Twinkle Twinkle Stars

A Baby Room spread across four smaller spaces, a garden with a vegetable patch, and outings to Ryton Pools give Twinkle Twinkle Stars a recognisable character. This Leamington Spa nursery combines opportunities for children to choose their own activities with practical experiences beyond the building. There is plenty to explore.

At its July 2023 inspection, Ofsted rated the nursery Good and found effective safeguarding, appropriate support for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities, and strong partnerships with parents. That judgement provides a useful foundation, although the improvement priorities deserve equal attention: clearer learning intentions and staff development directed more closely towards teaching.

The nursery has capacity for 36 children, accepting ages from two months to 60 months. Baby, toddler and preschool provision sits alongside a Sensory Room, while morning, afternoon, full-day, school-day and term-time attendance options give families several ways to organise childcare.

Rooms and Ages

The Baby Room occupies four smaller rooms, giving babies separate spaces to explore rather than one large shared environment, with natural materials and daily messy play forming part of their experiences. That physical arrangement is worth weighing alongside the nursery's willingness to work with routines from home. For a baby beginning childcare, both the surroundings and the continuity of familiar routines matter.

In the 2-3's Room, independently accessible resources, a cosy book corner and role play support children in making choices, developing language and learning to work together. Being able to reach and select materials gives children a practical role in deciding what to do. The emphasis moves beyond adult-led entertainment towards participation.

The Pre-School Room combines freely chosen play with experiments, measuring, letters and sounds, and activities intended to develop confidence and sociability before school. Floating and sinking, filling containers and investigating quantities give children concrete problems to explore. School preparation here includes independence and cooperation alongside early literacy.

Lights, colours, patterns and treasure baskets give the Sensory Room its emphasis on exploration through the senses. It adds another kind of play space to the age-based rooms. Children can investigate objects and visual effects, rather than relying only on activities with a predetermined end product.

Learning and Activities

The EYFS provides the shared foundation for learning and care: activities develop communication, physical skills and relationships, alongside literacy, mathematics, creativity and understanding the world. Children can choose activities, and planning allows room for their interests. This is the framework for the day, rather than a branded alternative to it.

Weekly monkey music sessions add a recurring activity to that pattern. Other experiences extend over a longer period: chicks visit annually, and children watch them hatch and learn about looking after them. That creates a concrete opportunity to discuss living things and responsibility, with an experience children can follow as it unfolds.

In July 2023, stories delivered with expression, singing and picture cues on wooden spoons were part of communication and language activities. Babies used the pictures to recognise familiar songs; older children participated in songs with actions. These examples show how the same broad area of learning took different forms for different ages.

At the July 2023 inspection, Ofsted identified that activities did not consistently stretch children's existing knowledge because staff sometimes concentrated more on what children were doing than what they should learn, and recommended more purposeful supervision and professional development to strengthen teaching. The distinction matters: a busy activity programme needs clear educational intent as well as appealing materials.

Outdoor and Community Life

The enclosed garden contains a mud kitchen, a vegetable patch and a sensory house that children use with their key worker. Crates, twigs and other open-ended materials support imaginative construction, while puddle suits allow children to play outside in wet weather. Gardening and making things give outdoor time a purpose beyond running about.

Ryton Pools hosts Forest School activities, an approach centred on learning outdoors. Regular outings also include nature walks and visits to the library, post office and greengrocers, where children take shopping lists. These are practical encounters with the surrounding community: everyday places become opportunities to explore how things work.

Annual pumpkin-picking trips and a theatre visit for a Christmas production add seasonal experiences. Their frequency is annual, while the everyday community outings are regular. Families can therefore distinguish the larger occasions from the more routine trips beyond the nursery.

Relationships and Communication

Each child has a key person who tailors care to their individual needs. Parents meet that practitioner during settling visits, establishing a direct relationship with the person responsible for their child's day-to-day care. For babies, settling includes extra time and comfort, with flexibility around routines used at home.

Twinkle Trackers is the nursery's online system for sharing observations, photographs and videos with families. An email alerts parents to an update, and access uses a personal PIN. Parents can contribute their own pictures and comment on observations, making communication a two-way exchange rather than simply a stream of nursery updates.

In July 2023, key practitioners knew children's interests and developmental stages, and information passed between staff when children changed rooms. Parents also had regular opportunities to discuss learning and received guidance on specific topics. Those arrangements connected daily care, room changes and conversations with home.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

The team holds childcare qualifications, including degree-level qualifications, and staff undertake specialist training that includes Special Educational Needs. Paediatric first-aid certificates, safeguarding training and DBS checks form part of the staffing arrangements. These are concrete arrangements; the dated safeguarding judgement above remains the basis for assessing effectiveness.

In July 2023, staff discussed developmental concerns with parents, monitored children and made referrals when needed. Personal care also involved asking children before helping them, while everyday tasks supported independence: toddlers cleaned their faces after meals and preschool children managed shoes and cleared plates. Care and growing self-reliance worked together.

Menus follow a four-week cycle, with children involved in preparation and menu decisions. In July 2023, food was cooked at the nursery and dietary needs were taken into account. Meal charges and the treatment of nappies are set out below, so the food offer can be considered alongside the cost structure.

Sessions and Attendance

The address is 11 Crown Way, Leamington Spa, CV32 7SF. Opening hours are 7.30am to 6pm, Monday to Friday, across 52 weeks, with bank holidays closed. Families can make an enquiry using the contact form, telephone or email, and book a visit.

Full-day sessions run from 7.30am to 6pm. Morning half-days are 8am to 1pm, and afternoon half-days run from 1pm to 6pm; the school-day session is 8.30am to 3pm. Term-time-only sessions are also offered. These are materially different attendance choices, allowing parents to consider a shorter school-day pattern as well as morning, afternoon or full-day care.

Funding and Paid Extras

Free entitlement sessions and 2Help places are offered alongside privately paid sessions. Funded hours sit within specified attendance patterns, with additional services charged separately. The full-day arrangements include funded windows of 9am to 2pm or 9am to 3pm, while the afternoon half-day has a funded window of 1pm to 4pm. The overall session length and the funded portion therefore need to be considered separately.

Prices include meals and other items apart from nappies; nappies are excluded from that inclusive pricing. The additional-services charges attached to funded arrangements are separate from the funded hours themselves. Current prices come in the nursery's written quotation, and the fees page sets out the attendance and charge structure.

Neither a deposit nor a registration fee is required. Fees are payable ahead of attendance, with payment due on the 28th each month. These terms matter when comparing the initial cost of joining with the recurring payment timetable.

Moving on to School

The nursery describes Telford Infant School as its local feeder school and runs a before and after school club with collection from that school. Nursery attendance does not guarantee a school place; families still use the local authority admissions process. The club gives existing families a potential continuity of childcare, but school admission and club booking remain separate decisions.

Breakfast begins at 7.30am before the journey to school, and children return on foot after school for a hot meal. Club-booking priority applies to children from the nursery's preschool provision when they join Telford Infant School at the start of the school year. That priority concerns the childcare club, not admission to Telford Infant School.

• Purpose behind the activities. The July 2023 improvement priorities concerned learning intentions and teaching development. On a visit, ask how practitioners decide what a child should learn from an activity and how they review that learning afterwards.
• Funded hours within longer sessions. Funded windows and attendance times differ, and additional services carry separate charges. Request a written quotation for your chosen pattern that separates funded hours, additional services and the nappies exclusion.
• The Baby Room arrangement. Babies use four smaller rooms and routines can follow those used at home. Ask how your baby's feeding and sleep routine would fit across those spaces during settling.
• Telford Infant School and club priority. Collection is linked to the named school, and club-booking priority applies to children from the nursery's preschool provision when they join Telford Infant School at the start of the school year. Keep the nursery, school application and future club booking as separate arrangements.

Twinkle Twinkle Stars suits families who value child-chosen play, an enclosed garden with practical activities, and regular experiences beyond the nursery. The Baby Room's smaller spaces and Twinkle Trackers provide concrete points of interest for parents weighing the environment and communication arrangements.

Its attendance choices are another useful strength: morning and afternoon half-days, school-day sessions, full days and term-time options serve different family routines. The July 2023 Good judgement sits alongside clear teaching-development priorities. For parents, the decisive conversation is how the appealing activities connect to purposeful learning, and how the chosen attendance pattern translates into a written charge breakdown.