Playpals Nursery

A garden reached directly from Sunflower Room, toddlers learning to pour their own drinks, and a baby room that starts with the small steps of self-feeding: practical independence gives Playpals Nursery much of its character. Based at Playpals Childcare Centre on Hermitage Road in Solihull, it has 30 places in total. The emphasis is on ordinary routines becoming opportunities to learn.

At its 27 June 2023 inspection, Ofsted judged the nursery Good, found safeguarding effective and identified prompt, targeted help for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). That is a dated assessment. The current offer has concrete support mechanisms, including individual learning plans, specialist referrals and communication through Famly, an app for sharing care updates and children's development.

Daisy Room, Poppy Room and Sunflower Room organise the nursery day by developmental stage. Outdoor play uses a shared garden as well as Sunflower's own garden connection. Opening hours are 8am to 6pm on weekdays, with care continuing across the year apart from the stated closures.

Rooms and Ages

Daisy Room covers ages 0 to 20 months and introduces independence through spoon-feeding, recognising personal belongings and helping to put toys away. These are manageable steps for babies: the emphasis is on taking part in familiar routines rather than completing tasks unaided.

For children aged 20 to 30 months, Poppy Room combines vocabulary development, social interaction and potty-training with an upstairs setting containing story seating, a home corner and tables for creative work and puzzles. Those different spaces give toddlers opportunities to move between pretend play, listening and activities using their hands.

Sunflower Room serves children aged 30 months and over, emphasising preparation for school and greater independence across three connected rooms with access to its own garden. Its practical goals include managing coats and shoes, using cutlery and helping count the items needed to lay a table. School preparation here includes looking after yourself and joining in daily responsibilities.

Learning and Activities

The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) provides the framework for children's learning and care, covering language, physical development, relationships, early literacy, mathematics, creativity and understanding the world. In parent language, that means conversation, movement, play and exploration all count as learning. It is the foundation required of early years provision, rather than an extra programme unique to Playpals.

Progress observations from each child's key person are shared through Famly. This gives parents a connection between what happens during nursery time and the skills their child is developing. The curriculum page explains the areas used to organise those observations.

In June 2023, activities followed children's interests and next learning steps. Babies explored materials, toys and instruments through reaching and movement, while younger children joined group singing. Older children linked caterpillars and butterflies to life cycles, then explored matching wing patterns and symmetry. The useful feature was the connection between topics: one interest could lead into scientific understanding, mathematical ideas and new vocabulary.

Mark-making also featured in June 2023, with different tools helping children experiment with pictures and emerging letters. Conversation ran through the day, including questions that invited older children to explain their thinking.

Outdoor and Community Life

Every nursery room can use the shared garden. A sandpit, chalkboards, wheeled toys and messy-play stations offer different ways to explore outdoors, from making marks to movement and sensory play. Garden use continues through the seasons, with water play and picnics among the summer activities and snow exploration in winter.

In June 2023, families contributed photographs and helped staff celebrate family festivals. Children could connect nursery discussion with their own home lives and learn about other families. This was community learning through the people children already knew, rather than a separate lesson detached from their experiences.

Relationships and Communication

Settling begins with information about the individual child. Daisy Room uses an All About Me form covering preferences, eating habits and milk feeds; its accompanying questions also address comforting objects and sleep routines. That gives practitioners practical details to work with, including what may help a baby feel familiar and settled.

Famly carries photographs, development observations and updates about sleep, food and nappy changes, with a messaging function for parents. It connects care routines with learning rather than limiting communication to a single end-of-day account. Families already attending can also contact the nursery through their account.

The inclusion policy provides for private discussions with a key person or SENDCO, with a room available for confidential conversations. Parents' evenings take place twice a year, in autumn and spring, alongside individual meetings when needed. This creates more than one route for discussing development: routine updates, planned reviews and a private conversation about a concern.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

Solihull's Graduated Approach structures additional support through assessment, planning, action and review. Playpals uses Solihull's SEND Assessment Toolkit to track development and involves parents in individual learning plans. Support can draw on the Early Years Team and professionals such as speech and language therapists, occupational therapists and educational psychologists.

Observations by the key person feed into discussion with the SENDCO, followed by assessment and agreed strategies. Referrals to the Area SENDCO require parental permission. When a child changes setting, the SENDCO provides a handover so that information about their needs can travel with them.

Dingley's Promise is an inclusion training programme in which every staff member has trained. The nursery also holds Millie's Mark, a first-aid endorsement, and all staff have paediatric first-aid training that is renewed regularly. These are concrete staff arrangements; the dated safeguarding judgement remains the official assessment of effectiveness.

In June 2023, support for independence was inconsistent: examples included older children using beakers rather than open cups and receiving too little encouragement to cut their own food. The current room routines address those same everyday skills through pouring drinks, using cutlery and preparing snacks with adult help. They describe the approach now, but do not establish that the inspection's improvement point has been formally reassessed.

Sessions and Attendance

The nursery address is Playpals Childcare Centre, 18 Hermitage Road, Solihull, B91 2LJ. It opens Monday to Friday from 8am to 6pm throughout the year, closing at weekends, on bank holidays and for the week between Christmas and New Year. For families planning work and leave, those closures belong in the annual childcare calendar.

Enquiries can be made through the contact form, by telephone or by email. The nursery's collection policy makes 6pm a firm finishing point: children cannot remain beyond it. Its sickness arrangements ask parents to notify staff by phone or Famly when a child is unwell, and staff contact parents or carers if illness develops during care.

Funding and Paid Extras

In June 2023, the nursery provided funded early education for two-, three- and four-year-olds. Current prices come in the nursery's written quotation.

Meals are freshly prepared on the premises by trained staff, with three meals and two snacks across the day; the FareShare partnership supplies redistributed surplus food and allows menus to change with deliveries. Food is adapted for individual dietary needs and abilities, including allergy requirements, and breastfeeding parents are welcome to feed at the setting.

• Everyday independence. The June 2023 improvement point concerned consistent encouragement with drinking and eating skills. During a visit, ask staff to explain how the current pouring, cutlery and snack routines work for a child at your child's stage.
• Booking and the full bill. The weekday opening window runs from 8am to 6pm, with specified annual closures. Which attendance patterns can your child book, how would any funded hours fit, and what would the written quotation include for meals and non-food consumables?
• The building and individual support. Poppy Room is upstairs, while the inclusion policy allows adjustments within the building's physical constraints. For a child with mobility or other additional needs, use a preliminary visit to discuss room access, adaptations and the support plan together.

Playpals suits families who value practical independence, regular digital communication and a defined process for arranging additional support. The baby, toddler and older-child routines make that character tangible, while the gardens add outdoor opportunities to the day.

Its weekday hours and year-round calendar may fit families needing care beyond school terms. The Good judgement from June 2023 gives a positive inspection position, with a specific caution about consistency in supporting independence.