Scallywags Nursery Melbourne

Weekly Field Forest Play, visiting Music Time sessions and a baby playroom with designated sleeping areas give Scallywags Nursery Melbourne a clear character: outdoor exploration and movement sit alongside care for the youngest children. This Castle Lane nursery has capacity for 111 children aged three months to five years. Its rooms offer different environments as children become more mobile, more talkative and increasingly independent.

At its November 2022 inspection, Ofsted rated the nursery Good and found safeguarding effective, with positive findings about support for children with additional needs. There were also two practical improvements to make: clearer arrangements for younger children's drinks and snacks, and learning activities better matched to children's development and sequenced to build learning, especially early writing.

For families, the strongest current details are tangible. Monkeys has a doorway into its own outdoor area, Zebras can move between their room and the garden each day, and older nursery children have weekly opportunities for music and outdoor activities. The weekday opening window is 7.30am to 6pm.

Rooms and Ages

Lion Cubs, for children aged three to 16 months, combines a baby playroom with designated sleeping areas and access to a secure garden, giving rest and exploration their own place in the day.

Monkeys, for children aged 12 to 24 months, has its own playroom and a dedicated doorway to a secure outdoor area, with an emphasis on movement, communication and growing independence through play.

Hippos, for two- to three-year-olds, introduces experiences that prepare children for the older nursery rooms, making the next move a gradual change in activities.

Crocodiles, for children aged two to three-and-a-half, offers resources and activity areas intended to develop independence and prepare children for preschool.

Zebras, for children aged three-and-a-half to four-and-a-half, combines preparation for Reception activities with daily movement between room and garden and opportunities for both small and large physical movements.

These age bands overlap. They describe stages of provision rather than a single birthday on which every child must move. The youngest rooms' sleeping and outdoor arrangements are useful distinctions for parents weighing how their baby's routines will fit nursery life.

Learning and Activities

The EYFS shapes learning through play, including communication, physical development and relationships alongside literacy, mathematics, creativity and understanding the world. Melbourne's curriculum uses Development Matters as supporting guidance, breaking broader learning aims into smaller steps that staff can revisit as children develop. It is a planning tool alongside the EYFS, rather than an alternative to it.

Children's interests help determine activities, while adults also introduce planned experiences. Staff aim to organise an adult-led activity each day and use a toy plan to refresh what children encounter during the week. That combination gives children room to choose while retaining deliberate teaching. Mathematics is woven into practical experiences such as cooking and shopping, so number, shape and comparison have an everyday purpose.

The group-wide curriculum outcomes include Magical Movers, which concerns physical confidence and activity, and Book Worms, which concerns stories, language and early literacy. Confident Communicators describes children expressing their ideas and feelings. These are useful descriptions of the curriculum's intentions, rather than separate qualifications or evidence of outcomes in themselves.

Language receives sustained attention. Adults extend children's vocabulary through conversation and use books as starting points for learning themes. In November 2022, children acted out The Gruffalo with puppets, while staff used pretend dentistry and coloured scarves to introduce vocabulary. Those examples show how words can be attached to actions and objects rather than taught in isolation.

Outdoor and Community Life

Music Time visits once a week, usually on Tuesday afternoon, for children in Crocodiles and Zebras. Its music and movement sessions combine familiar songs with actions and props, giving children another way to participate beyond spoken conversation.

Field Forest Play is weekly for the same older rooms and uses outdoor experiences to encourage independence, communication and awareness of others. Zebras also has a weekly staff-led PE session intended to develop movement skills and physical fitness. These are separate strands of the nursery day, rather than a single general promise of outdoor learning.

Across the nursery, daily Yoga and Mindfulness time uses story-led movements inspired by yoga. Melbourne's curriculum also includes visits within the local community and activities about where food comes from. In November 2022, children helped collect donations for a local food bank and ran on a large grassed area. Community participation and space for energetic play were concrete parts of that dated experience.

Relationships and Communication

Each child has a key person in their room, providing a familiar contact for care and learning and a link with home. Taster sessions are arranged before children start; parents meet the key person and discuss their child and the care they want. This gives the relationship a practical starting point, rather than leaving important routines to be discovered later.

Daily conversations are supplemented by monthly progress reports, with an assessment across the areas of learning every six months. Suggestions for learning at home are shared through parent meetings, conversations, displays, the welcome pack and stay-and-play sessions. Families therefore have both immediate updates and a longer view of development.

In November 2022, parents received regular information about learning and children borrowed books to share at home. Babies were comforted by staff with familiar objects, while older children practised everyday independence by collecting cutlery and drinks. The value of these examples is their scale: reassurance and small routines were part of the same day.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

For children needing additional support, Melbourne's curriculum describes collaboration between room staff, parents and the SENCo or EAL Co-ordinator. Individual Education Plans set smaller targets, reviewed termly and shared with families. Where needed, concerns are taken forward with parents to other professionals and applications for additional funding. This is a defined support process, rather than a blanket promise that every need can be met in the same way.

Melbourne has designated safeguarding lead roles, with concerns directed through the nursery's telephone or email contact. That identifies a route for raising a concern; the dated safeguarding judgement belongs to the inspection.

Meals are prepared by in-house chefs in an on-site kitchen, with a five-week rotating menu. The nursery describes separate preparation for children with allergies or intolerances and purple plates or labels to distinguish their food, making individual dietary arrangements part of meal organisation.

Preparation for school includes independence as well as early learning. Children practise managing belongings, personal care and eating for themselves, while stories and songs support early literacy. The curriculum's emphasis is on developing usable skills through daily routines, not treating preschool as a miniature classroom.

Sessions and Attendance

The nursery is at Castle Lane, Melbourne, Derbyshire, DE73 8JB, and opens Monday to Friday, 7.30am to 6pm. It operates throughout the year, closing on bank holidays. Enquiries can be made through the contact form, by telephone on 01332 862188 or by email to melbourne@scallywagsnursery.com.

School-age provision is a separate part of the offer. Breakfast Club runs from 7.30am to 9am, and After-School Club from 3pm to 6pm, serving Melbourne Infant and Junior schools. Children are escorted to school and collected from their classrooms. These arrangements support families managing nursery and school-age childcare alongside one another.

Holiday Club follows Melbourne school holidays and inset days, with care between 7.30am and 6pm. Its morning pattern runs from 7.30am to 12.30pm and its afternoon pattern from 1pm to 6pm; a Full Day pattern is also offered. The school-age club has its own purpose-built room, so it is a separate provision from the nursery rooms described above.

Funding and Paid Extras

In November 2022, funded early education was offered for two-, three- and four-year-olds. That is a dated participation statement, and families should base their spending plans on a current written quotation from the nursery.

Meals and snacks are included in the fees paid by parents. A quotation should distinguish the chosen attendance pattern and any funded hours from additional paid care, so families can compare the arrangement they would actually use.

• Room transitions. Lion Cubs and Monkeys have overlapping age bands, while the Melbourne curriculum gives some different room boundaries from the main Melbourne description. Ask which room would suit your child's current development and how a move would be planned.
• Younger children's routines. In November 2022, drinks and snacks needed clearer organisation, and activities needed to suit children's development and build learning in sequence; some writing activities were too advanced for the children taking part. During a visit, ask how seated drinks and snacks are organised and how early writing activities are matched to readiness.
• The childcare quotation. Meals and snacks are included in parent-paid fees. Ask for a current written quotation for the childcare arrangement your family would use before comparing overall costs.
• Allergy arrangements. The food policy uses separate preparation and identifiable plates or labels for special diets. Families affected by allergies should confirm how their child's current care plan would be applied in preparation, serving and daily communication.

Scallywags Melbourne suits families who value clearly differentiated nursery rooms, regular movement activities and a curriculum that connects conversation with practical experiences. The baby sleeping areas, Monkeys' own outdoor doorway and Zebras' garden access make the environment more informative than broad claims about learning through play.

For households also arranging school-age care, Breakfast Club and After-School Club provide different attendance patterns, with morning and afternoon Holiday Club options too. The November 2022 improvements remain useful questions about daily practice. The decision should turn on the child's room, their routines and the precise childcare arrangement the family intends to use.