Hazel Tree Montessori

Independence here has a practical shape: pouring, polishing, choosing an activity and learning to look after personal belongings. Hazel Tree Montessori, on Edgeley Road in Stockport, combines a Montessori approach to learning through children’s own choices with an emphasis on everyday skills. This is an appealing starting point for parents who want children to become capable participants in nursery life.

At its 14 June 2022 inspection, Ofsted rated the nursery Outstanding overall. It has capacity for 45 children, from birth to four years old; that whole-nursery figure should not be read as the size of an individual group. Full days and separate morning and afternoon sessions give families different attendance patterns.

Learning and Activities

The EYFS provides the framework for children’s learning, development and care, including learning about feelings, relationships and the world around them. Montessori sits alongside it as the nursery’s educational approach: children choose tasks, handle materials and investigate ideas, with adults supporting their discoveries. The group-wide Montessori philosophy gives mistakes a place in learning rather than treating them as a reason to stop trying.

Activities of Everyday Living, a named part of the group-wide curriculum, brings practical skills into the day through threading, pouring and polishing. These are manageable tasks with a visible purpose. Children can practise coordination while doing something for themselves or their surroundings, rather than working only with abstract exercises.

The curriculum also uses sensorial equipment to explore differences such as temperature, dimensions and colour. Language work connects letters with their sounds and shapes, including sandpaper letters that children experience through touch. Mathematics connects a number symbol with the quantity it represents before moving to more complex ideas. The materials give children several ways into a concept.

Creative activity includes freely accessible resources for making marks, alongside construction with blocks indoors and outside. Jo-Jingles adds a visiting music and rhythm session, with a separate activity charge. Its purpose is to encourage expression and confidence through music; parents choosing it should include that extra in their budget. More detail about the educational approach is on the curriculum page.

Outdoor and Community Life

In June 2022, children used individual mats to mark out their working space and sought permission before joining someone else’s activity. That arrangement gave a physical boundary to the idea of respecting another child’s concentration. Choosing an activity also involved voting with personalised blocks placed beside objects representing the options. Children had a concrete way to express a preference.

Babies explored ice containing mint and citrus during that same period, using texture and temperature as starting points for discovery. Outdoors, staff encouraged jumping and climbing when children needed more confidence with movement. These examples show how sensory exploration and physical challenge could be adapted to different stages, rather than expecting babies and preschool children to learn in the same way.

Relationships and Communication

Settling sessions are organised around the needs of the child, family and nursery. For children with an identified or suspected additional need, the group-wide SEND policy provides for extra settling opportunities so that families and staff can build familiarity before the child’s attendance develops.

In June 2022, relationships with key people were familiar enough for a young child to associate nursery with the adult caring for them. At mealtimes, children waited for others to finish serving and then ate together. Adults demonstrated considerate behaviour in their own interactions, making social expectations part of ordinary routines.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

At the June 2022 inspection, Ofsted found safeguarding effective and judged that children with SEND made excellent progress, supported by plans reviewed regularly.

The group-wide SEND policy assigns a SENDCO to each nursery and uses the Graduated Approach, a cycle of assessing needs, planning support, putting it into practice and reviewing it. Parents are included throughout. Where outside help is needed, referrals require parental consent; possible professionals include speech and language therapists and occupational therapists. Team Around the Child meetings bring families and professionals together to coordinate support.

Moving to school or another nursery includes transferring developmental information with written parental consent. For a child receiving additional support, a meeting with the next setting and involved professionals helps plan the handover.

Meals are made on site, with breakfast, lunch, tea and snacks, and menus change between winter and summer. The food policy excludes nut products and provides for menu adjustments with parents when children have allergies.

Sessions and Attendance

The address is 38 Edgeley Road, Edgeley, Stockport, SK3 9NQ. Opening hours run from 7.45am to 6pm on weekdays, but the Full Day Session runs from 8am to 6pm. The Half Day Morning Session is 8am to 1pm; the Half Day Afternoon Session runs from 1pm to 6pm. The earlier opening therefore needs to be distinguished from the standard full-day booking.

Attendance runs across the year, with closures for bank holidays and Christmas. The admissions policy also allows up to four working days of closure for refurbishment or decorating, usually alongside holiday periods. Monthly charges account for these closures. Additional sessions can be requested by email, but ordinary weekly sessions cannot be swapped.

Enquiries can be made through the contact form, by telephone or by email. Admissions operate in order of application, with priority for siblings already attending and children booked full time. A place is confirmed after the registration form, registration charge and deposit requirements have been met. Current prices come in the nursery’s written quotation; the fees and registration page explains the booking terms.

Funding and Paid Extras

The nursery offers early education funding for two-year-olds, universal funding from the term after a child’s third birthday and eligible working-parent funding from the term after a child turns nine months. The 30-hour entitlement is stretched to 22 hours a week across the year, and the 15-hour entitlement to 11 hours. Attendance beyond funded hours is privately charged.

Meals, snacks and hygiene consumables on funded days attract a separate optional charge. Families can choose to provide food and hygiene items themselves when using wholly funded days on Mondays or Fridays, following the consumables policy; changing that choice requires a term’s notice. Private and mixed funded/private bookings provide meals, snacks and hygiene items, with the consumables charge applying to funded days. Parents supply nappies, nappy cream and formula milk.

A non-refundable registration charge and refundable deposit apply. Deposit repayment requires written cancellation notice of four weeks and accounts to be settled. Leaving also requires four weeks’ notice, with that period payable; reducing sessions requires at least four weeks, and the reduction starts on the first day of the following month after the notice period. Holiday absence does not reduce the bill.

• Funding and attendance. Wholly funded days with parent-provided food and hygiene items follow the Monday or Friday arrangement. Compare that pattern with the days your family actually needs before choosing a booking.
• Changing your booking. Reducing sessions involves both a minimum notice period and a month-start effective date. Build that timing into any planned change in working hours or childcare arrangements.
• Your child’s introduction. Settling is tailored to the child and family. During a visit, discuss how the introductory sessions and key-person relationship would work for your child, including any additional support.
• Food allergies. The menu policy excludes nut products and allows adaptations with parents. Confirm current preparation and allergy arrangements for your child before relying on that policy.

Hazel Tree Montessori suits parents drawn to practical independence, tactile learning materials and children having a say in their activities. Its June 2022 Outstanding judgement provides a strong dated assessment, while the educational offer gives concrete reasons to consider it beyond the grade.

Families can choose full days, mornings or afternoons, so its appeal extends across different working and childcare patterns. The main planning work concerns funding: stretched hours, the wholly funded Monday and Friday arrangement, and separate extras need to fit the family’s intended attendance. For parents comfortable with those terms, the combination of Montessori learning and individual settling arrangements gives this nursery a clear character.