Stepping Stones Day Nursery & Preschool

A covered garden for babies and an Atelier for older children give Stepping Stones Day Nursery & Preschool a clear identity: exploration starts young, with art and practical independence developing alongside it. This Southend-on-Sea nursery has capacity for 39 children and accepts ages from 3 months to 5 years. Its two rooms separate the youngest children from those ready for more ambitious making and experimenting.

At its 6 April 2022 inspection, Ofsted rated the nursery Good and found that children settled readily, enjoyed learning and made good progress from their starting points. That is a dated judgement. The current offer centres on child-led exploration, reusable materials and rooms designed around different stages of development.

Rooms and Ages

Explorers, for children from 3 months to 2 years, combines treasure baskets and natural play materials with a dedicated kitchen for preparing individual milk feeds, coracles for naps and its own covered garden usable in all weathers. The combination gives babies opportunities to investigate objects while keeping feeding, rest and outdoor play within their room's arrangements.

Discoverers, for ages 2 to 5, contains the Atelier, a research and making space for Transitional Art and experimenting with art materials, alongside real objects for construction, early mark-making and making play dough. Children also practise serving their own meals onto real plates. Practical independence sits beside creative exploration here, rather than being reserved for a separate activity.

Learning and Activities

The Early Years Foundation Stage provides the framework for children's learning, development and care: play and everyday experiences become opportunities to build skills. Alongside it, the nursery uses its Reggio Emelia Inspired approach, which centres on learning through children's experiences and interests. Responsibility towards other people and the environment forms part of that approach.

Planning In The Moment means practitioners support learning as children's activity unfolds, with an emphasis on time spent engaging with children. Together, these approaches make children's interests central to what happens next. The useful question is how adults extend an investigation while preserving the child's opportunity to finish it.

In April 2022, play included movable wooden pieces, tyres and dressing-up resources that children combined for themselves. One baby experimented with the sounds made by a bead chain against a metal plate; older children adapted a structure to accommodate a toy dinosaur. These examples show the kinds of learning that can emerge from open-ended materials: testing an idea, noticing what happens and trying another arrangement.

Outdoor and Community Life

The baby room's covered garden makes outdoor exploration possible across different weather conditions. In April 2022, the mud kitchen also gave children opportunities to investigate plants and petals, including making a scented mixture. Outdoor play connected imaginative activity with handling natural materials.

Environmental choices extend into everyday supplies. Milk arrives in glass bottles, food scraps are composted, and materials including fabric, buttons and bottle tops are reused for artwork. These are concrete examples of reuse that children can encounter through ordinary nursery activity, rather than an environmental message confined to a display.

Relationships and Communication

In April 2022, staff used an app to update parents daily about children's achievements and development. Parents could message staff directly about changes to routines, linking home information with care during the nursery day. That made communication useful for practical adjustments as well as sharing learning.

The same period included supervised opportunities for babies to explore a small wooden frame and gain confidence in climbing. Older children prepared vegetables for snacks with child-safe tools. Both examples put developing independence into manageable activities, with adults supporting children as they attempted something for themselves.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

At the April 2022 inspection, Ofsted judged safeguarding effective and found that staff involved professionals, including a special educational needs coordinator, when development raised concerns, helping children with special educational needs and/or disabilities address gaps in learning. Those findings belong to that inspection date.

Current staff arrangements include paediatric first-aid certification and safeguarding training. Explorers' individual-feed kitchen and nap coracles are practical features for families weighing how a baby's feeding and rest will fit into nursery care.

The nursery provides meals, drinks and snacks, with vegetarian choices; its dietary arrangements cover allergies and religious or cultural preferences. It also supplies reusable cloth nappies and wipes, sanitised between uses.

School preparation was developing in April 2022 through contact with local teachers, invitations for them to visit and preparation of children's assessments for the next stage. This was transition work: helping adults share information about a child as they moved on.

Sessions and Attendance

Opening hours are 7.30am to 6pm, Monday to Friday. The nursery operates across the year, closing for bank holidays and one week at Christmas. For families organising care around work, both the daily closing time and the Christmas closure belong in the planning calendar.

Getting There

The address is 46 Chase Road, Southend-on-Sea, SS1 2RE. Enquiries and requests for a viewing can be made through the contact form or by telephone on 01702 781145.

Funding and Paid Extras

In April 2022, the nursery provided funded early education for children aged two, three and four. That describes participation at the time of the visit, rather than a present-day entitlement or booking arrangement.

• Time to finish exploring. In April 2022, adults sometimes moved babies onto another activity while they were still absorbed in their own exploration. During a viewing, discuss how Planning In The Moment now protects children's time to complete an investigation.
• Books for different stages. In April 2022, the book selection needed to match children's interests and developmental stages more closely. Look at how reading choices work for your child, especially in Discoverers, which spans ages 2 to 5.
• The attendance and funding package. The opening window ends at 6pm, and the nursery closes for a week at Christmas. What booking pattern and funded-hours arrangement would apply to your child, including charges for meals, nappies and wipes?
• Dietary care. Meals cater for food allergies as well as vegetarian and cultural preferences. Families managing an allergy should confirm current practice for their child's requirements during a viewing.

Stepping Stones suits families who value child-led exploration, an art and making space for older children, and practical baby facilities that include a covered garden. Treasure baskets, real plates and reused art materials give that approach a concrete form. Its weekday opening hours and operation across the year will also matter to families fitting care around work.

The April 2022 Good judgement provides a positive inspection position, balanced by specific improvements concerning uninterrupted play and the book selection. For a parent choosing between approaches, the central decision is whether this emphasis on children's investigations and everyday independence matches the experience they want for their child.