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Little Villagers Pre-School

Little Villagers Pre-School is a day nursery in Windlesham for children aged 2 to 4, with 39 registered places. Ofsted report card, 24 September 2026: Strong standard in 6 areas; safeguarding standards met.

Little Villagers Pre-School C/o Woodcote House School, Snows Ride, Windlesham, GU20 6PF

Key facts

Type
Day nursery (Full day care) (Ofsted childcare register, as at 30 June 2026)
Ages
2 to 4 (Ofsted childcare register, as at 30 June 2026)
Registered places
39 (Ofsted childcare register, as at 30 June 2026)
Registered
19 August 2019 (Ofsted childcare register, as at 30 June 2026)

Opening hours

Monday,Tuesday,Wednesday,Thursday,Friday : 07:45 - 16:45

Source: Ofsted report, inspection on 24 September 2026

Who runs it

Little Villagers Pre-School is run by Village Pre Schools Limited (Ofsted register).

Latest inspection

  • Inclusion: Strong standard
  • Curriculum and teaching: Strong standard
  • Achievement: Strong standard
  • Behaviour, attitudes and establishing routines: Strong standard
  • Children's welfare and wellbeing: Strong standard
  • Leadership and governance: Strong standard
  • Safeguarding standards met

Source: Ofsted, inspection on 24 September 2026. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

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

Children thrive in this pre-school and build excellent bonds with all the staff. Those who struggle to leave their parents receive excellent support from staff to encourage them to enter the setting. Children are enthusiastic and enjoy the wealth of activities and resources that staff prepare for them. Interactions between children and staff are extremely positive, and children keenly invite staff to join in with their play. Children eagerly share their creations and discoveries with staff, who boost their sense of self-esteem and achievement as they ask them questions and give them praise. For example, as children use vehicles and brushes to explore shaving foam and paint, staff encourage them to share their own experiences of travelling to nursery or on recent holidays. Staff seamlessly encourage children to make marks with their fingers, brushes and vehicle wheels, and praise them when children recognise the shapes they have made. Children receive genuine encouragement from staff to build on all areas of their learning. The teaching skill and knowledge staff implement contributes to the significant progress children make. Children, including those who may face barriers to learning, make continual progress from their starting points.

Children engage in experiences and activities, provided by staff, which reflect their interests and motivate them to participate. Outside learning is awe-inspiring and excellent use is made of the grounds and woodlands around the setting to extend this. Children build on their self-confidence and problem-solving skills while staff offer meaningful praise and encouragement in their questioning. For example, as children negotiate tree trunks staff supervise and talk through how to do this safely. While children search for nature in the dirt slopes and leaves, staff encourage mark-making, as well as discussions on what features the faces children have drawn need, and how to express feelings on these drawings. In addition, while negotiating different toy vehicles around the children's own created dirt tracks, staff talk about the vehicles and their manoeuvres, exploring how a train has an engine and carriages and that cranes can lift objects.

What Ofsted found in each area

Inclusion: Strong standard

Leaders and staff place an inspiring focus on building effective partnerships with parents and other agencies. They use these partnerships to create highly accurate and continually updated assessments on children's current needs. They use these to identify and implement appropriate next steps. Those with responsibility for inclusion hold regular meetings with parents and staff to identify changes as they occur, to the support children's needs and ensure they are implemented. Staff use their teaching skills to ensure any gaps in children's knowledge and understanding are swiftly closed. For example, when children struggle to process changes or self-regulate, due to new experiences outside the setting, this information is swiftly shared among the staff. They then discuss how to best support these children to explore their feelings and process them. They adapt the next day's plans and activities to support children.

Leaders and staff work closely with parents and other professionals to enable all children to join in and effectively build on their learning and development. For example, staff use a range of teaching strategies to support children's communication. They use signing and 'now and next' pictorial cards to support children to understand what will happen when, or to express their feelings. This support gives children ways to communicate their needs and feelings and helps reduce the frustration they feel at not being able to talk about them.

Curriculum and teaching: Strong standard

Leaders and staff are highly effective at working together as a team to plan and provide an inspiring and engaging curriculum for children. Their careful planning, enthusiastic interactions and effective teaching strategies encourage children's participation and motivate them in their learning. Focus is placed on children's personal and social skills, to encourage their engagement with others, practise their physical skills and develop their communication and language. This enables them to express their thoughts and needs. Enriching children's understanding about their local community and other cultures helps staff develop children's acceptance of their similarities and differences and develop empathy.

Leaders and staff are highly reflective, using their observations and evaluations of the curriculum to ensure that it is highly effective at meeting children's individual needs. They are extremely skilled at adapting activities to ensure all children can access them. Staff are also proactive at changing these activities when they observe children are not engaging or enjoying them. For example, staff create an activity to build on children's interest in transport, their knowledge of numbers and counting, mark-making, and to recall their own travel experiences. When children did not wish to copy around the outlines created by the toy vehicles, through discussion staff identified that children wanted to weigh the vehicles instead. Staff and children then sought resources to achieve this and began to weigh, count, problem-solve and explore the vehicles. Staff use their inspiring teaching to ensure that children continually build on their knowledge and consolidate their skills. Children show incredible readiness for their next stage of learning.

Achievement: Strong standard

Children make excellent progress from their starting points. Staff continually link with parents and other professionals to ensure they tailor the day's interactions to children's specific needs. Older children confidently meet their own personal care needs and younger children demonstrate their growing independence. For example, they persevere in putting their all-in-one suits on before forest school with minimal assistance, and pour their own drinks during snacks. Children enjoy exploring numbers, colours and shapes and eagerly share details about the pictures they create with these, proudly displaying them on the wall.

Children are kind and show excellent consideration for their friends' feelings. Staff are superb at supporting children to express their feelings. During stories and in their discussions with children, staff share techniques for how they can manage their feelings. For example, children recall how they can feel less upset if they count slowly to 10 and then take a deep breath. There are extremely positive bonds between children and staff. On the rare occasion children get upset staff use discussion, the sharing of feelings, and negotiation to resolve this. Children learn from an early age the skills of problem-solving and negotiation to be able to play with each other in harmony.

Behaviour, attitudes and establishing routines: Strong standard

Children behave extremely well, display positive attitudes to learning and settle quickly into the pre-school routine. Staff are excellent role models who show genuine enjoyment being with the children. They provide highly effective and consistent support to enable children to foster positive attitudes towards each other and join in activities. Staff help children learn how to regulate and share their feelings. They create trusting relationships with children and listen to them attentively. These strong bonds enable children to be confident to share their thoughts and interests with staff. Staff know how to best provide comfort and reassurance to children. They use their discussions with children to incorporate children's interests and likes into the activities and experiences they provide to them. Partnerships with parents are extremely positive and respectful. Parents receive clear information to support them in understanding pre-school expectations. They are aware of the benefit of children attending regularly and notify the setting if their child will be late or absent. Leaders and staff activity listen to parents who share their children's emerging needs and then respectfully incorporate this information to adapt how staff support children that day.

Staff use explanations and songs to support children during daily transitions. These strategies help children know what will happen next and manage the changes smoothly. Staff positively reinforce when children do things well, and this boosts children's self-esteem and desire to join in. For example, during welcoming sessions children respond to their name through words, smiles and/or raising their hands. As staff acknowledge this and thank them, children visibly sit straighter and smile.

Children's welfare and wellbeing: Strong standard

Leaders and staff demonstrate an excellent commitment to ensuring children's wellbeing and welfare is at the forefront of their practice. They ensure that their daily practice and curriculum is precisely tailored to children's specific needs. It is awe-inspiring. They are highly reflective and have a wealth of strategies that they continually use to ensure they are meeting every child's individual needs. For example, leaders constantly monitor the provision, children's folders and complete audits of practice and policies. Staff reflect on their practice and evaluate the effectiveness of children's engagement during activities.

Leaders and staff are continually discussing and changing their curriculum to reflect children's needs and using new teaching strategies to target these. Staff share this approach fully with parents, to increase their understanding of what is in place to support their children's development and how they can incorporate this at home. Parents share how excellent staff are at fully including them in how they are supporting their child's wellbeing, whether linked to behaviour changes due to events at home, emerging health needs or struggling to separate. Where children are struggling with self-regulation staff explain how to use the visual aids and strategies they use in pre-school at home. Staff always follow up with parents how things are going, and whether changes in their approach are needed to more effectively support children. Leaders and those with lead roles for inclusion share their practice with other settings and professionals to promote a positive example to others. Local teachers visit staff and children before they start school and feed back how well-prepared and school-ready they are on starting.

Leadership and governance: Strong standard

The leadership team and staff demonstrate an excellent commitment to providing a safe and stimulating environment where children can grow as individuals and develop positive dispositions to learning. They have high expectations of themselves and a passion to provide high-quality care and learning for children. Staff receive regular supervision, and monitoring of their practice is undertaken by leaders and colleagues. This monitoring identifies strengths of practice and areas where improvements will enhance the provision further. Staff professional development is given high priority by leaders and staff alike in order to maintain an up-to-date knowledge of new approaches to practice and policies. Staff are given time to complete both mandatory training and training they identify to enhance their own knowledge or outcomes for children.

Leaders demonstrate a strong commitment to networking with other professionals. Staff report that training linked to behaviour management, autism and social communication and additional needs has given them a deeper understanding of how best to support children's needs. There are extremely positive relationships with parents and other professionals, and partnership-working is given high priority. This helps the setting provide effective early support for children and helps to reduce barriers to their learning. There is a securely embedded key-person system, and all staff demonstrate an excellent understanding of each child's needs. Parents express how the support their children receive, and the interactions they themselves have with the staff, is exemplary and they cannot recommend the pre-school highly enough to others.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

  • Leaders should ensure continued improvement in the setting's successful work to remove barriers for children who need extra help, to realise a transformational impact on all children's achievement and wellbeing.

Ofsted's words, from the report on the inspection on 24 September 2026. Read the full report on the Ofsted website. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Inspection history

  • 22 February 2022: Full inspection, Outstanding (report)

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

  • Rainbow Corner Windlesham Ltd - Day nursery, Windlesham GU20 6AA, ages 0 to 4, 36 places, 0.3 miles
    Ofsted, 6 December 2022: Outstanding overall; safeguarding is effective
  • Puffin's Pre-School and Day Nursery - Day nursery, Windlesham GU20 6EW, ages 0 to 4, 36 places, 0.8 miles
    Ofsted, 14 November 2022: Good overall; safeguarding is effective
  • Natural Wonder - Earlywood - Pre-school, Ascot SL5 9JP, ages 4 to 8, 15 places, 1.2 miles
    Ofsted, 25 September 2024: Good overall; safeguarding is effective
  • Little Echoes Day Nursery - Day nursery, Bagshot GU19 5QE, ages 0 to 4, 65 places, 1.3 miles
    Ofsted, 7 May 2021: Good overall; safeguarding is effective
  • Monkey Puzzle Day Nursery Lightwater - Day nursery, Lightwater GU18 5RA, ages 0 to 3, 74 places, 1.3 miles
    Ofsted report card, 20 November 2025: Strong standard in 1 area, Expected standard in 5 areas; safeguarding standards met

Schools nearby

Little Villagers Pre-School on the Ofsted website