Marshfield Pre-School

A full-size sports hall, vegetable beds accessible to wheelchair users and a garden built for digging give Marshfield Pre-School a practical, outdoors-led character. Its purpose-built accommodation adjoins Marshfield Community Centre, with space for energetic play indoors as well as outside. Ofsted rated it Outstanding on 13 June 2025 and found its safeguarding arrangements effective.

With capacity for 24 children, this is a small setting by total places, rather than a claim about how many children share a session. Its offer extends beyond pre-school: holiday care serves children aged 2 to 11, while breakfast and after-school provision supports families using Marshfield Primary School. The setting opens for 51 weeks each year.

Parent involvement also has a formal place here. A volunteer committee helps run the pre-school and holiday club, working alongside staff on finances, policies and fundraising.

Rooms and Ages

The main pre-school room has individual drawers and coat pegs, while child-height basins and toilets make practising personal hygiene part of ordinary life. A small sleep room contains two toddler beds. These are useful physical details for families weighing independence against their child's continuing need for rest.

Movement gets substantial space. In the Sports Hall, children have daily music and movement, alongside obstacle courses and sporting activities. Wet weather therefore need not mean a day confined to the pre-school room. The daily routine also includes a quieter period after lunch, with books, music and rest balancing the more active parts of the day.

Learning and Activities

The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) sets the framework for children's learning and care: play, conversation and practical activities support their development. Here, the timetable combines children's own choices with adult-led activities, stories, songs and opportunities to learn indoors and outside. A welcome song and group gatherings provide recurring points in the day, rather than making every activity adult-directed.

In June 2025, mathematical ideas emerged through a pretend ice-cream shop made from dough, scoops and cones. Children explored buying and selling through their play. Writing had a similarly practical purpose: older children made shopping lists, while younger children linked movements with sounds during phonics. These examples connect early literacy and number work to something children are already interested in doing.

Communication involved more than answering questions. In June 2025, staff used signing alongside speech and introduced vocabulary while discussing children's magnetic-block constructions. Children also worked together to solve practical problems, including cutting tape. The emphasis was on giving children reasons to explain, negotiate and try again.

Outdoor and Community Life

The forest school garden turns outdoor learning into hands-on exploration of natural materials. Children dig in a large sand area, build dens and use a mud kitchen supplied with pots, pans and water butts. Raised growing beds let them sow, tend and harvest crops including raspberries and potatoes; their height also accommodates wheelchair access. Planting has a visible result children can return to over time.

A separate Physical Play Garden has an all-weather surface for wheeled toys and a wooden climbing frame with a rope wall, footbridge and slide. It gives children different ways to practise balance and judge a manageable challenge. This complements the sports hall rather than duplicating its indoor activities.

Community experiences were part of the day in June 2025, when children visited a pensioners' lunch club and walked to the local park. Parents contributed gardening help and conversations about their occupations. For children, these encounters connected familiar adults and places with learning beyond the setting.

Marshfield Holiday Club adds seasonal activities during school holidays, including cooking, science experiments, sports and animal visits. It accepts children from any school. For siblings within its age range, that creates the possibility of sharing a holiday-care setting rather than attending separate provision.

Each child has a Keyworker, the main staff contact for reassurance and support. Their Learning Journal brings together observations and development, is shared regularly with parents and helps staff identify what to work on next. Parents therefore have an ongoing account of learning, alongside conversations with practitioners.

At the June 2025 inspection, Ofsted found that detailed starting information from families, observation and assessment informed targeted individual and small-group support, and that parents were well informed about their children's learning.

A SENCO role sits within the staff team, alongside safeguarding responsibilities, and the team includes staff trained in makaton. All staff have paediatric first-aid training. These are concrete arrangements and skills; they do not, by themselves, promise a particular outcome for an individual child.

In June 2025, children practised everyday independence by finding their name cards, handling their food and dealing with wet clothing. Staff also helped them express feelings and take part in voting. These small decisions gave children ways to contribute to shared life, alongside clear behavioural boundaries.

School preparation included teacher visits and staff accompanying children on move-up days in June 2025. That is transition support, helping children become familiar with the next setting. It is separate from any decision about admission to a school.

Sessions and Attendance

The address is Marshfield Community Centre, Hayfield, Marshfield, near Chippenham, SN14 8RA. Opening hours are 7.30am to 6pm, with operation across 51 weeks of the year. Enquiries can be made through the contact form, by email or on 01225 891 900.

Holiday bookings are assembled from complete sessions. The morning runs from 9am to noon and the afternoon from 1pm to 4pm, with a lunch session between noon and 1pm. Earlier care is split into 7.30am to 8am and 8am to 9am sessions; the tea session runs from 4pm to 6pm. Families can combine sessions, but cannot book part of one.

For Marshfield Primary School children, breakfast care starts at either 7.30am or 8am, with a walking bus to school. After-school care includes collection from school and continues until 6pm. Breakfast provision uses the community centre on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays; tea provision uses it on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Those day-specific arrangements matter when planning a working week.

Funding and Paid Extras

The setting accepts additional-support funding for eligible two-year-olds, the 15-hour Nursery Education Grant for three- and four-year-olds, and extended 30-hour funding for eligible working parents of two-, three- and four-year-olds. The two 15-hour offers run over 38 term-time weeks. For extended funding, families choose term-time delivery or stretching across 51 weeks, and keep that choice once funding begins.

Private childcare is also offered. Current prices come in the nursery's written quotation; breakfast and tea-club reservations require a non-refundable deposit. Tax Free Childcare is accepted, as are participating employer voucher schemes.

Meals have different charging arrangements: snacks carry no fee, cooked term-time lunches supplied by Marshfield Primary School and breakfast are charged separately, and tea is included in the school-age Tea Club price but charged with holiday sessions running from 4pm to 6pm. Families can provide food instead of breakfast, tea or the cooked term-time lunch; holiday lunches are packed lunches brought from home.

• Baby-room plans. A baby room was announced for September 2026. On a visit, ask whether the baby room has opened and, if so, which ages it accepts and how rest and outdoor access are arranged.
• Complete holiday sessions. Holiday care can combine morning, lunch, afternoon and adjoining sessions, but bookings cover whole sessions. Match those boundaries to the care your family needs.
• Funding commitment. Extended funding can run term-time or across the year, but the chosen arrangement continues once funding starts. Consider the school-holiday pattern before making that choice.
• Community-centre club days. School-age breakfast and tea provision use the community centre on different sets of weekdays. A family needing both should account for that difference when planning attendance.

Marshfield suits families who value substantial space for movement, practical gardening and a close connection between home and pre-school. The sports hall, accessible growing beds and individual Learning Journals give that character substance. Its June 2025 Outstanding judgement provides the dated inspection position behind the offer.

The attendance range matters too: holiday mornings and afternoons can be combined, while school-age breakfast and after-school care serve different parts of the working day. This is a useful fit for families coordinating pre-school and older siblings, provided the complete-session rule, funding choice and community-centre club days match their needs.