Reflections Nursery & Forest School

A child's question about where chips come from led to an Edible Garden. That is a useful introduction to Reflections Nursery & Forest School in Worthing: children's ideas shape practical exploration, with growing, art and outdoor learning giving those questions somewhere to go. The setting occupies a Regency building and a Tudor-style building, with gardens that extend the day beyond indoor play.

At its 9 May 2025 inspection, Ofsted judged the nursery Good overall, with Outstanding behaviour and attitudes and effective safeguarding, while identifying a need for staff to extend learning through more sustained interactions, especially with younger and quieter children. That qualification matters alongside the appealing outdoor offer. Interesting resources need adults who help children take their thinking further.

Children are accepted from 2 months to five years. The current attendance offer centres on weekday full days, with early-start or late-finish extensions also charged separately. For families choosing on educational character, the strongest practical details are Beach School, woodland exploration and gardening that connects growing food with eating it.

Rooms and Ages

The Acorn room is the baby room. Creative exploration begins with the youngest children, using objects and resources that invite them to investigate rather than follow a single prescribed activity. This fits an approach in which children can repeat an experiment, change it and make choices about what happens next.

Across the nursery, the physical setting is substantial: two buildings, each arranged over three floors, with spacious gardens. Natural and reclaimed materials give children objects they can use in different ways. The environment therefore supplies starting points for invention, rather than making every activity depend on a ready-made toy or an adult demonstration.

Learning and Activities

The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) provides the educational foundation, covering children's learning and development through activities that build communication, physical skills and relationships alongside early literacy and mathematics. Reflections structures its curriculum around these educational programmes; its additional emphasis is on listening to children's ideas, creative expression and opportunities to investigate.

Reggio Emilia influences this work through attention to children's questions and the different ways they express their thinking. Montessori is also a stated influence. These are influences within the nursery's curriculum, rather than a claim that every part of the day follows one method. The useful detail is the practice attached to them: children can test ideas, explore materials and return to experiences as their understanding develops.

Artists, called Atelieristas, work with children, while garden educators support activity in the edible garden; both are included in fees. These additions give creative work and gardening an adult contribution beyond simply providing materials. The curriculum page explains how educators build experiences around children's interests and revisit learning before introducing further challenges.

In May 2025, younger children carried natural objects around their room and arranged wooden discs in response to art. Other activities involved transporting dough and moving water using containers, including outdoors. These examples show the same interest being explored with different materials and in different places, rather than a sequence of unrelated tasks.

Outdoor and Community Life

Beach School experiences are offered daily for children over three, exploring Worthing Beach, its coastline and its creatures. Photographs, diaries and videos, with parental permission, document the experiences for families. This gives older children recurring opportunities to explore the coast.

Forest School adds woodland exploration, den-making, observation of habitats and practice moving over natural obstacles. Younger children have age-appropriate outdoor experiences in the nursery gardens. The distinction is useful for parents: outdoor learning reaches the younger age groups too, while woodland activities have their own setting and demands.

The Edible Garden is especially concrete. Children sow in the greenhouse, use compost bins and harvest from raised beds, then sample their produce in meals and snacks. Growing becomes something they can follow through several stages. It also links an everyday question about food with practical experience of plants, soil and seasonal change.

Little Acorns provides free weekly parent-and-baby sessions for under-twos, combining sensory activity with movement and music. Families can attend without having a child enrolled at the nursery. It offers a separate shared activity for parents and young children, rather than forming part of a nursery booking.

Relationships and Communication

Each child has a key person who completes Formative Reviews of development and progress. This gives observations a practical purpose: identifying where a child may need additional help and discussing that help with parents. The relationship is also a route for families to contribute their knowledge of their child, rather than relying entirely on nursery observations.

Daily communication includes conversation at the beginning and end of the day, with written information and photographs also used. A regular Parent Forum brings parents together with senior nursery staff to discuss ideas and how they work together. The combination gives families both individual contact about their own child and a route into wider discussions about nursery life.

In May 2025, staff supported children to recognise feelings and manage their responses, and encouraged taking turns during play. These are useful everyday examples of care intersecting with learning. The inspection's interaction concern still deserves attention: children who are absorbed in an activity may also need an adult to introduce language, questions or a new possibility.

Inclusion and Wellbeing

SEND support follows an assess, plan, do and review cycle. The key person, SENDCo and parents agree the intended outcomes, support and review date; plans can also draw on recommendations from other professionals. After support has been implemented for 6 to 8 weeks, the plan is reviewed with parents to decide what should continue or change.

This is a mechanism families can understand and participate in. Plans are shared with parents so that suitable strategies can also be tried at home, and referrals to additional professionals require parental permission. The nursery's admissions policy asks families to discuss additional needs, disabilities and allergies at the outset so that reasonable adjustments and the support required can be considered.

Moving to school involves contact with the receiving setting, encouragement of visits and meetings involving parents and relevant professionals. Information sharing includes one-page profiles and details of additional support. That makes transition a transfer of useful knowledge about the child, rather than only a change of address.

A chef prepares food on site each day, using a seasonal menu and local ingredients where possible; full-day meals include breakfast, lunch and a light tea, with fruit, snacks and water during the day. The nursery's food policy describes dietary adaptations and allergy-management procedures, which allergy-affected families should discuss in relation to their child's needs.

Sessions and Attendance

The nursery's address is Westerfields, 54 Richmond Road, Worthing, BN11 1PS; the wider site includes Westerfields House and Tudor Court at 52 and 54 Richmond Road. Admissions enquiries can be made by email to admissions@reflectionsnurseries.co.uk or by telephone on 01903 251 518.

Full-day sessions run from 8am to 6pm, Monday to Friday, across 50 weeks of the year. The minimum attendance is two days each week. Early starts or late finishes are separate paid additions, and ad-hoc day care is also priced separately. These arrangements suit a recurring weekly booking while allowing additional care to be charged outside the standard day.

The remaining 2026/2027 inset closures fall on 4 January, 5 January and 28 May 2027. Families planning year-round care need to account for these closure days as well as the nursery's annual operating pattern.

Funding and Paid Extras

Reflections accepts funded childcare, including 15 hours Universal FE Funding for three- and four-year-olds and 30 hours Extended FE Funding for eligible families from nine months. Funded childcare and EYFS education carry no charge during the funded hours; additional attendance is paid separately. Funded-entitlement-only bookings follow a set pattern, so the funded offer should be considered separately from the standard full-day arrangement.

During funded hours, meals and snacks are charged separately as voluntary extras, as are hygiene consumables. Enhanced resources and enrichment activities are also optional additions, and parents may decline any or all of these categories. Children who do not take part in optional enrichment continue with EYFS activities during those sessions. Off-site Forest School has a separate session charge.

A registration charge is non-refundable, and a deposit is returned when the required leaving notice is given; neither is required for children using funded entitlement only. Current prices come in the nursery's written quotation. The fees and funding page provides the route to the charge structure, which is worth reading alongside the individual booking offer.

• Adult involvement in play. In May 2025, younger and quieter children sometimes missed opportunities for adults to extend their learning. On a tour, ask how practitioners sustain conversations with children who rarely seek attention themselves.
• The full-day commitment. Standard bookings combine an 8am to 6pm day with a two-day weekly minimum. Consider how that fits your child's routine; ask how settling is organised for a baby beginning this pattern.
• Outdoor participation and extras. Daily Beach School is for children over three, while off-site Forest School is separately charged. Discuss which activities form part of your child's booking and how declining optional extras affects its pattern.
• Allergy arrangements. Food is prepared on site and the nursery has allergy-management procedures. Families managing allergies should confirm the current arrangements for their child, including dietary adaptations and communication with the kitchen.

Reflections suits families who want children's questions, creative work and outdoor exploration to shape the nursery day, and whose schedules fit either standard full days or days extended by an early start or late finish. The greenhouse, raised beds and daily Beach School offer give that educational character practical substance.

The May 2025 judgement provides a positive overall assessment, with the need for more consistent adult interaction an important qualification. The decision is therefore about more than attractive outdoor opportunities: it is also about how practitioners help an individual child use them, and whether the attendance commitment and optional charge structure fit the family.