Toddletown Day Nursery Farnham

A separate preschool building reached through the garden gives Toddletown Day Nursery Farnham a clear physical character. Maple Square has direct outdoor access, while younger children have their own named rooms. Art displays, reading corners and spaces for imaginative play add quieter choices alongside the outdoor activity. This is a setting with several ways for children to spend their day, rather than one large shared playroom.

At its August 2024 inspection, Ofsted rated the nursery Outstanding and found safeguarding effective. The strongest examples involved children experimenting with unusual objects, making things outdoors and learning alongside children of different ages. Those details give the judgement substance: curiosity was expressed through practical play, with staff responding to what interested children.

The nursery has capacity for 88 children aged three months to five years. Its home is The Pump House on Kimbers Lane, close to Farnham town centre and Farnham train station. Full-day bookings run from 8am to 6pm, with a minimum of two days each week except for children attending only Early Years Education Entitlement sessions.

Rooms and Ages

Buttercup Close & Puddle Lane are the baby rooms, described together as welcoming up to 12 babies a day, with bright interiors, planning shaped around individual interests and routines that follow familiar patterns from home, including sleep in the room itself.

Daisy Row has capacity for 16 toddlers and uses loose materials for open-ended play, with the room changing around children's interests so that experimenting and making choices can develop alongside managing manageable risks.

Willow Way accommodates up to 16 children between the toddler and preschool stages, bringing together construction, sensory exploration and early mark-making with an emphasis on communication, taking turns and becoming more independent.

Maple Square accommodates up to 32 preschool children in its separate building, combining quiet areas and physical play with free access to the garden and loose materials for inventing, solving problems and testing ideas.

The progression is useful to understand. Willow Way provides an intermediate stage before Maple Square, rather than treating the move from toddler care to preschool as a single jump. For babies, the organisation of Buttercup Close & Puddle Lane matters alongside the shared emphasis on individual interests and familiar home routines.

Learning and Activities

The early years foundation stage provides the required framework for learning, development and care: in everyday terms, play gives children opportunities to communicate, move, explore and practise social skills. Farnham's concrete additions include Makaton, a communication programme that combines spoken language with signs and pictures. It is embedded in daily routines, giving children another way to express themselves alongside speech.

In August 2024, the Narnia cabin contained unfamiliar objects, including a dial telephone and an old camcorder. Older children also visited a charity shop to find more objects for play. The point was exploration: an object could become whatever children imagined, rather than having one prescribed use. That is a more revealing example of the nursery's approach than a general promise about creativity.

Other August 2024 activities made everyday materials part of learning. Children turned damson juice into paint and used plants to apply it; smoothie-making involved preparing fruit, using their senses and exploring new vocabulary. These examples connected practical tasks with language and experimentation. They also gave children something tangible to investigate, rather than asking them simply to listen.

ZooLab visited the preschool children in December 2025 for storytelling followed by encounters with animals from the story, including a tree frog and an African land snail. This was a particular visit, rather than a weekly programme. It linked a shared story with direct observation and questions about living things.

Outdoor and Community Life

The garden connects the different age groups as well as the buildings. In August 2024, babies and toddlers played near older children and siblings; children built with small bricks and wet sand, while blocks and crates became obstacle courses. The mixed-age play created opportunities for younger children to watch and imitate, and for older children to take account of smaller companions.

Gardening also featured in August 2024, with children tending vegetables and adding herbs to outdoor potion-making. Older children took part in yoga after lunch. Litter-picking prompted questions about waste collection, followed by a letter to refuse collectors and a visit from their truck. These were practical connections between nursery play and the world outside it, rather than abstract lessons about community.

Relationships and Communication

Settling for babies starts with staff learning their preferences from families. Home routines, including sleep, shape the nursery day, and babies sleep within their familiar room. For a child starting childcare, that makes routine a useful bridge between home and nursery rather than something families have to replace immediately.

Famly provides day-to-day updates, access to the child's learning journey and invoice payment. Parents therefore have a route into both the practical administration and the account of their child's experiences. The value lies in connecting the two: families can follow what their child has been doing while managing the booking.

At the August 2024 inspection, Ofsted found that staff identified gaps in learning promptly, used signing to support younger children's communication and worked effectively with parents, including through a lending library about matters such as toilet training and new siblings. This is specific evidence of support at that date, rather than a blanket assurance about every future need.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

In August 2024, staff sought babies' and toddlers' agreement during personal care, including nappy changes and wiping noses. A sand timer helped children wait while an adult finished a conversation. Both examples show how ordinary moments could give children a voice and make boundaries understandable.

School preparation extends beyond the preschool room. A Readiness for School Workshop in April 2024 explained preparation for Reception and what local teachers wanted children to be able to do; the July 2026 graduation celebration included singing with sign language. These were opportunities to involve families and mark a transition, rather than claims about admission to a particular school.

Zebedees prepares and delivers the hot lunch and afternoon tea; children attending a full day also receive breakfast and a morning snack. Meals and snacks are included in private fees, while funded sessions have separate food charges, so the same daily provision has different payment arrangements.

Sessions and Attendance

Full-day sessions run from 8am to 6pm, Monday to Friday. The minimum booking is two full days weekly, but this rule does not apply to children attending Early Years Education Entitlement sessions only. Childcare is not sold by the hour, which matters if a family needs a short, irregular block rather than a day-based arrangement.

The nursery opens across 51 weeks, closing for a Christmas week, bank holidays and two inset days. Early starts and later finishes can be requested. Those extensions need to be part of the agreed booking, rather than assumed from the core day.

A registration charge applies except to entitlement-only attendance. Once a booking has been accepted, ending the agreement requires two months' written notice; changes to an entitlement attendance pattern require a term's written notice. Families whose work pattern may change should weigh those commitments alongside the session itself.

Getting There

The address is The Pump House, Kimbers Lane, Farnham, GU9 9PT, close to Farnham train station and the town centre. Parent enquiries can be made through the Farnham enquiry form or the dedicated telephone team.

Funding and Paid Extras

Eligible working families can use the entitlement for children aged nine months to four years. The entitlement is 30 hours across 38 weeks, delivered here on a stretched basis across 51 weeks as 22.35 hours weekly. Access begins in the term after the child reaches nine months, subject to eligibility, so entitlement age and the start of funded attendance are separate points.

Funding is applied to full-day sessions first, with residual funded hours used against another day in the permanent booking pattern. Hours beyond the entitlement are charged privately. This makes the booking pattern central to the bill: a funded entitlement does not mean every hour of a booked day is funded.

Private fees include food, formula where required, nappies, wipes, creams and other consumables, as well as specialist activities and the parent app. For funded hours, meals and snacks and non-food consumables are charged separately. Parents can opt out under the nursery's alternative-provision policies, giving one month's notice before the next term; changes cannot be made part-way through a term.

Current prices come in the nursery's written quotation. The fees page explains the included categories, while the funded booking needs its own clear account of additional hours and extras.

• Baby-room organisation. Buttercup Close & Puddle Lane are described together with a daily maximum of 12 babies. At a visit, ask how children are divided between the rooms and how sleep and settling work in the room your baby would use.
• Day-based commitment. Private bookings require two full days weekly, while entitlement-only attendance is exempt. Consider that minimum alongside the two-month notice needed to end an accepted booking.
• Funded extras. Stretched funding sits within full-day bookings, with separate food and consumables charges. Ask for a written illustration of your intended pattern, including the alternative-provision arrangements if you plan to opt out.
• Extended collection. Core opening hours are 8am to 6pm, while the contact page gives an 8am to 6.30pm window. Later finishes are offered by request, so confirm the agreed collection time when arranging a tour or booking.

Toddletown Farnham suits families seeking play built around exploration, substantial outdoor access and a gradual progression from baby rooms to a separate preschool building. Makaton in everyday routines and Maple Square's garden access give that offer concrete shape; the August 2024 Outstanding judgement adds a strong dated assessment of the education and care.

Its attendance model serves both private full-day bookings and entitlement-only arrangements, with the latter exempt from the usual minimum. The practical trade-off is a day-based model with notice commitments and funded extras that deserve close attention. Families comfortable with those terms have substantial reasons to consider it, especially if familiar baby routines, communication through signing and open-ended preschool play match their priorities.