Kings Burrow Nursery

A Nature Garden, crops grown for the kitchen and weekly Forest School sessions give Kings Burrow Nursery a recognisable outdoor character. This purpose-built setting in Harestock makes use of woodland, a playground and a playing field, with experiences that extend from investigating insects to helping turn a harvest into food. Outdoor learning has substance here: children have different spaces for movement, exploration and growing.

Ofsted rated the nursery Good at its 25 September 2023 inspection. Its improvement point concerned consistency: practitioners needed a clearer shared understanding of the curriculum so that learning intentions did not vary. That distinction matters for parents weighing an appealing programme against how consistently adults deliver it.

Kings Burrow accepts children from 3 months to 5 years and has 46 places in total. Three rooms organise the nursery day by developmental stage, while full-day, morning, afternoon and privately paid flexible bookings give families different attendance options. The nursery occupies a site on Henry Beaufort School's grounds in Winchester.

Rooms and Ages

Leverets caters for babies from 3 months to around 18 months, combining sensory exploration with a bright room overlooking the field, a reading space, a role-play area and access to its own pop-up garden. A sliding door and large window connect the room visually with the outdoors. A separate cot room gives sleep its own space, rather than making it part of the main play room.

Bunnies takes children from 18 months to around two and a half years, emphasising investigation through real-world materials and natural resources, with an adjoining free-flow playground, a herb garden and a mud kitchen. Children can follow an idea between indoor play and outdoor exploration. Bikes, climbing equipment, tyres and balancing beams add practical opportunities to test movement and judgement.

Hares serves children from around two and a half to four years, concentrating on independent thinking and school preparation through a large indoor room and a free-flow area with herbs, a sand tray and somewhere to read. The room's daily pre-school skills sessions include playful letter recognition, problem-solving and fine-motor work. These are concrete forms of preparation, alongside learning to share and work with other children.

Learning and Activities

The EYFS provides the framework for children's learning, development and care; here, its areas of learning are explored through play, conversation, movement and investigation. Kings Burrow gives its room curriculum three named stages: Explore means sensory discovery for Leverets, Investigate centres on trying ideas out in Bunnies, and Challenge asks Hares children to solve problems and think independently. The progression makes the intended differences between the rooms easy for families to understand.

Weekly Forest School sessions use the Nature Garden and surrounding field for practical outdoor learning, mixing activities chosen by children with organised experiences. Den building, working with clay, outdoor art and using tools are among the examples. Bunnies and Hares both take part, giving these older groups a recurring reason to use the wooded space beyond ordinary outdoor play.

Didi dance visits every Tuesday for Bunnies and Hares, using music and movement to practise listening and physical skills. Debutots comes every other Thursday with interactive stories and drama, while Zoolab's annual visit brings animals into a storytelling experience.

In September 2023, practitioners used rhymes and introduced vocabulary, including modelling pronunciation. Older children explored mathematics with bowls and colanders, while a friendship-potion activity prompted discussion about kindness.

Outdoor and Community Life

The Nature Garden supplies trees to climb, insects to seek and natural materials for making things. Its tree cover offers summer shade and winter shelter. The playground brings a different kind of physical play, with climbing equipment, scooters and bikes, while the field is used for football, races, outdoor yoga and listening walks. Younger children also use it for cloud watching and musical exploration.

An allotment within the playground connects growing with eating: children sow and tend fruit, vegetables and flowers, then help the cook use the harvest. Courgette cake and home-grown lettuce are specific examples of that link. The nursery has achieved the Level 5 RHS Gardening Award, but the more useful detail for families is the complete sequence from planting to preparing food.

Off-site experiences vary by room. Leverets has library trips; Bunnies goes to activities such as library rhyme time and feeding ducks; Hares visits places including a care home and supermarket. These give children reasons to use their developing communication and curiosity beyond the nursery's own spaces, without implying a fixed timetable for outings.

For babies, continuity starts with the key person during settling sessions. Staff work with parents to keep routines close to those used at home, and the Leverets room combines daily conversations with the Famly app to share care updates and achievements. That is a practical partnership: sleep and other routines can be discussed alongside what a child has been exploring.

At the September 2023 inspection, Ofsted found safeguarding effective and described secure relationships with key people, responsive reassurance and support for children learning English as an additional language. In September 2023, that language support included pictures for communication and staff learning basic words from children's home languages. Children were also helped to judge outdoor risks, including balancing and tree climbing, rather than being left to work these out alone.

School preparation extends beyond activities in Hares. Each year, teachers are invited to meet children, and visits to local schools include outdoor sessions and other activities. Meeting adults and experiencing another setting can make the change more familiar; it is preparation for a transition, rather than a promise about admission.

Meals and snacks are prepared on site and included in fees, together with nappies and suncream. Children also help the cook turn allotment produce into food, so the kitchen connects with their gardening experiences as well as supplying meals.

Sessions and Attendance

The address is Henry Beaufort School, Priors Dean Road, Harestock, Winchester, SO22 6JJ. Kings Burrow opens Monday to Friday from 7.30am to 6pm and operates for 51 weeks each year, with closures for bank holidays, Christmas and inset days.

A full day runs from 7.30am to 5.30pm. The AM session is 8am to 1pm, and the PM session runs from 1pm to 5.30pm. Early Session covers 7.30am to 8am, while Late Session covers 5.30pm to 6pm, providing separate extensions around the main attendance patterns.

The privately paid flexi service allows bookings as short as one hour, subject to availability, and cannot use funded hours.

Enquiries and nursery-viewing arrangements can be made by email, telephone or the enquiry form. Being on the Henry Beaufort School site does not guarantee a Reception place.

Funding and Paid Extras

Government-funded childcare and tax-free childcare payments are accepted. The funded-hours core plan carries an hourly charge, while the fee terms include meals, snacks, nappies, suncream and off-site trips; those inclusive terms also apply to fees for the funded core plan. Families should obtain a current written quotation for their chosen arrangement, using the fees information to identify the relevant booking pattern.

• Curriculum consistency. In September 2023, practitioners needed a more consistent understanding of learning intentions. On a visit, ask how the Explore, Investigate and Challenge stages now guide activities and how staff explain the learning behind them.
• Room progression. Leverets, Bunnies and Hares have approximate age boundaries, and Hares is described for children up to four while the nursery accepts children up to five. Discuss the room and transition arrangements for your child's age and development.
• Funded and flexible bookings. The core plan carries an hourly charge, while flexi bookings cannot use funded hours. Request a written breakdown for the pattern you intend to use, including any private time.

Kings Burrow suits families who want outdoor exploration to run through the nursery day, with growing, woodland activities and substantial space for physical play. It also serves genuinely different attendance needs: full days, morning sessions, afternoon sessions and privately paid flexible hours, with early and late extensions around the main sessions.

A separate cot room for babies and recurring visiting activities complement the outdoor provision. The balance is between the appeal of those experiences and the curriculum inconsistency identified in September 2023.