Townley House Nursery

Vegetables grown from seed, a pretend hair salon and Christmas singing for local residents give Townley House Nursery a recognisable character. Learning takes everyday experiences seriously: children handle materials, act out familiar situations and take their activities beyond the nursery. This is the Wateringpool Lane setting in Lostock Hall, Preston, with capacity for 50 children aged 3 months to 5 years.

Ofsted rated the nursery Good on 3 July 2024, with mathematical learning a strength and an improvement needed in recognising when quieter children require more help to participate. Full days, half-day sessions and term-time attendance provide different ways to organise childcare.

Rooms and Ages

Baby Room, Toddler Room, 3 Year Old Room and Preschool Room are the named spaces. These sit within the nursery's overall age range rather than representing a single group of children attending together.

Activities show how experiences differ across stages. Babies took a trip to the duck pond in June 2026, while the older toddler room explored the senses in February 2026. For parents, these are useful examples of the youngest children's experiences, alongside the more elaborate storytelling and practical projects undertaken by preschool children.

Learning and Activities

The EYFS provides the framework for children's learning, development and care: in daily life, that means building language, physical skills and early understanding through play and interaction. Townley House adds concrete topics and activities, rather than relying on a curriculum label to explain its day.

In July 2024, staff introduced shape names and comparisons while children worked with dough, and children practised matching numbers with quantities. Conversations also followed babies' interests: pointing towards the sky prompted words for what they could see. These examples make the teaching easy to picture. Counting and vocabulary were part of an activity already holding a child's attention.

Fairytale Month in February 2026 explored The Gingerbread Man alongside Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Other stories included Little Red Riding Hood and Jack and the Beanstalk. Acting out a story involved expressions and putting events in order, alongside descriptive sentences and mathematical activities. Stories became something children could perform and discuss, giving them several ways to engage with the same theme.

Transport & People Who Help Us, the January 2026 preschool topic, explored emergency workers and their vehicles. Children acted out helping someone as paramedics and practised using bandages. The activity connected imaginative play with understanding when someone might need assistance.

Townley House Hairdressers was a pretend salon set up in July 2025, complete with rollers, clips and a booking area containing a telephone, money and a clipboard. Children discussed the styles their customers wanted. That gave conversation a practical purpose, with requests, decisions and pretend transactions built into the play.

Science Experiments involved weekly preschool investigations in November 2024, exploring how materials change and encouraging questions about what happened. Chicks at Townley House, a project from 2024, let children watch eggs in an incubator and help care for the hatchlings under adult supervision. These are examples of investigations over time, rather than a promise that the same projects run every year.

Outdoor and Community Life

Our Vegetable Garden involved planting, waiting for growth, picking vegetables and examining them after washing. Children could connect the food they eat with the work of growing it. In June 2025, outdoor activities also included water play, games using rackets and beanbags, craft tables and a cushioned reading area. The outdoor space accommodated quieter activity as well as movement.

Community experiences have a clear purpose. During June 2026's Road Safety topic, preschool children walked to the library and park, using pedestrian crossings and noticing traffic signals along the route. A library trip in October 2024 involved choosing books, speaking to the librarian and learning how borrowing works. Everyday journeys became opportunities to practise useful skills.

Christmas in the Community took children to Regenerage, Willowbrooke Residential Home and Lostock Lodge in December 2024 to sing and interact with residents or visitors. Further singing visits to Regenerage and Willowbrooke Residential followed in December 2025. The repeated destinations give these activities continuity and connect nursery life with people outside children's immediate families.

Relationships and Communication

Nursery In A Box is the parent communication app, bringing together photographs, observations, assessments and information about daily routines. Parents can message their child's key person and receive individual or nursery-wide notifications. This gives families a direct route into the child's day, rather than depending entirely on a brief conversation at collection.

The app also handles payments and displays the account balance, including charges for additional sessions, hours and meals. Bringing communication and account information together can make the practical side of nursery easier to manage alongside updates about learning.

Family participation takes a more sociable form through stay-and-play events. The annual Halloween Stay and Play includes shared crafts and activities; costumes featured in the 2025 event. Mothers Day Cafe in March 2026 combined tea, cakes and crafts, while Fathers Day Stay and Play in June 2026 welcomed fathers and other male relatives for football-themed games and activities. These give families opportunities to spend time together in the setting, beyond routine handovers.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

At the July 2024 inspection, Ofsted found effective safeguarding arrangements and good support for children with SEND, including targeted help and collaboration with parents and other professionals. The practical detail matters: support involved understanding an individual child's needs and working with the people already involved in their care.

In July 2024, staff modelled courteous interactions and children listened to one another over lunch, sharing stories about pets and experiences. There was also a specific weakness: adults sometimes gave more attention to children who readily contributed, missing opportunities to help less confident children continue learning. For a parent of a quiet child, that is a meaningful point to explore.

All About Me in September 2025 addressed changes as children moved rooms and preschool children left for primary school. Fact files, self-portraits and representations of families helped children learn about one another. A Circus Graduation Party in July 2025 marked the preschool farewell with juggling balls, spinning plates and stilts. These examples show room changes and leaving nursery being acknowledged through shared activities.

Sessions and Attendance

The address is 60 Wateringpool Lane, Lostock Hall, Preston, PR5 5UA. Opening hours are 7.30am to 6pm, Monday to Friday, with an enquiry form and telephone contact on 01772 510499.

A Full Day runs from 7.30am to 6pm. Half Day Session has two alternatives: 7.30am to 1pm or 12.30pm to 6pm. The afternoon option therefore starts before the morning session finishes, a useful detail when matching the booking to a family's working hours. Term-time-only attendance is also offered, with its own calendar rather than the nursery's year-round pattern.

Bank holidays are closures, and booked sessions on those dates remain payable and cannot be moved to another day. For Christmas 2026, the nursery closes at 1pm on 24 December and reopens at 7.30am on 4 January 2027; fees continue during that closure and those sessions are also non-transferable. Families planning year-round care need to allow for these breaks.

Funding and Paid Extras

Funded childcare includes 15 hours for qualifying two-year-olds, 15 universal hours for three- and four-year-olds, and up to 30 hours for eligible working families. Term-time funded dates are set out separately from term-time attendance dates. Eligibility depends on the family's circumstances and the decision of the relevant funding body.

Meals are included for full-time attendance, full days and morning sessions, while children attending education-grant sessions can buy meals and snacks separately; children attracting Early Years Pupil Premium have no daily meal charge. Breakfast includes cereal, toast and fruit, with milk and water.

Additional private hours and optional trips can carry charges, explained before a child starts. Current prices come in the nursery's written quotation. Nursery In A Box also supports payment for one-off chargeable events, so families should distinguish their usual attendance costs from occasional additions.

• Support for quieter children. The July 2024 improvement point concerned recognising children who need help to stay involved. At a visit, ask how staff now notice a child who watches rather than volunteers, and how they extend that child's learning.
• Paid closure dates. Bank holiday and Christmas sessions remain payable and cannot be transferred. These terms affect the overall cost and require alternative care during closures.
• The complete booking quotation. Meals are treated differently on private and education-grant sessions, with a daily meal-charge exemption for children attracting Early Years Pupil Premium. Ask for a written breakdown of meal charges and optional extras for your chosen pattern.

Townley House suits families considering full days, morning or afternoon half days, or term-time attendance, who value practical topics, community outings and direct communication with a key person. The pretend salon, vegetable growing and repeated Christmas singing visits make its character easy to understand.

The Good judgement provides a dated assessment of quality, while the quieter-child improvement point deserves attention alongside the strengths. For families comfortable with the paid closure terms, the combination of hands-on experiences and several attendance patterns makes this a useful option in Lostock Hall.