Saffrons Park Nursery

Saffrons Park Nursery

Unique reference number (URN): 2517516 Address: Saffrons Park Nursery, Compton Place Road, Eastbourne, Sussex, BN21 1EA Type: Childcare on non-domestic premises Registered with Ofsted: 15/03/2019 Registers: EYR Registered person: Little Saffrons Nursery 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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Children's welfare and wellbeing Strong standard

Leaders prioritise children's health, welfare and safety as a major strength across the nursery. Staff operate as highly effective key teams around each child to establish secure, responsive attachments. More senior staff assume the main contact point, but all staff maintain a shared understanding of every child's needs. They use this knowledge to help children manage their feelings successfully. For example, staff get down to children's level to offer calm reassurance during play. This nurturing care ensures that all children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities or medical conditions, maintain a secure sense of emotional wellbeing.

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Children's welfare and wellbeing Strong standard

Care routines are rigorously adapted to meet individual needs. Staff collaborate closely with parents and carers to follow familiar home patterns for feeding, weaning and sleeping. The entire staff team follows updated statutory guidelines for safe-sleeping arrangements, meticulously. All staff follow safer eating and allergy requirements with extreme care. Staff prepare snacks in accordance with detailed care plans to meet individual children's needs.

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Children's welfare and wellbeing Strong standard

Children learn to look after their bodies and understand how to keep themselves safe. Staff model and reinforce long-lasting healthy habits throughout the day. For instance, the youngest children use flannels while older children wash their hands independently at the sink. Children access fresh drinking water whenever they choose. Staff actively encourage children to take appropriate physical risks and meet challenges confidently. For example, children learn safety rules while practising large-muscle skills on indoor climbing equipment and low slides.

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Achievement Expected standard

Children make steady progress from their individual starting points and benefit from the nursery's broad curriculum. They successfully build their communication and language skills. For example, younger children look at picture books and repeat sounds. Older children revisit the same stories daily to expand their vocabulary. Most children build their self- confidence, focus their attention well during song times and delight in their success. Children who face barriers to learning generally achieve well and receive the right support to reach their personal goals.

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Achievement Expected standard

Children build resilience and persist with tricky tasks. For example, children develop their concentration and hand-eye coordination while practising threading activities. Children learn to listen carefully to instructions and share space happily. They securely build the positive learning habits required for future success. Children are supported using guidance that helps them prepare for the next stage in their education.

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Behaviour, attitudes and establishing routines Expected standard

Leaders establish a positive environment with commonly understood expectations for behaviour and attitudes. Children build warm and trusting relationships with staff. They look to them for reassurance. Staff provide positive role modelling by actively engaging with children during play-based activities. For example, they demonstrate good manners and praise children for sharing resources while rolling play dough. They offer calm reminders and explicit praise to reinforce positive choices. Children treat others with kindness, care and respect.

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Behaviour, attitudes and establishing routines Expected standard

Staff carefully support children to learn to work together and get along with others. For instance, children show positive social skills by sharing space, while using tools to create outdoor artwork together. Leaders promote the importance of punctuality and regular attendance by monitoring attendance patterns. Although daily routines are generally well- managed, leaders are aware that not all routines are fully embedded and are actively working on them.

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Behaviour, attitudes and establishing routines Expected standard

Staff consider children's individual needs, family circumstances and developmental stages carefully when supporting them to maintain expectations. For instance, staff use visual timelines and reminder cards to help children prepare for tidy-up times. This sensitive guidance helps children establish positive daily habits. It helps them navigate minor setbacks confidently and settle into nursery life smoothly.

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Curriculum and teaching Expected standard

Leaders generally maintain an accurate understanding of the quality of education across the nursery. They design a broad curriculum that covers all age- and stage-appropriate learning areas. This curriculum blends different educational approaches, focusing on nature and child-led play. For example, children access bowls of fruit with child-friendly cutting knives to prepare their own snacks.

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Curriculum and teaching Expected standard

Staff prioritise children's physical, personal, social and emotional development from the earliest age. They purposefully introduce mathematical language and numbers during everyday play. They use clear interactions to expand children's communication skills, for instance by modelling descriptive words like 'crunchy' and 'juicy' while exploring sensory tiles. Staff also ensure that the curriculum remains inclusive for all children regardless of barriers to their learning.

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Curriculum and teaching Expected standard

Leaders' direct, collaborative approach enables them to identify strengths and areas for ongoing improvement. For instance, leaders, alongside their staff team, effectively support staff who are working towards achieving an early years qualification to continually develop their teaching practice. This has a positive impact on the quality of teaching and delivery of the curriculum over time.

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Curriculum and teaching Expected standard

Staff use regular daily reviews and planning books to monitor what children know and can do. This helpful information allows them to track individual development. It ensures that, typically, staff successfully tailor daily activities to children's different starting points, needs and stages of development.

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Inclusion Expected standard

Leaders focus their approach to inclusion on ensuring all children can be involved in all parts of nursery life, closing gaps and removing barriers to their learning. This clear vision supports daily practice and staff's interactions. Staff accurately identify individual learning, developmental or welfare concerns through observations, registration forms and daily discussions with parents and carers. They confidently follow procedures and discuss any emerging issues directly with the management team. Leaders implement a continuous cycle of checking, planning and reviewing support programmes, alongside parents to keep learning accessible. They work productively with families and external professionals to shape unique learning opportunities for children. For example, they work closely with speech and language therapists and paediatric medical specialists.

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Inclusion Expected standard

Leaders regularly review their use of targeted funding to successfully reduce the barriers that children face. Staff monitor individual progress to ensure all children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities and those known to social services, make steady progress from their starting points. Leaders and staff cooperate effectively with outside agencies so that children get the help they need, for example to expand their speech capabilities. This generally helps children to manage routine activities smoothly and participate happily in group activities. However, not all agreed intervention strategies are followed consistently, which at times, impacts some children's understanding of routines and their developing communication skills.

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Leadership and governance Expected standard

Leaders demonstrate a secure understanding of the nursery's community context. They manage a supportive and inclusive environment where they look to support staff's wellbeing and carefully balance daily workloads. Leaders remain approachable and involved on the ground daily, through an open-door policy. They provide relevant and regular training to help the team build their ongoing professional learning. All staff complete necessary child protection training to confidently maintain a secure, open culture of safeguarding where children's safety remains the priority.

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Leadership and governance Expected standard

Leaders maintain a clear action plan to guide their decisions and bring about steady improvements. They deeply value the importance of working with families to build shared partnerships. They work productively to ensure that all nursery choices focus on the best interests of children, including those who face specific barriers to learning. While leaders effectively identify the main priorities for the nursery, there are ongoing areas that they continue to support, such as raising the consistency of the quality of teaching practice.

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Leadership and governance Expected standard

Leaders are actively working to strengthen how staff implement their training during everyday routines. They utilise helpful digital systems to share children's progress updates with families. Leaders are proactively developing this work to ensure that all parents and carers are fully supported to connect with these updates and continue children's learning at home.

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

Children experience a welcoming, calm and nurturing environment, where they feel a secure sense of belonging. Most children separate confidently from their parents and carers at morning drop-off times. Staff greet families individually at the door. Babies smile and reach their arms out to staff on arrival which demonstrates secure attachments. Newer children benefit from flexible taster sessions and detailed care plans support their emotional wellbeing and security. Children move around the indoor spaces with confidence. They choose independently from an abundance of age-appropriate resources. Children participate regularly in child-led outdoor play, focused on nature and promoting curiosity.

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

Children thrive within structured daily routines and quickly learn appropriate behavioural expectations. They treat each other with kindness, play collaboratively and take turns effectively. Children manage their personal-hygiene routines well. They safely wash and dry their hands before eating, for instance, while staff model and narrate these steps clearly. During mealtimes, children show positive levels of early independence. They use a spoon to feed themselves yogurt. These experiences successfully develops their small-muscle skills, dexterity and hand-eye coordination. Leaders proactively support children's attendance so they benefit fully from the range of activities on offer.

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

Children achieve typical progress from their individual starting points through activities tailored to their interests. Babies and toddlers explore a language-rich environment. Staff sing rhymes to them and mimic back-and-forth conversational sounds. Children expand their vocabulary and early mathematical concepts during play. They practise descriptive words, such as 'bumpy' and 'squishy', while exploring sensory tiles. Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities confidently seek out staff for reassurance. They navigate physical play equipment safely by crawling up steps and using a low slide.

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Next steps

Leaders should continue to support all staff to raise the quality of teaching and interactions even further, so this is consistently embedded and fully promotes children's best possible progress. Leaders should support staff to consistently use agreed strategies to continually aid children's individual development.

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Address:

Saffrons Park Nursery Compton Place Road Eastbourne Sussex BN21 1EA

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Address:

Type: Childcare on non-domestic premises

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Address:

Registered person: Little Saffrons Nursery 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.

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About this inspection

The inspectors spoke with leaders, staff, parents and carers, and engaged with children during the inspection.

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About this inspection

We carried out this inspection under sections 49 and 50 of the Childcare Act 2006 on the quality and standards provision that is registered on the Early Years Register. The registered person must ensure that the provision complies with the statutory framework for children's learning, development, and care, known as the early years foundation stage. This data is from 9 September 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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