Smisby Day Nursery

South-facing classrooms in an old village school, a garden looking towards open countryside and a village outing that involves handing out flowers: Smisby Day Nursery has a recognisable setting and a day that extends beyond its rooms. The building dates from 1900. Its outdoor spaces give children room for climbing, pretend cooking and woodland craft, while the village supplies destinations for walks and community activities.

At its March 2025 inspection, Ofsted rated the nursery Good and found safeguarding effective, with successful support for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities through individual plans and additional adult help. Two improvements remain important to the assessment: protecting children's privacy during personal care and organising older children's group activities so that other tasks do not interrupt their learning.

The nursery accepts children from three months to five years and has 50 places in total. Those whole-setting figures are separate from the capacities of individual rooms. Babies, toddlers and preschool children have their own bases, with moves between them shaped by development rather than a birthday alone.

Full-day, morning and afternoon bookings are offered. The strongest reasons to consider Smisby are its substantial outdoor provision, gradual room transitions and concrete arrangements for sharing younger children's daily routines with parents.

Rooms and Ages

The Baby Room serves children aged three to 18 months, with a published baby provision cap of nine; its day follows individual routines and combines floor play, craft and changing toys, including a crawl tunnel and ball pool. The Baby Room's usual staffing ratio is one adult to three babies. For a family choosing care for a baby, that cap is a more useful measure than the nursery's overall size. It describes the baby provision, rather than how many children are present on any particular day.

In the Toddler Room, the age band runs from 18 months to two and a half years and the maximum is 14 children; painting, conversation, songs and rotating pretend-play settings sit alongside learning to eat independently and use the toilet, with a playground for outdoor activity. A Post Office is among the settings used for imaginative play. Familiar situations give children something concrete to talk about and act out with each other.

Pre School has capacity for 27 children and combines messy play, phonics and early mathematical ideas with increasing independence at meals and outdoor play using trikes, slides and a garden boat. Its stated age bands differ, so the practical room-placement question belongs in a discussion before booking. The important distinction is that room progression also takes account of what a child can manage, rather than following age alone.

Learning and Activities

The Early Years Foundation Stage provides the framework for learning and care: children build communication, physical, social and early thinking skills through play and everyday experiences. Smisby's additions include Forest School, with outdoor exploration and creative activity, and cooking lessons that bring language, sharing and mathematical ideas into preparing food. These experiences add to the framework rather than replace it.

Pre School includes French after lunch each day and story sessions three times daily. Alongside phonics and music, these give older children repeated opportunities to listen, speak and engage with words. The practical tasks matter too: helping with table preparation and serving food makes independence part of the ordinary day, rather than a separate lesson.

In March 2025, staff sang to babies and echoed their words, while older children explored beginning sounds and familiar passages from stories. Signing also accompanied spoken language, including a younger child using a sign when requesting something at snack time. These examples show the different forms communication work took across the age groups at that visit.

Outdoor and Community Life

Separate playgrounds serve the Toddler Room and Pre School, and the grounds include two garden areas. In the lower garden, a weeping willow provides shade alongside a sand pit and summer shelter. Outdoor play therefore has several settings: space for movement, places to investigate materials and shaded areas for quieter activity or eating outside.

A Forest School area has seating, a fire stand area and tools for woodland craft. The made-to-measure mud kitchen adds another practical play setting, with bowls, shelving and cooking spaces. Children can explore making and mixing outdoors as well as take part in the nursery's cooking lessons.

Walks through the village and visits to the play park are regular activities. Other destinations include Smisby Arboretum and the Library, while the Daffodil Doddle involves taking flowers to local houses. A Remembrance Day Ceremony takes place at the village memorial. These are specific ways children encounter the surrounding community; they are not claims of a fixed weekly outings timetable.

Relationships and Communication

Settling sessions are free of charge and allow a child to become familiar with staff and surroundings alongside a parent. In the Baby Room, induction gathers details of feeding, weaning and the child's home routine. A keyworker becomes the main parent contact, giving families a clear person with whom to share changes and concerns.

Daily baby reports cover feeding, sleep, play and nappy changes, and staff discuss them with parents. The Toddler Room also keeps a daily account of eating, sleeping and activities. This is useful information for continuing care at home: parents can see what has happened during the day rather than relying on a general description of how it went.

Room changes are gradual. Visits to the next room build from shorter periods towards whole days over several weeks, with staff discussing readiness with parents. In March 2025, children also saw photographs of the adults and toys in their next room before moving. That gives the transition a familiar starting point.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

The SEND policy assigns coordinators responsibility for monitoring children's needs, working with parents and contacting relevant professionals. Support follows an assess, plan, do and review cycle, with parents involved in planning and revising the response. This provides a defined mechanism for adjusting support as understanding of a child's needs develops.

In March 2025, funded individual support included visual routines and pictures of emotions. Personal-care practice needed attention, however: children were not consistently given privacy while changing or beginning toileting. Older children's shared learning was also sometimes interrupted by other care tasks. These are specific concerns to take seriously alongside the positive judgement.

Care staff hold first-aid and food-hygiene qualifications and receive safeguarding training. That describes preparation for their roles; the dated inspection judgement above supplies the assessment of safeguarding effectiveness. The nursery also uses authorised-collection procedures, including identification for someone collecting in an emergency.

Food is prepared on site each day, and the nursery's dietary policy caters for specific requirements and food intolerances. Its cooks also make cakes and sometimes biscuits, bringing food preparation into the nursery rather than relying entirely on bought-in meals.

Sessions and Attendance

The address is The Old School, Main Street, Smisby, Ashby de la Zouch, LE65 2TY. Nursery opening hours are 7.30am to 6pm, Monday to Friday. It operates for 51 weeks each year, closing for bank holidays and a Christmas week that includes Christmas Eve.

The Full Day runs from 7.30am to 6pm, Half Day AM from 7.30am to 1.30pm and Half Day PM from noon to 6pm. The minimum booking is one full day or two half days. These are different attendance options, so a shorter morning or afternoon can be part of the choice as well as a whole day.

Extra hours can be requested, with changes arranged around staffing. Bookings continue across the year: fees remain payable during family holidays, with possible exceptions for serious illness or hospital confinement. Closed bank holidays and the Christmas closure are not charged, and payments are due monthly in advance.

Getting There

Parking is provided at the nursery, alongside a designated collection and drop-off area. The grounds sit in a village setting near Ashby de la Zouch, with countryside behind the garden.

Funding and Paid Extras

Eligible children can use early-years funding from the term after they turn nine months, including two-year-olds and children aged three and four. The entitlements include 15 or 30 funded hours, depending on age and family circumstances; funding can be taken across term time or stretched over the nursery's year. Eligibility remains conditional, rather than applying to every family or every booking.

Meals, snacks and drinks are covered by the separately charged Additional Service Charge, alongside consumables such as wet wipes and health-and-hygiene supplies. For funded hours, these sit outside the funded childcare entitlement. Parents supply sun cream for outdoor play, so consumables do not all follow the same arrangement.

The Additional Service Charge also covers added activities, trips and Forest School and is voluntary; opting out involves discussing the support the family will provide with the manager or directors. Current prices come in the nursery's written quotation, and its fees page explains the charge structure.

A non-refundable deposit is credited against the first month's invoice. Ending a placement requires one month's written notice. The booking agreement also requires three months' notice for changes to an agreed start date or booked days, a significant consideration for families arranging a return to work.

• Privacy and uninterrupted learning. In March 2025, personal-care privacy and the organisation of older children's group activities both needed improvement. During a visit, ask how changing and toileting are screened and how shared stories or songs are protected from interruptions.
• Room placement and staffing. Pre School gives differing upper age bands, while the Toddler Room and prospectus give different usual ratios for children over two. Ask which room and staffing arrangement would apply to your child, including how readiness for a move is decided.
• Booking changes. The agreement requires three months' notice to alter a start date or booked days, and retaining the booking after deferring a start requires payment from the original agreed start date. Before committing, consider how certain your working pattern is and arrange a tour by appointment.
• Dietary needs and additional charges. The nursery caters for dietary requirements, and its voluntary Additional Service Charge covers food, supplies and added activities. Families managing allergies should confirm current food-handling arrangements and discuss what opting out of that charge would require them to provide.

Smisby suits families who value outdoor play, a village setting and a gradual introduction to nursery life, whether they need full days or morning and afternoon sessions. The baby provision's small published cap, daily care reports and development-led transitions give the choice practical substance. For older children, Forest School, cooking and village activities broaden the day beyond indoor play.

The March 2025 judgement supports that picture, but privacy during personal care and interruptions to group learning deserve direct attention. Booking commitments also matter: this is a year-round arrangement with defined notice requirements. Families whose attendance needs are settled, and who want the garden and surrounding community to feature in their child's day, have clear reasons to consider it.