Woodlands Day Nursery

Bug houses, an outdoor kitchen and real construction materials give Woodlands Day Nursery a practical, outdoorsy character. Nature Garden and Mini Woodlands are places for children to investigate living things, make things and get messy. This is an offer with substance for families who want outdoor exploration to be part of an ordinary nursery day.

On Greenham Business Park in Thatcham, Woodlands accepts children from 3 months to 5 years and has 102 places in total. Four rooms organise the progression from baby care to preschool, with individual gardens and a separate sleeping space beside the baby room. The layout gives different stages their own space rather than expecting babies and older children to share the same activities.

At the 28 November 2022 inspection, Ofsted rated Woodlands Good and judged safeguarding effective. That is a dated assessment, alongside a current offer that includes weekly music, sports for the older rooms and cooking activities. Full-time and part-time attendance are offered, with term-time-only places for teachers subject to a surcharge.

Rooms and Ages

Bunnies, the baby unit with a room age band from birth to 18 months, combines activities for early movement and language with a self-contained garden and an adjoining sleeping room. Babies' routines are matched to home, and daily app updates cover eating, sleep and nappy changes. For a family starting nursery with a young baby, the separation between play and sleep is a useful physical feature: rest has its own space.

Butterflies caters for children around 18 to 26 months, using sensory play, books and a home corner alongside practice with cups and cutlery. Potty use is introduced when a child shows interest, rather than pushed as an expectation of joining this room. These are everyday steps towards independence, with room for children to develop at their own pace.

Hedgehogs takes children from 26 months until after the term in which they turn three, combining communication and social development with small responsibilities, gardening and Cookery Club. Pouring drinks, caring for plants and helping to tidy give independence a practical purpose. The room also incorporates the Progress Check at Two, linked with the child's health visitor review.

Squirrels starts in the term children turn three and continues until school, bringing together play with maths and literacy, hands-on science and technology, Cooking Club and its own outdoor area. An early years teacher works with the room team. Preparation for school includes opportunities to express ideas and manage some mealtime tasks, so the emphasis extends beyond recognising letters or numbers.

Learning and Activities

The Early Years Foundation Stage provides the framework for learning and care: children develop language, movement and social skills through play, alongside early maths, literacy, creativity and exploration of the world. It is the common foundation for early years provision. Woodlands adds concrete activities to that foundation, rather than relying on a curriculum label to explain the day.

Weekly Boogie Mites sessions bring music into every room, with themes connected to the nursery's learning and skills developed as children move between age groups. FootySkills4Kids provides weekly sports sessions for Hedgehogs and Squirrels throughout the year. Group games add opportunities to cooperate as well as practise physical skills; the room coverage matters when judging which activities a younger child will actually encounter.

Cooking has a place in both older rooms. Cookery Club introduces equipment and healthy eating in Hedgehogs, while Cooking Club in Squirrels uses a designated preparation area. Forest School activities in Squirrels include exploring nature and making hot chocolate beside a campfire. Here the outdoor approach has a tangible example, rather than being an unexplained name.

In November 2022, staff followed children's interests when planning activities. Dough-making combined conversation about materials with pouring, mixing and working the dough by hand. The same activity could therefore support vocabulary and physical development. Babies explored soil, while toddlers investigated flour: sensory learning extended across the age groups at that time.

Outdoor and Community Life

Nature Garden supplies binoculars for investigating creatures and natural materials for making shelters for bugs and hedgehogs. Mini Woodlands includes an outdoor kitchen, where children make herb soup and use plants in pretend cooking. The construction area adds bricks, sand, mud and recycled materials. These spaces offer different reasons to go outside, from observing wildlife to building something substantial.

Older children can prepare food over open fires, and four-year-olds are taught to handle adult tools safely, including using a hammer with nails and wood. Willow dens, ponds and a fruit and vegetable garden add further opportunities to investigate the grounds. Families choosing this style of nursery should expect outdoor clothing and messy play to be routine considerations.

Community involvement also has a physical presence: an on-site clothing bank supports the Children’s Air Ambulance. Donations connect reuse with helping others, giving families a simple way to participate in the nursery's charitable work.

Relationships and Communication

A key person gets to know each child's routines, preferences and interests, and shares information about their development. Parents can contact that practitioner by phone, through Parentzone or in a meeting. Each room also has a Room Senior responsible for its team. This gives families both an individual relationship and a room-level point of responsibility.

Before a child starts, settling sessions and a joining plan are arranged; the first visit introduces the key person and creates time to share information about the child. Moving between age groups includes building a relationship with a new key person. For babies, the daily Parentzone update includes care routines as well as activities, making communication about sleep and feeding part of the ordinary day.

At the November 2022 inspection, Ofsted found affectionate relationships and positive parent communication, but asked for more consistent information about children's family backgrounds and better two-way exchanges with other settings. Both improvement points matter: understanding home life and sharing learning information help staff respond to the individual child. Current arrangements invite parents to supply details of any additional setting their child attends, without establishing that the earlier improvement action has been completed.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

Emotion coaching is the behaviour approach: staff listen, identify feelings and help children find a constructive response, while keeping boundaries around actions that hurt others. The distinction is useful for parents of toddlers experiencing frustration. Feelings are acknowledged, and behaviour is addressed through support rather than humiliation.

Where repeated behaviour causes concern, observations and discussions with parents can lead to a Behaviour Support Plan. The SENCO meets parents to discuss it, and staff working with the child are expected to follow its strategies. This is a specific support mechanism, rather than a general promise that every additional need will be met in the same way.

Staff undertake continuing development through internal and external training, with a dedicated training room and apprenticeship links to Chiltern Training and Newbury College. Training includes paediatric first aid, safeguarding and safer sleep. These arrangements describe staff preparation; safeguarding was assessed in November 2022.

Sessions and Attendance

The address is Weber Road, 106 Greenham Business Park, Greenham, Thatcham, RG19 6HW. Opening hours are 8am to 6pm, Monday to Friday, with operation across the year and a Christmas closure of one week. Full-time and part-time attendance are offered; teachers' term-time-only places carry a surcharge.

The Nursery Education Grant arrangements identify morning core hours of 9am to midday and afternoon core hours of 1pm to 4pm. These are funding windows, distinct from the five-hour sessions described in those arrangements. Session changes are permitted only at the start of a new term, and swaps are not offered. That makes a stable weekly pattern more practical than one that changes frequently.

Enquiries can be made through the contact form or by phone, and joining involves a registration form and registration charge, subject to a place being available. Settling is then planned before the start date.

Getting There

Woodlands sits on the A339 between Kingsclere and Newbury and has parking on site. The building is on one level, with broad corridors and a sloped approach to the front door; one raised outdoor area has access by steps or a ramp through the side gate.

Funding and Paid Extras

Funded childcare is offered for eligible children aged nine months, two years and three or four years, running during the weeks set by West Berkshire term dates. Private childcare is also offered. Current prices come in the nursery's written quotation; the fees and funding information explains the charge structure.

Nursery fees include most formula milks, disposable nappies, creams and lotions, plus an afternoon snack, lunch and tea in the relevant sessions. The pricing arrangements are being updated following funding changes, so the quotation needs to distinguish private hours from the funded attendance pattern.

Educatering supplies the nursery's catering, and Woodlands has a nut-free policy with dietary and allergen arrangements. Cakes brought for birthdays must be shop-bought and carry a full ingredient list.

• A stable attendance pattern. Changes to sessions are restricted to the start of a term and swaps are not offered. At a show round, discuss how the full-time, part-time or teachers' term-time pattern would fit your working week.
• Communication across settings. In November 2022, exchanging developmental information with other providers and gathering family-background information consistently were improvement priorities. If your child attends another setting, ask how information is shared in both directions.
• The funded quotation. Pricing arrangements are being updated, and teachers' term-time-only attendance carries a surcharge. Ask for a written breakdown covering your intended hours, meals and consumables so that the funded arrangement is clear before joining.
• Allergies and outdoor routines. The nut-free policy includes restrictions on birthday cakes, while outdoor activities involve nature exploration, cooking and tools. Discuss current allergy practice and how the activities are adapted for your child's age and needs.

Woodlands suits families seeking full-time or part-time nursery attendance with outdoor investigation woven into the day, and teachers considering a term-time arrangement with its surcharge. Nature Garden, Mini Woodlands, weekly music and practical cooking give that preference concrete substance. Baby care also has a useful physical separation between sleeping and play.

The November 2022 Good judgement provides a dated quality assessment, with communication improvement points that deserve attention when a child attends more than one setting. The session-change rule favours predictable attendance, and a clear funded quotation is an essential part of deciding whether the arrangement fits. For families comfortable with those practical terms, the strongest attraction is the combination of outdoor space, age-specific rooms and learning through real tasks.