Ashbourne Day Nurseries

Ashbourne Day Nurseries

Unique reference number (URN): EY393354 Address: 20 Cushing Drive, Oxley Park, Milton Keynes, MK4 4TJ Type: Childcare on non-domestic premises Registered with Ofsted: 29/09/2009 Registers: EYR Registered person: Ashbourne Day Nurseries Limited

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Safeguarding standards met

The safeguarding standards are met. This means that leaders and/or those responsible for governance and oversight fulfil their specific responsibilities and have established an open culture in which safeguarding is everyone's responsibility and concerns are actively identified, acted upon and managed. As a result, children are made safer and feel safe.

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How we evaluate safeguarding

When we inspect settings for safeguarding, they can have the following outcomes:

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How we evaluate safeguarding

Met: The setting has an open and positive culture of safeguarding. Not met: The setting has not created an open and positive culture of safeguarding. Not all legal requirements are met.

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Inclusion Strong standard

Leaders place inclusion at the heart of their work. They focus on ensuring that children who attend the nursery have the secure foundations that they need to be successful.

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Inclusion Strong standard

The deep connections that staff share with children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) enables them to unlock children's potential. In recognising that children who are non-verbal have the capacity to express themselves in other ways, staff support children to communicate effectively. In partnership with parents, staff encourage children with SEND to express themselves in written form. Despite their very young age, children competently write down how they are feeling and things they are learning. This is a phenomenal achievement and testament to staff's ambition and belief in children's capacity to learn.

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Inclusion Strong standard

Staff equally ensure that any children who are known to children's social care receive the support and care that they need to thrive. They establish safe practice and work in consultation with other professionals to review and monitor children's progress.

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Inclusion Strong standard

By adapting support, such as changing picture cards used as a visual timetable to photographs, staff ensure children understand the daily routine and can access the curriculum successfully. The well-planned use of additional funding ensures that further resources are purchased to continue to build on children's abilities and interests.

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Inclusion Strong standard

Staff recognise that young children who experience changes face barriers to their learning as they need to adjust to a new environment and new carer. However, their excellent management of these changes helps children to experience consistency of care that prioritises their needs above all else.

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Achievement Expected standard

Typically, children are eager to learn and display high levels of attention and concentration. They are making expected progress for their age and stage of development across all areas because of the breadth of curriculum they receive. Older children demonstrate their creative ideas, for example, they enjoy painting cardboard boxes and drawing. Outdoors, children play together well and take turns. They enjoy growing herbs and playing in the mud kitchen where they pretend to prepare dinner. Young children learn about characters from favourite stories, which deepens their interest in books and establishes a positive start to learning about reading. Children with special education needs and/or disabilities make superb progress in their development. They rapidly become confident in expressing themselves and demonstrate some aspects of learning that are way beyond their young age.

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Behaviour, attitudes and establishing routines Expected standard

Children behave well throughout the nursery. Staff create a productive learning environment where children are busily engaged in their learning. Staff have high expectations for children and what they can achieve and children with special educational needs and/or disabilities have the support they need to achieve and learn alongside their peers.

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Behaviour, attitudes and establishing routines Expected standard

Staff provide children with consistency and this helps them to understand what to expect throughout the day. Although young children follow their home routine for sleeping, staff do not always adapt the daily routine to ensure young children are always engaged in productive learning. On occasion, arrangements for getting young children ready to go outside and play takes a long time and children become restless. Sometimes, babies become upset at mealtimes and staff are not swift to respond to them meaning they become too fractious to eat. However, typically the rhythm of the day works well to provide children with times to be active and quieter times for rest or sleep.

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Behaviour, attitudes and establishing routines Expected standard

Staff encourage children's attendance. When they see that children are finding it difficult to adapt to changes, such as at the busy home time, they work with parents to adapt children's sessions. This is beneficial for children and they become far more settled as a result.

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Children's welfare and wellbeing Expected standard

The key person arrangements promote children's sense of safety and security well. It is particularly successful in meeting the needs of children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). Children with SEND demonstrate their positive wellbeing as staff provide ways for them to regulate their behaviour. Some children with SEND can articulate the deep relationships they share their key person as they spell out 'I love you' when writing with them. Babies show their affection for the kind and caring staff. They raise their hands to be picked up and snuggle up closely for reassurance. Levels of crying are low as overall, staff meet the needs of babies well.

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Children's welfare and wellbeing Expected standard

Children eat well-balanced, healthy meals. Staff are vigilant in supervising children as they eat and there are robust arrangements in place for supporting children with medical needs, dietary requirements and allergies. Staff create safe sleeping arrangements for children and ensure that they have the rest and sleep they need to be ready and willing for learning. Staff supervise children closely, while promoting their independence and resilience.

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Children's welfare and wellbeing Expected standard

All staff interactions are considerate and respectful to children. As a result, children learn to show care and concern for each other. Children are increasingly sociable when they play together, staff model how to share and praise children warmly when they copy.

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Curriculum and teaching Expected standard

Children enjoy a well-structured curriculum that builds on their knowledge and skills. It is evident how well they enjoy their learning as they show curiosity and a sense of intrigue as they play. For example, babies enjoy playing with cornflour and water and staff skilfully expand on their vocabulary as they do so. Young children develop their physical skills as they climb on soft shapes and in and out of ball ponds. They practise using spoons to feed themselves and become confident walkers as they move around the room.

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Curriculum and teaching Expected standard

Older children hone their skills, they have multiple ways to practise writing and staff provide activities to encourage them to match colours and begin to understand numbers. Children enjoy using their imagination as they create using dough and interesting resources, such as fir cones and corks.

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Curriculum and teaching Expected standard

Teaching is effective as staff promote children's skills well. The encourage children's speech through reading stories and singing songs and rhyme. By giving a commentary to young children's actions, they begin to hear language as they play and recognise and understand words. Teaching and support for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities is especially strong with staff focusing on precisely what will help children to make rapid progress.

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Curriculum and teaching Expected standard

Overall, the daily routine children follow supports them in remaining motivated and eager to learn. However, at times routines for babies are less adaptable to their individual needs which means they do not experience seamless and active learning throughout the day.

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Leadership and governance Expected standard

There has been a rapid intake of children into the nursery to accommodate children from a partner nursery within the Ashbourne group. This has led to an increased number of young children attending. To encourage children to settle and provide consistency, there has also been several staff transferred to the nursery team. This change has been managed well, but has affected some of the daily routines and staff's capacity to adapt it.

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Leadership and governance Expected standard

Management have taken action to drive improvement and their critical review of the nursery means that they tackle any underperformance or weaknesses swiftly. This translates into care and education for children that is increasing in quality. The organisation of staff, deployment and supervision offered encourages staff to feel valued and supported. Staff receive regular training to encourage their continual development.

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Leadership and governance Expected standard

Leaders demonstrate a thorough understanding of the local area and the children and families who use the nursery. Funding is used appropriately to ensure that children who experience disadvantage have the best opportunities and resources to support their needs. The provision for children special educational needs and/or disabilities is a real strength of the nursery.

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Leadership and governance Expected standard

Relationships with parents are productive and parents share their positive experiences. However, staff have yet to establish fully collaborative working to ensure that parents are actively involved and included in all aspects of their child's care and education. This is especially evident in the progress check for children between the age of two and three years as parent's valuable contributions are not always fully reflected in staff's final plans for children's next steps in learning. This means assessments are not as precise as they could be.

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What it's like to be a child at this setting

Children benefit from a clear and well understood curriculum that focuses on supporting their independence and positive attitudes towards learning. It works particularly well for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). Children with SEND positively flourish in their development as staff are proactive in removing barriers they face to learning, such as having limited speech. Activities are adapted and expanded to ensure that children with SEND can reach their full potential.

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What it's like to be a child at this setting

Children who are or have been, known to children's social services receive individual care to ensure that their needs for security and safety are met effectively. All children learn about ways to keep themselves safe, such as when they play on equipment in the garden. They understand rules and readily follow expectations.

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What it's like to be a child at this setting

Children are developing a fascination for books and enjoy joining in with familiar songs. Young children copy actions in songs and counting based rhymes help them to learn about the sequence of numbers. As children get older, they begin to apply what they have learnt through, for example, counting as they play, matching colours and creating faces using dough. Children become confident in expressing themselves. When there is any delay in children's speech, staff provide focused support which increases all children's ability to talk.

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What it's like to be a child at this setting

Children's behaviour is consistently good and generally, they follow routines well. They know what to expect during the day and this contributes towards their sense of security and safety at the nursery. Children enjoy playing outdoors where they can be active and develop their interests. For example, the recent introduction of a digging patch in the garden has increased children's enjoyment of playing with toy vehicles and promoted their dexterity and coordination of the small muscles in their hands.

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What it's like to be a child at this setting

Children gain the essential skills they need to be ready for moving on to school such as managing their personal needs and toileting independently. Furthermore, they demonstrate a ready and willingness to want to learn.

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Next steps

Leaders should increase staff confidence in adapting the daily routine to respond to babies' changing needs

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Address:

20 Cushing Drive Oxley Park Milton Keynes MK4 4TJ

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Address:

Type: Childcare on non-domestic premises

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Address:

Registered person: Ashbourne Day Nurseries Limited

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Address:

Operating hours: Monday,Tuesday,Wednesday,Thursday,Friday : 07:30 - 18:00

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Facts and figures used on inspection

This data was available to the inspector at the time of the inspection. Leaders should expand the collaborative relationships with parents so they have better opportunities to share in children's learning, especially when completing the progress check for children aged between two and three years.

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About this inspection

The inspector spoke with managers, area managers, staff parents and children during the inspection. We carried out this inspection under sections 49 and 50 of the Childcare Act 2006 on the quality and standards of provision that is registered on the Early Years Register. The registered person must ensure that this provision complies with the statutory framework for children's learning, development and care, known as the early years foundation stage. This data is from 5 May 2026

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Exceptional

Practice is exceptional: of the highest standard nationally. Other settings can learn from it.

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Strong standard

The setting reaches a strong standard. Leaders are working above the standard expected of them.

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Expected standard

The setting is fulfilling the expected standard of education and/or care. This means they are following the standard set out in statutory and non ‑ statutory legislation and the professional standards expected of them.

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Needs attention

The expected standards are not met but leaders are likely able to make the necessary improvements.

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Urgent improvement

The setting needs to make urgent improvements to provide the expected standard of education and/or care. services providing education and skills for children and learners of all ages, and inspects and regulates services that care for children and young people.

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Urgent improvement

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Urgent improvement

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Urgent improvement

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Urgent improvement

T: 0300 123 1231 Textphone: 0161 618 8524 E: enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk W: www.gov.uk/ofsted

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