Greenfields Nursery School

A tree house, mud kitchen and countryside setting give Greenfields Nursery School a clear outdoor identity. Based within the Shipston-on-Stour Rugby Club grounds, this Mayo Road nursery combines space for imaginative play with a key worker approach to care. The outdoor provision is practical as well as picturesque: children have three play areas and an additional outdoor learning space, so movement and exploration have a substantial place in the day.

Ofsted rated Greenfields Outstanding at its 15 July 2022 inspection. That is a dated judgement, rather than a description of every aspect of today's provision. The strongest current reasons to consider it are the outdoor spaces, individual settling sessions and a curriculum that includes play, communication and preparation for room changes and school.

Greenfields accepts children aged 9 to 60 months and has 91 places in total. Full and part-time daycare are offered.

Rooms and Ages

Spring Greens, with a room age band of 8 months to 2 years, combines creative and messy play, early exploration of colours and numbers, and stories and songs in a purpose-built space with garden decking. The room's age band sits alongside the nursery's overall starting age of 9 months. Its decking provides another surface for play, with natural shade in summer, rather than keeping the youngest children's experience entirely indoors.

The Little Room, for ages 2 to 3, brings together pretend play, singing and stories with its own outdoor area, a quiet room and child-height washing and toilet facilities. Children have space for both active and quieter play. A potty area and nappy-changing facility accommodate different stages of independence.

For children aged 3 to 4, The Big Room uses several connected rooms for simultaneous activities in smaller groups, with child-height bathroom facilities and an emphasis on pretend play, movement, stories and early science. The layout gives activities their own space and supports everyday independence.

Learning and Activities

The Early Years Foundation Stage provides the framework for children's learning and development through play: communication through stories and songs, early understanding of colours, shapes and numbers, and learning to share and make friends. At Greenfields, play is accompanied by reports at entry, room transitions, the two-year check and the end of preschool. These give parents a sequence of opportunities to understand development as their child moves through nursery, rather than relying on one final account before school.

Jolly Phonics introduces letters through songs, signs and visual recognition, beginning in The Little Room and continuing in The Big Room.

Science club, French, music, tennis and yoga also feature in nursery life. Science club adds opportunities for investigation; in July 2022, children explored what happened when water was added to coloured sweets, making predictions before watching the colours spread. That example gives a concrete picture of learning through experimentation, rather than simply naming science as an activity.

During July 2022, children also decided between stories by voting with a show of hands. The exercise brought language and social decision-making together: children expressed a preference, agreed a way to choose and accepted a result that did not match everyone's first choice. Books extended beyond nursery through room lending libraries, allowing families to borrow stories for home.

Outdoor and Community Life

The Outdoor Classroom has lighting and heating, supporting use through the year when weather allows. Classes take place there, bringing organised activities into the outdoor provision rather than treating outside time solely as a break from learning. The tree house and mud kitchen add settings for imaginative play, while the surrounding countryside gives the nursery its recognisable setting.

In July 2022, younger children watched wildlife from decking beside planting that included herbs. Children were also interested in growing and caring for plants. These were tangible encounters with living things, with observation and conversation built around what children could see close by. At that time, links with the local library, rugby club and schools also connected nursery learning to the wider community.

Relationships and Communication

An allocated key worker is the main contact for each child's care and development, while other staff in the room also contribute observations. This gives parents a clear person to speak to, with responsibility for understanding their child over time. The arrangement also supports conversations about learning at home, so care and development need not be treated as separate subjects.

Individual warm-up sessions help children become familiar with nursery before their attendance develops. Their practical value is the opportunity to introduce a child gradually to new people and routines. Alongside the entry and transition reports, this makes settling and movement between rooms explicit parts of the nursery's approach.

In July 2022, parents could view assessments through an online portal. Older children took part in small-group conversations about changes such as starting school, including how those changes made them feel. For younger children, staff acknowledged sadness and frustration and introduced words to describe feelings; opportunities for sleep and rest were also part of care.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

At its July 2022 inspection, Ofsted found that babies had close relationships with their key person, children with additional needs benefited from regular assessment and effective work with outside agencies, and safeguarding arrangements were effective.

Food follows a group-wide approach: nursery chefs develop seasonal menus on a three-week rotation, covering breakfast, snacks, lunch and tea, with freshly prepared food. The group operates a No Nuts Policy that aims to avoid nuts and nut traces, offers alternatives for dietary and cultural requirements, and uses coloured plates to identify food requirements.

Sessions and Attendance

Opening hours are 8am to 6pm, Monday to Friday. Full and part-time daycare are offered, with term-time funded sessions for preschool children. These are different attendance arrangements within the opening window, so the hours should not be read as requiring every child to attend for the whole day.

Greenfields opens for 50 weeks of the year and follows the Warwickshire school academic year, with an optional Holiday Club during school holidays for nursery children. Holiday Club booking forms are issued 3 to 4 weeks before the holiday starts. Families needing holiday attendance therefore have a separate booking step to plan around.

Enquiries can be made by telephone on 01608 663672 or by email to info@greenfieldsnurseryshipston.co.uk. Personal tours can also be requested. A dedicated buggy store offers somewhere to leave a pushchair during the day, which may simplify the practical arrangements around attendance.

Getting There

The address is Mayo Road, Shipston-on-Stour, CV36 4BH, within the rugby club grounds. Onsite parking supports families travelling by car.

Funding and Paid Extras

Term-time sessions are offered for children using the universal 15 hours and extended 30 hours funding. Private daycare is also offered; current prices come in the nursery's written quotation. The distinction matters for budgeting because funded attendance and additional paid care should be considered separately.

For Spring Greens, a non-refundable deposit is payable when a child is registered, but it is deducted from the first invoice if the child takes up the place. This condition matters when deciding when to commit: the credit depends on attendance actually starting.

• Outdoor access for your child's stage. Spring Greens has decking, The Little Room has its own outdoor area, and the wider provision includes The Outdoor Classroom. During a tour, ask how your child's room uses those spaces across the day and in different weather.
• The attendance calendar. Term-time funded sessions and a separately booked Holiday Club serve different needs. Ask how your intended term-time and holiday pattern would work together, including meals and non-food consumables in the written quotation.
• Dietary requirements. The group-wide No Nuts Policy aims to avoid nuts and traces, and coloured plates identify food requirements. Allergy-affected families should confirm current practice and discuss their child's individual arrangements before starting.

Greenfields suits families seeking either full or part-time daycare who value outdoor play, a consistent key worker contact and gradual settling. Term-time funded sessions and the optional Holiday Club also make it relevant to families planning around the school calendar. The tree house, mud kitchen and heated outdoor classroom give that offer tangible substance.

The Outstanding judgement belongs to July 2022; the room environment, settling arrangements and attendance pattern should also fit the individual child.