Lambkins Day Nursery & Pre-School Centre

Egg collecting, lamb feeding and a paddock for Forest School give Lambkins Day Nursery & Pre-School Centre a clear rural character. At Langwathby Hall, near Penrith, outdoor exploration sits alongside baby care, creative work and preparation for school. This is a nursery for families who want nature to feature in their child's ordinary day, with room to get muddy and investigate real materials.

At its October 2022 inspection, Ofsted rated Lambkins Outstanding and found that carefully sequenced learning, purposeful staff conversations and early identification of learning needs supported excellent progress. That judgement is dated. The current offer has its own substantial detail: named age-group rooms, a communal art space, books to borrow and regular nature-based sessions.

Children are accepted from three months to five years, with capacity for 90 children in total. Lambkins opens on weekdays from 7.45am to 6pm. Its combination of rural surroundings and practical parent communication is the strongest reason to consider it: outdoor experiences are accompanied by a key person, gradual settling sessions and updates about learning.

Rooms and Ages

Adventure Nest and Adventure Cove serve the youngest children, up to age two, combining sensory activities and space for crawling with sleep and changing areas within the baby suites. Keeping these everyday care functions close to the play space makes the room arrangement relevant to families weighing how their baby's routine will work. Home routines are maintained wherever possible, and a baby diary records the day's events.

Explorers Den, for two- to three-year-olds, develops investigation and independence through play, with toilet training incorporated into nursery life in partnership with parents. Discovery Den, for children aged three to five, brings together early writing, sounds, number activities and creative work in a light room overlooking the river Eden. These are different stages of nursery life, rather than identical activities offered to every age group.

Shared spaces extend what happens in the age-group rooms. The Atelier gives children access to sewing, pottery, painting and baking, and allows siblings and friends of different ages to spend time together. The Library supports stories, poems and music in smaller groups; children can also borrow books to share with their families. That takes a familiar nursery experience into home life.

Learning and Activities

The Early Years Foundation Stage provides the framework for learning through play, including communication, physical development, relationships, literacy and mathematics. At Lambkins, this means children practise expressing themselves, investigating ideas and becoming more independent through supported activity. It is the foundation of the day; the named resources and outdoor approach add the setting's own character.

Letters and Sounds supports speaking, listening and early phonics, while Jolly Phonics introduces work with combining sounds and separating words into sounds. These resources give parents a clearer picture of early reading preparation than a general promise of school readiness. The learning through play page explains how these sit alongside the broader learning framework.

In October 2022, children used wooden pallets to make a pretend forklift truck, and staff extended house-building play with conversations about building materials and different homes. Those examples show how practical play became an opportunity to explore ideas and language. During the same period, older children had regular French lessons, including learning colour words, and children tried unfamiliar foods during Italian day.

Outdoor and Community Life

Forest School means regular, hands-on learning in a natural setting. Lambkins holds sessions in its paddock, where children help direct activities, explore supervised tree climbing and experiment with rope games; occasional trips introduce other environments. Children discuss what they have done and what they want to try next. The practical value is time to revisit an idea, rather than treating outdoor learning as a single excursion.

The group-wide Nature Gate philosophy links outdoor opportunities with seasonal exploration, natural objects and everyday materials indoors. At this branch, the garden includes a mud kitchen, an animal area, rolling hills and a planting area. The variety matters: outdoor play can involve physical movement, imaginative cooking, observing animals or watching things grow, rather than relying on one type of equipment.

In October 2022, children cooked bread over a fire, worked with hammers and nails on tree stumps, and used wheelbarrows to move objects. These were practical experiences involving patience, effort and decisions about risk. Parents also joined their children for an experience involving birds of prey. The dated examples add substance to the nursery's emphasis on nature and hands-on activity.

Relationships and Communication

Each child has a key person who follows their development and builds a relationship with the family. Settling sessions introduce nursery gradually and give parents time to discuss individual needs. Together, these arrangements provide a clear starting point for sharing the routines, preferences and concerns that matter before a child becomes familiar with the setting.

Moves between rooms include written handover information from the existing key person to the next, with parents contributing their comments. Parents' evenings take place every six months, and progress is shared termly through the famly app. The app also carries observations, photographs and videos, while the family newsfeed shares nursery news and events. Parents therefore have several ways to follow learning, alongside conversations with staff at the beginning and end of sessions.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

SEND identification forms part of monitoring children's development, with activities adjusted around their interests and next steps and parents involved when progress raises concerns. The team includes SENCO and designated safeguarding responsibilities, and all staff hold paediatric first aid certificates. These are identifiable arrangements, rather than a general promise that every need will be met in the same way.

At the October 2022 inspection, Ofsted found safeguarding effective and reported that timely work with other agencies and effective use of additional funding helped children with SEND make significant progress. Those findings describe that inspection period. Current safeguarding arrangements include designated leads, staff training and updates, recruitment checks and a policy requiring at least two adults to be present.

A cook prepares meals on site, with breakfast, lunch and tea, fruit or vegetable snacks, and menus that change from week to week. Vegetarian and other special diets are catered for, while babies' weaning follows parents' routines and expressed breast milk can be stored. Food and feeding therefore sit within the discussion of individual care, rather than being separate from it.

Sessions and Attendance

The address is Langwathby Hall, Langwathby, Penrith, CA10 1LW. Current opening hours are 7.45am to 6pm, Monday to Friday; Lambkins operates throughout the year, closing for bank holidays and one week at Christmas. Those closures matter when planning childcare around work, especially for families who need cover during the festive period.

Appointments to look around can be arranged by telephone or email, and parents can register their interest through the contact route. Gradual settling sessions form part of joining, with time to introduce a child to nursery and discuss their individual needs. This gives the first stage of attendance a practical purpose beyond simply becoming familiar with the rooms.

Funding and Paid Extras

Funded childcare is offered for eligible two-year-olds, alongside private childcare. Families should obtain a current written quotation for their intended attendance through the nursery's fees and funding page. Eligibility is a condition of the funded offer, so it should not be read as an entitlement for every child of that age.

Lambkins accepts most childcare vouchers. Keeping the attendance quotation and funding arrangements together gives families a basis for understanding the childcare they are booking and how they will pay for it.

• Outdoor expectations. Forest School, rolling hills and the mud kitchen make outdoor exploration a substantial part of the offer. During a visit, discuss how your child's age, confidence and clothing needs fit these experiences.
• Baby routines. Adventure Nest and Adventure Cove combine play, sleep and changing facilities, and home routines are followed wherever possible. Use settling sessions to discuss your baby's sleep and feeding pattern.
• Individual support. Development monitoring and parental involvement are built into the SEND approach. Families seeking additional support should use their visit to discuss the practical arrangements their child would need.
• The attendance quotation. Opening hours span the working day, and eligible two-year-olds can receive funded childcare. Which attendance patterns and funded hours would your quotation cover, and how would meals and non-food consumables be treated?

Lambkins suits families who want rural outdoor experiences woven into nursery life, from the baby years through preparation for school, and whose childcare needs fit its weekday opening window. The paddock, Atelier and lending Library give that proposition substance. So do the room handovers, settling sessions and parent communication arrangements.

The Outstanding judgement from October 2022 is an important part of the picture, with its age kept clear. For a present-day decision, the strongest practical fit is between your child's routines and support needs, the outdoor emphasis and the attendance quotation. Families comfortable with muddy exploration and hands-on making have clear reasons to put Lambkins on their list.