Busy Little Bees Nursery, Shirley

A room between toddlerhood and preschool gives Busy Little Bees Nursery, Shirley a clear organising idea: growing independence can happen in stages. Busy Bees adjoins Honey Pot, allowing children to become familiar with the next room and its staff before moving on. Gardens, natural materials and practical play give those stages substance.

At its 13 May 2025 inspection, Ofsted rated the nursery Good and judged safeguarding effective. The improvement priorities were specific: make activity intentions more precise and ensure that children who need adult interaction most are fully included. Those points matter alongside the appealing room arrangements.

The nursery has capacity for 53 children, with an age range from three months to five years. Four rooms accommodate different developmental stages, with overlapping age bands rather than a single birthday determining every move. Attendance choices include full days, shorter days, mornings and afternoons.

Rooms and Ages

Bumble Bees Room, for ages 3–24 months, combines treasure baskets, loose materials, songs and stories with a cosy sleeping area and daily outdoor experiences, keeping babies’ personal routines central.

Honey Bees Room, for ages 18–36 months, offers dough, water, sand and imaginative play, real-life objects and direct access to its own secure garden. Daily messy play makes spare clothes useful.

Busy Bees Room, for ages 30–36 months, adjoins Honey Pot, giving children time with preschool staff alongside small-group activities, construction, cooking and practice managing snacks and belongings. The layout makes the next stage familiar.

Honey Pot Room, for ages three to five years, combines early number and literacy activities with science, cooking and child-led projects, continuous garden access, a mud kitchen and planting beds. Jobs and planning play encourage independence; school handovers and a personal learning record connect the next stage with previous learning.

Learning and Activities

The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) provides the shared framework for learning, development and care. Play supports communication, physical skills and relationships alongside literacy, mathematics, creativity and understanding the world.

In May 2025, children combined paints to explore colour and used ladles, pots and a cauldron to investigate how much containers held. A family’s zoo visit became a baby-room learning theme. Babies heard vocabulary repeated, while older children learnt words associated with their tools. Conversation developed children’s ideas, but some needing interaction most were left out, and activities did not always build precisely on existing learning.

Outdoor and Community Life

Busy Bees includes outdoor activity in different weather, extending exploration beyond the room. In May 2025, tunnels, ride-on toys, raised beams and stepping stones supported movement and balance, while dough and painting exercised smaller hand movements.

That May, children cared for hatching chicks, exchanged messages with pen pals in Devon, and visited a local library and farm. These experiences brought animals, books and another place into their learning.

Relationships and Communication

Each child has a Key Person, giving families an identifiable adult who understands their child. Moves between rooms follow developmental readiness.

The group-wide Child Journeys parent portal, used here, shares observations and diary snapshots. Families can contribute comments, photographs and observations from home, making communication two-way. Termly written reports and parent evenings allow fuller discussion of progress.

In May 2025, parents attended workshops, celebrations and training and shared their cultures; children’s family photographs were displayed. Children could recognise their own families and learn about others.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

At the May 2025 inspection, Ofsted found that children with SEND received good support, with needs identified promptly and staff working with families and external professionals to arrange specialist help.

Emotional learning in May 2025 used books and soft toys to help children identify and discuss feelings. Adults encouraged kindness and sharing, and children sometimes attempted to settle disagreements themselves. Independence also began with ordinary care routines: babies located their chairs and practised feeding themselves, while toddlers served lunch. These are small, repeatable steps towards managing everyday needs.

The current baby-room arrangement includes a cosy sleeping area and regular checks. Food routines include a choice of cereal or toast at breakfast, and afternoon tea is prepared at the nursery, with options such as wraps or sandwiches accompanied by fruit and vegetables. Meals therefore offer opportunities for choice as well as a pause in the day.

Sessions and Attendance

The address is 2 Newborough Road, Shirley, Solihull, B90 2HA. Opening hours are 7.30am to 6pm, Monday to Friday, with closures on bank holidays and for a week at Christmas. Opening time and the standard full-day booking are different: the full day runs from 8am to 6pm.

Other choices are shorter days from 9am to 5pm, mornings from 8am to 1pm and afternoons from 1pm to 6pm. An early-bird start covers 7.30am to 8am; additional hours have a one-hour minimum charge. Families can match attendance to their working day.

Funded-only arrangements have their own times. For eligible younger children using the 15-hour entitlement, zero-cost choices include three mornings from 9am to 1pm or three afternoons from 1pm to 5pm, delivered over 48 weeks. For three- and four-year-olds, the zero-cost 15-hour pattern is 1.30pm to 4.30pm across five days over 38 weeks. The zero-cost 30-hour-entitlement option runs from 1pm to 5.45pm across five days over 48 weeks. A funded entitlement therefore needs to be matched to a particular attendance pattern.

For enquiries, use the Shirley enquiry form or telephone 0121 744 4858; a separate Shirley form starts registration.

Funding and Paid Extras

The 15- and 30-hour funding options include government-supported two-year-old funding, universal three-year-old funding and the Flexible Funding Entitlement (FFE). Delivery includes stretched patterns and a term-time pattern, with the schedule distinguishing funded hours from additional paid childcare. Current prices come in the nursery’s written quotation.

All-In packages combine the specified childcare hours with meals, consumables and activities or premium services. Funded-only zero-cost sessions exclude those extras, which can be purchased separately where offered; the younger children’s zero-cost 15-hour arrangement includes a mid-morning snack without charge, while lunch and tea have an optional food contribution or a packed-food alternative. Other zero-cost afternoon patterns offer a voluntary tea-and-snack contribution or packed tea.

Consumables, activities and premium services are included in inclusive packages and charged separately when selected alongside zero-cost sessions. Compare both attendance hours and inclusions when choosing a package.

A registration charge applies to private places and is waived for funded places. It is refundable under the registration terms. Ordinary leaving notice is one month, or payment in lieu; for grant-funded children it can extend to a term and should finish at a term boundary. Private fees remain payable during the Christmas closure, so the payment calendar deserves attention alongside the attendance calendar.

• Interaction and learning intentions. In May 2025, activities did not always carry their intended learning through precisely, and some children needing adult interaction most were not fully included. During a visit, ask how staff now draw quieter children into activities and build on what each child already knows.
• The transition room. Busy Bees overlaps in age with Honey Bees and connects directly with Honey Pot. Ask how the Key Person decides that a child is ready to move, and how time with the next room’s staff is introduced.
• Funding pattern and extras. The zero-cost preschool afternoon pattern uses a different calendar from the younger children’s stretched options. Match the actual attendance days to your childcare needs and distinguish included items from optional food, consumables and activities in the written quotation.
• Payment and leaving dates. Private fees continue through the Christmas closure, while funded leaving notice may run to a term boundary. Consider these terms before fixing a start date or planning a later change of setting.

Busy Little Bees Nursery, Shirley suits families choosing full days or shorter morning and afternoon attendance, as well as those whose needs fit its specific funded-only patterns. Its strongest practical feature is the staged progression through rooms, especially the connection between Busy Bees and Honey Pot. Garden access, hands-on projects and two-way parent communication give that structure substance. The Good judgement sits alongside clear improvement priorities around adult interaction and precise teaching intentions. Those are the right issues to explore when deciding whether this is the right fit for your child.