Chartam House Day Nursery

A Victorian house, a south-facing garden and a baby room capped at nine children give Chartam House Day Nursery a recognisable shape. This Maidenhead setting cares for children from 3 months to 5 years. The nursery is registered for 42 places. The youngest children have a quiet sleeping area with an individual cot, while outdoor space provides room for movement, messy play and stories.

At its March 2025 inspection, Ofsted rated the nursery Good and found safeguarding effective, with trusting relationships between children and staff and a curriculum that developed curiosity and physical skills. There were also clear improvement priorities: outdoor learning for older children needed better organisation, and individual staff coaching needed greater precision. Those points matter alongside the positive judgement.

Only full-day sessions are offered. The practical appeal is therefore a consistent day of care, rather than a choice between morning and afternoon bookings.

Rooms and Ages

First Mates Room accommodates up to nine children aged three months to two years, combining sensory and imaginative activities with a main play space, a separate changing area and a quiet area containing a cot for each baby. For parents choosing baby care, that room limit and the separation of sleep from activity are useful concrete details.

Captains Room serves children aged two to three years, with a maximum of twelve, and encourages child-led construction, music and role play through a home corner, book balcony and direct garden access. That outdoor connection gives children a practical way to move between indoor play and the garden.

Upstairs, Admirals Room serves children aged three to five years, emphasising independence and early literacy and numeracy through phonics, recognising letters and numbers, and introductory reading and writing. Preparation for school includes everyday self-care as well as learning activities: putting on clothing and handling fastenings gives children practice in doing things for themselves.

Learning and Activities

The Early Years Foundation Stage guides learning through play, with individual weekly plans connecting indoor and outdoor activities to each child's development. Children's interests shape those plans. This gives the day a balance between their own choices and activities organised by practitioners, rather than treating play and learning as separate parts of nursery life.

Open-ended materials, puzzles, books and sensory resources give younger children different ways to explore. Older children have opportunities to make choices about their play and routines. The emphasis is practical: expressing a preference, investigating a material or trying something independently becomes part of learning.

In March 2025, babies used percussion and familiar songs, while older children practised yoga movements. Language developed through different experiences across the ages: younger children used signs to communicate, and older children explored vocabulary while learning how plants take up water. Books were part of shared activities and children's independent choices, giving language learning more than one route through the day.

Outdoor and Community Life

Daily outdoor play takes place in a garden with a mud kitchen, climbing opportunities, shaded storytelling areas and open space for ball games and obstacle courses. Children can move, experiment and play imaginatively outside. Local community trips extend learning beyond the nursery, without a fixed frequency attached to those outings.

Yoga classes, classes with a Sports Coach and weekly Outdoor Adventures sit alongside everyday garden time.

The garden deserves attention when weighing the nursery. In March 2025, indoor activities encouraged investigation, including scooping mud and planting bulbs, but outdoor activities for older children did not consistently sustain their attention or extend their learning. Equipment and space are only part of the offer. How practitioners use them matters just as much.

Relationships and Communication

A key person takes responsibility for each child's individual learning and development plan and provides guidance to parents. Settling younger children centres on consistency between home and nursery, so familiar care routines form part of the transition. Advice includes toilet training, behaviour and activities families can continue at home.

In March 2025, children were comfortable choosing activities, and predictable routines helped them understand what would happen next. Staff sat with children at meals, making those occasions opportunities for conversation and social interaction. Parents received daily information alongside photographs and videos each week, giving them both immediate updates and a fuller picture of their child's experiences.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

Sleep has a physical place in the baby-room layout, with individual cots in the quiet area. The Captains day also includes rest on day beds. These arrangements recognise that younger children need pauses in a day that also contains active play and group activities.

Meals are cooked from scratch by the nursery's full-time chef, with plant-based dishes and food drawing on different cuisines. The nursery publishes a nut-free policy and supports specific dietary requirements.

School preparation is shared with parents through suggested phonics, reading and writing activities, alongside work on personal, social and emotional development. That makes preparation broader than recognising letters: independence and managing relationships also belong in the transition.

In March 2025, the nursery employed 15 staff. The same visit identified uneven interactions between staff and children and a need for more targeted coaching, so the staffing total should be read alongside the improvement priority rather than treated as a measure of individual attention.

Sessions and Attendance

Chartam House Day Nursery is at 16 College Avenue, Maidenhead, SL6 6AX. Opening hours are 8am to 6pm, Monday to Friday, and bookings are for full-day sessions only. It operates for 51 weeks of the year, closing for Christmas and bank holidays, so families need a separate arrangement for those closures.

The interest form accepts a child's date of birth or due date, preferred starting date and a message. Families can also contact the nursery by telephone or email, and visits can be arranged through those routes.

Funding and Paid Extras

In March 2025, the nursery was eligible to receive funding for free early education for children aged nine months to four years. Eligibility to receive funding is a dated position, rather than a promise of a particular funded booking. Current prices come in the nursery's written quotation.

• Outdoor learning for older children. In March 2025, garden activities did not consistently keep older children engaged in deeper learning. On a visit, ask how planned outdoor activities now develop children's interests beyond physical play.
• Consistency of interactions. Individual coaching needed greater precision in March 2025. Ask how practitioners receive feedback and how managers assess the consistency of their work with children.
• Full-day bookings and costs. Only full-day sessions are offered, with Christmas and bank-holiday closures. Request a written quotation explaining the funded-hours arrangement, additional private hours, meals and non-food consumables, and how the booking fits your working week.
• Dietary needs. A nut-free policy and support for specific diets form part of the food arrangements. Families managing allergies should confirm current kitchen practice and their child's individual requirements before joining.

Chartam House suits families seeking full-day care in a house-based setting, with a capped baby room, daily garden time and individual learning plans. The quiet baby sleeping area and direct garden access for Captains make the environment more tangible than a general promise of personal care.

The March 2025 Good judgement sits alongside two substantive questions: how well outdoor learning stretches older children, and how consistently practitioners interact with them. Families comfortable with the full-day booking model have a clear basis for considering it, with those improvement priorities providing a useful agenda for a visit.