces and a Forest School, providing woodland-based outdoor learning, extend the nursery's physical setting. A sensory room and children's library add alternatives indoors. The mix gives children different places for movement, exploration and quieter activity, rather than placing the whole day in their main room.

Lion’s Den children can join swimming lessons at Wem swimming pool on Monday mornings, with an instructor teaching from beside the pool and nursery staff supporting children in the water. The arrangement makes swimming a concrete part of the preschool offer. Families considering that room can weigh a recurring experience beyond the nursery against their intended attendance pattern.

Community outings include town journeys by local bus and live performances at Theatre Severn. Children also visit a residential home to sing Christmas songs to residents. These experiences bring different people and places into nursery life; the theatre outing is a specific cultural experience, while the residential-home visit gives the seasonal singing a wider audience.

Relationships and Communication

Each child has a key person, who changes when the child moves rooms and takes responsibility for tracking development. Tapestry is the online learning journal used to share progress, photographs and experiences between home and nursery. Parents can upload their own pictures and respond to nursery entries, so communication can include what happens outside childcare as well as what happens during the day.

Optional key-person meetings, newsletters and parent information boards provide other ways to stay involved. Staff can exchange information during the day too. The nursery is run by a committee that includes parents, giving parent participation an organisational role as well as a place in everyday conversations.

Before a child starts, management and the room leader make a home visit. Crawling Caterpillars also encourages settling sessions. These arrangements allow the first conversations to include familiar routines and the child's home context, with particular relevance for babies whose sleep and care patterns need to carry across into nursery life.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

A designated safeguarding and SENCO lead role sits within the staff structure, alongside room leaders and Forest School leaders. In May 2024, staff used individual support plans and worked with external agencies when children needed additional developmental help. Communication strategies were part of that support. These are concrete mechanisms for responding to a child's needs, rather than a broad promise that every need will be met in the same way.

Collection by another adult uses a password arrangement. For babies, a separate quiet area provides a designated space for sleep. The practical value is straightforward: collection has a defined procedure, and rest has a designated space.

Cooked lunches are supplied daily and charged separately; snacks include options such as fruit, cheese and crackers, with milk and drinking water also provided. The nursery's dietary policy covers requirements including vegetarian diets, dairy intolerance, and wheat or nut allergies.

School preparation includes sharing learning information with Reception teachers, teachers meeting children at the nursery and school visits supported by the key person. These steps connect familiar adults and records with the next setting. They are transition arrangements, rather than an admissions advantage.

Sessions and Attendance

The main morning session runs from 9am to 1pm, the main afternoon from 1pm to 4pm, and the main all-day booking from 9am to 4pm. Other morning bookings start at 8am and finish at 1pm, while an afternoon option continues from 1pm to 5pm. Families can therefore choose shorter attendance on either side of lunchtime as well as a day spanning both.

All-day options also include 8am to 4pm and 9am to 5pm. Extended-day patterns run from 8am to 5pm or, on Monday to Wednesday, 8am to 6pm. Early starts are offered from 7am; the latest finish is 6pm Monday to Wednesday and 5pm on Thursday and Friday. The weekday distinction matters for work schedules that finish later throughout the week.

The nursery operates for 49 weeks each year. Closures include bank holidays, two weeks around Christmas aligned with school holidays, and the final week of the summer holidays. Those breaks need to sit within a family's childcare plan even when regular attendance runs across the year.

Getting There

Parking is provided outside the main entrance at Wem Business Park. Enquiries can be made by telephone on 01939 233643 or by email at wemplaymates@btinternet.com.

Funding and Paid Extras

Funding includes 24U and 15 & 30 hours for children from 9 months to 5 years. Paid session bookings are also offered, and cooked lunches carry a separate charge. Current prices come in the nursery's written quotation; the session and funding information brings the attendance options and funding offer together.

• Older children's progression. The May 2024 priorities concerned the sequence of learning and oversight of teaching, especially for older children. During a visit, ask how Penguin Paradise and Lion’s Den now build skills from one activity to the next.
• Different weekday finishes. Late care ends at 6pm Monday to Wednesday and 5pm on Thursday and Friday. Compare that pattern with the finish times your family needs across the working week.
• Settling and room changes. Home visits and baby settling sessions are part of the approach, and Crawling Caterpillars babies visit Busy Beehive before moving there. Discuss how these would fit your child's routines and that change of key person.
• Funding and dietary requirements. Cooked lunches have a separate charge, and the dietary policy includes allergy requirements. Ask how funded hours are scheduled, what meals and consumables cost within that arrangement, and how your child's dietary needs would be handled in current practice.

Wem Playmates suits families choosing morning or afternoon attendance as well as all-day and extended-day patterns. Its strongest practical details are the progression through named rooms, two-way communication through Tapestry and a preschool offer that includes Monday swimming. The outdoor spaces and community visits give the day further variety.

The decision for an older child should also take account of the May 2024 curriculum and teaching priorities. For a baby, the quiet sleeping area, daily care diary and visits before moving to Busy Beehive are more immediately relevant. This is a nursery worth judging room by room, with the family's attendance pattern and the child's developmental stage guiding the choice.