Little Munchkins Fareham
Little Munchkins Fareham is a day nursery in Fareham for children aged 1 to 4, with 24 registered places. Ofsted report card, 27 February 2026: Expected standard in 2 areas, Needs attention in 4 areas; safeguarding standards met.
67 The Avenue, Fareham, PO14 1PE
Key facts
- Type
- Day nursery (Full day care) (Ofsted childcare register, as at 30 June 2026)
- Ages
- 1 to 4 (Ofsted childcare register, as at 30 June 2026)
- Registered places
- 24 (Ofsted childcare register, as at 30 June 2026)
- Registered
- 19 December 2025 (Ofsted childcare register, as at 30 June 2026)
Opening hours
Monday,Tuesday,Wednesday,Thursday,Friday : 08:00 - 18:00
Source: Ofsted report, inspection on 27 February 2026
Latest inspection
- Inclusion: Needs attention
- Curriculum and teaching: Needs attention
- Achievement: Needs attention
- Behaviour, attitudes and establishing routines: Expected standard
- Children's welfare and wellbeing: Expected standard
- Leadership and governance: Needs attention
- Safeguarding standards met
Source: Ofsted, inspection on 27 February 2026. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
What it's like to be a child at this setting
There are weaknesses and inconsistencies at this nursery, which directly impact on the children's ability to learn and make the progress they are capable of. This includes children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), as well as those who face other barriers to their learning. For instance, not all children receive timely referrals for specialist support, when gaps are identified in their learning. Others do not benefit from precise or well-thought-out planning to support their individual stages of learning. Staff use assessment processes to check what children have learned and decide what they need to learn next. However, these are restrictive tick lists that do not consider staff's own knowledge of children. As a result, staff do not plan bespoke next steps that sharply focus on what is most important for individual children to learn. For example, children who are still developing their speech have next steps to recognise numbers. Although leaders and staff work hard to foster positive relationships with parents, they do not always consider information that is available to them from previous, or other settings children attend, to inform their teaching or consideration for children's ongoing learning. Overall, this weakens the learning experience for all children.
Despite these weaknesses, children demonstrate that they feel safe, secure and enjoy attending the nursery. Staff work hard to get to know children's individual routines and their personal preferences as they work alongside parents. This helps staff to meet children's physical and emotional needs, including those who have recently started to attend the nursery. This helps all children, including those with SEND, to develop warm attachments to staff and a positive sense of belonging. There is a secure key-person system in place that supports children's overall wellbeing. Staff are positive role models to children, this helps them to develop early friendships, as well as learning good manners and an understanding of self-care. Children's attendance is a priority for leaders and is robustly monitored.
What Ofsted found in each area
Inclusion: Needs attention
Leaders do not have sufficient oversight of the impact of support in place for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), or those who face other barriers to their learning. Although typically, the children's various barriers to learning are recognised by leaders and staff, they are not always acted on swiftly. As a result, children with SEND do not always get the additional support they need to promote their ongoing learning and progress. Leaders, and those who have overall responsibility for organising the provision for children with SEND, do understand the referral process to outside agencies and who they can contact to offer support and more targeted intervention. However, they do not always contact them in an appropriate time frame. In addition, staff do not always consider the information they have available to them when children start at the nursery. This results in staff not always being aware of existing external professionals involved to support children when they initially start. These weaknesses delay support for these children, and their ongoing learning is not proactively promoted.
Those with overall responsibility for SEND do demonstrate an understanding of their roles and do seek ongoing training to keep their knowledge up to date. Those children who have involvement with external professionals are, overall, well supported by the staff and leaders, who implement targeted plans. They offer support to families through the ongoing assessment process. However, this is inconsistent and other weaknesses in teaching and assessment impact on the progress some children with barriers to their learning can make. Additional funding is sought for children, where appropriate, and used and monitored effectively. This does ensure that it has a positive impact on individual children it is allocated to.
Curriculum and teaching: Needs attention
Leaders have not been proactive to identify that children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities, who have gaps in their learning, do not receive well planned or targeted support to reduce these gaps. Staff regularly assess children's learning. They use developmental trackers to check if they are meeting age-appropriate milestones. Additionally, they observe and plan activities that are normally based on what children enjoy. However, children's next steps are not always focused on their identified gaps in their learning or what is most important for them to learn next. Therefore, staff do not place a sharp enough focus on what children need to develop next, which impacts on the progress children can make. Despite this, leaders demonstrate appropriate intentions for the curriculum, however, they are yet to embed this to ensure it is effective for all children to make progress in their learning. The curriculum foundations do prioritise children's language, physical skills, as well as their personal, social and emotional development.
Staff build on children's language skills through activities and interactions. This supports them to learn new words, use mathematical language in context and develop their growing conversational skills. They use visual clues to help children understand the language they are using. For instance, as children explore the sounds different musical instruments make. Staff use 'stop' and 'go' signs alongside verbal instruction, which children respond to well as they start and stop creating their sounds. Children are supported to develop early friendships as staff facilitate and encourage children to play together.
Achievement: Needs attention
Children, including those who face various barriers to their learning, do not always make the progress they are capable of. This means some children fall further behind their peers and are not as well prepared for their next stage of learning and eventual transition to school as they could be. Children's next steps that are planned for them are not always focused on what they need to learn next as a priority. This means children are not always supported to continually build on existing skills or learn new things in sequence that are going to have the greatest impact on their development. For example, children who are identified as having speech and language delay do not have this as a primary focus to prioritise their learning in this area. This impact the achievements and overall progress children can make.
Children do have opportunities to develop age-appropriate physical skills. For instance, younger children thread large cotton wheels onto sticks that are held in place. This is extended for older children, who concentrate as they try to thread their cotton wheels and large beads onto flexible pieces of string. This supports children's growing small-muscle development, dexterity and hand-eye coordination.
Behaviour, attitudes and establishing routines: Expected standard
Staff support children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities, to understand age-appropriate behavioural expectations. Staff maintain high expectations of all children, making adaptions to support those who need help to regulate their own emotions. They provide consistent messages that are followed through, which children respond well to. This helps all children to develop an understanding of rules, boundaries and behavioural expectations. Children behave well in the nursery, and staff are positive role models that children copy, resulting in kindness to one another. In addition, staff support children to think about how they keep themselves healthy and safe. For instance, staff encourage older children to think about why they have been asked not to run indoors. Children take time to think and respond, recalling previously learned knowledge that they might hurt themselves or friends.
Staff build positive relationships with all children, who confidently seek out staff for comfort, reassurance or to share their ideas with. Children positively engage in activities and play, and are encouraged to listen to each other. Staff facilitate taking turns, which helps build children's self-confidence as they develop their social skills. Leaders and staff promote children's regular attendance, which positively impacts on the relationships children, including those who have recently started to attend at the setting, develop with staff.
Children's welfare and wellbeing: Expected standard
Staff understand the importance of building positive relationships with children and their families. As such, they ensure they obtain information that supports children's own needs to be met. For instance, staff find out about children's home routines, family structures and how to meet their basic needs in relation to understanding their emotions and how they seek comfort. Staff work closely with parents of children, who face various barriers to their learning, to ensure their routines and emotional needs are well supported through their time at the nursery. As a result, children develop secure attachments to staff, who value their wellbeing.
Children's good health is well promoted. Staff work with parents to ensure children's lunch boxes are healthy and provide advice about oral health and screen time safety. Staff ensure children have free access to fresh drinking water throughout the day and routines are flexible, so children receive healthy snacks when they are hungry. Physical exercise is promoted by daily access to the outdoor area, where children develop their gross motor skills. Staff support children to learn good hygiene routines, such as teaching children to wash their hands with soap before mealtimes. Older children learn that doing this means germs do not go into their tummies. This helps children develop healthy habits.
Leadership and governance: Needs attention
Leaders have not identified weaknesses within the nursery. Overall, this impacts the quality of education all children, including those who face various barriers to their learning, receive. Weaknesses in teaching and assessment hinders the progress children can make. Staff are not being supported to precisely plan and target bespoke learning support for individual children to reduce any gaps in their learning. Additionally, leaders do not ensure all children who need additional support with their learning, receive the prompt referrals to support them swiftly enough. Although leaders have plans to implement robust, regular staff supervision arrangements, this has not yet been actioned. As such, leaders do not identify gaps in staff's knowledge or areas for ongoing development. This does not raise the quality of the provision for children and does not support staff to continually develop their personal effectiveness.
Despite these weaknesses, leaders do show integrity regarding ensuring children's emotional wellbeing is met. They place a priority on children feeling safe, secure and developing a positive since of belonging. Leaders have taken action to ensure that the statutory ratio requirements are always maintained to ensure children's safety. Staff do have access to various training. For instance, staff have recently completed safer sleep training, which informs their practice to keep sleeping children safe. Leaders understand the importance of working together with parents and other professionals, although have not considered partnership working with other settings children attend, to fully promote a consistent approach to children's learning.
What the setting must and should do next
The provider must:
- ensure children with special educational needs and/or disabilities consistently receive swift, and targeted support to narrow gaps in their learning (by 27 March 2026)
- strengthen staff knowledge of children's assessment and next steps, so teaching is precisely focused and builds on what children already know and can do (by 27 March 2026)
- implement effective supervision arrangements for staff to enable prompt identification of any gaps in knowledge and improve their personal effectiveness (by 27 March 2026)
- implement effective partnership working for children who attend more than one setting to promote a consistent and collaborative approach to children's learning (by 27 March 2026)
Ofsted's words, from the report on the inspection on 27 February 2026. Read the full report on the Ofsted website. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Inspection history
- 27 February 2026: Full inspection, report card: Expected standard in 2, Needs attention in 4
Ofsted report cards (England, from November 2025)
Since 10 November 2025 Ofsted has graded nurseries and pre-schools on a report card. There is no single overall grade. Instead, each of six areas gets one of five grades: Exceptional, Strong standard, Expected standard, Needs attention, Urgent improvement.
The six areas are inclusion; curriculum and teaching; achievement; behaviour, attitudes and establishing routines; children's welfare and wellbeing; leadership and governance. Safeguarding is judged on its own, as met or not met.
Expected standard means the setting does what Ofsted expects of every setting. Strong standard and Exceptional are above that; Needs attention and Urgent improvement mean Ofsted found things the setting has to put right.
Source: Ofsted reports
Funded childcare hours in England
All 3 and 4 year olds in England can get 15 hours of free childcare a week, for 38 weeks of the year.
Working parents of children aged 9 months to 4 years old can get 30 hours of free childcare a week for 38 weeks of the year (Free Childcare for Working Parents), if they meet the earnings rules. You confirm your details every 3 months.
Some 2 year olds can get 15 hours a week when the family gets certain kinds of extra support.
The hours are used at a registered provider that offers them, so ask each nursery how it offers the funded hours.
Source: GOV.UK: Free Childcare for Working Parents, check if you're eligible · GOV.UK: Free childcare and education for 2 to 4 year olds (checked 31 October 2026)
Other nurseries nearby
- Penguin Pre-School - Day nursery, Fareham PO14 3BA, ages 2 to 4, 18 places, 0.2 milesOfsted, 27 February 2024: Outstanding overall; safeguarding is effective
- Happy Faces Pre-School - Day nursery, Fareham PO14 3BN, ages 2 to 4, 36 places, 0.3 milesOfsted, 22 February 2024: Good overall; safeguarding is effective
- Kidz Inc Ltd - Day nursery, Fareham PO14 1NH, ages 0 to 4, 52 places, 0.4 milesOfsted report card, 17 November 2025: Strong standard in 2 areas, Expected standard in 1 area, Needs attention in 3 areas; safeguarding standards met
- Growing Places @ Merryfields - Day nursery, Fareham PO14 1JJ, ages 0 to 4, 48 places, 0.6 milesOfsted report card, 3 September 2026: Strong standard in 2 areas, Expected standard in 4 areas; safeguarding standards met
- Growing Places @ Oakmeadow - Day nursery, Fareham PO15 6LL, ages 1 to 4, 80 places, 0.8 milesOfsted report card, 20 May 2026: Expected standard in 6 areas; safeguarding standards met
Schools nearby
- St Francis Special School - Special, 0.2 miles
- Heathfield Special School - Special, 0.3 miles
- Ranvilles Junior School - Primary, 0.3 miles
- Ranvilles Infant School - Primary, 0.3 miles
- St Jude's Catholic Primary School - Primary, 0.3 miles