Oak and Wren Day Nursery
Oak and Wren Day Nursery is a day nursery in London for children aged 0 to 4, with 59 registered places. Ofsted report card, 19 February 2026: Strong standard in 1 area, Expected standard in 5 areas; safeguarding standards met.
155 Baring Road, London, SE12 0LA
Key facts
- Type
- Day nursery (Full day care) (Ofsted childcare register, as at 30 June 2026)
- Ages
- 0 to 4 (Ofsted childcare register, as at 30 June 2026)
- Registered places
- 59 (Ofsted childcare register, as at 30 June 2026)
- Registered
- 23 July 2024 (Ofsted childcare register, as at 30 June 2026)
Opening hours
Monday,Tuesday,Wednesday,Thursday,Friday : 08:00 - 18:00
Source: Ofsted report, inspection on 19 February 2026
Who runs it
Oak and Wren Day Nursery is run by SAI Children Centre Ltd (Ofsted register).
Latest inspection
- Inclusion: Expected standard
- Curriculum and teaching: Expected standard
- Achievement: Expected standard
- Behaviour, attitudes and establishing routines: Expected standard
- Children's welfare and wellbeing: Strong standard
- Leadership and governance: Expected standard
- Safeguarding standards met
Source: Ofsted, inspection on 19 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
Children's wellbeing is at the heart of this setting. This supports all children to thrive. Staff get to know children well to ensure they can adapt routines and learning experiences effectively to ensure all children make progress. Leaders act swiftly to reduce barriers to learning, drawing on external agency guidance where needed. Leaders ensure the settling-in process is sensitive to individual children's needs, which supports babies to feel safe and secure. Parents report that they are kept up to date with children's progress. Children develop positive relationships with each other, including children with special educational needs and/or disabilities and those with barriers to learning. Older children enjoy playing collaboratively. They use spray bottles, sponges and flannels to clean 'big cars' together and state they have made the car shiny and clean. Babies push themselves along on trikes and smile back at staff to share their achievement.
Staff promote independence, giving children time to have a go themselves. They give praise to children for being helpful. Children are confident communicators. For example, during story time, children listen eagerly and take turns to discuss their ideas and opinions. Staff support babies' language, such as by using facial expressions, gestures and making eye contact. Staff are quick to recognise and respond to babies' needs, offering reassurance and supporting them through familiar routines to help them to flourish. This also supports babies to feel valued and cared for.
Children are taught how to be sustainable such as re-using rainwater, turning off lights and using the correct bins for recycling. Leaders teach the importance of respecting the local environment, this supports children's understanding of the world and sense of responsibility. Children learn how to manage risks, for example, at forest school. This helps to enhance their independence and understanding of how to keep themselves safe. Children are taught how to protect themselves, for example to cough into their elbows so as not to spread germs and to wash their hands effectively.
What Ofsted found in each area
Inclusion: Expected standard
Leaders have established an inclusive culture that celebrates all children's backgrounds and promotes pride in learning about home traditions and languages. Leaders ensure that relationships with families are strong to ensure that detailed information about children is shared regularly, so that staff can adapt their practice to meet changing needs and circumstances.
Staff are efficient at making adaptations to the curriculum to ensure that all children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities or other barriers to learning, can achieve. For example, staff provide tailored one-to-one support, use of visual now and next boards, picture emotion card lanyards and adapted daily routines to help meet children's individual needs. Leaders and staff observe, track and review children's progress collaboratively and evaluate the impact of strategies through reflection. This helps to ensures that children with additional needs, those who speak English as an additional language, or who have other barriers to learning typically make good progress.
Staff carefully assess and review children's needs and progress, working with parents and the local authority advisors to further develop their practice to ensure they are able to remove any barriers that children face swiftly. Leaders demonstrate a sufficient knowledge and understanding of the value of additional funding to shape experiences and opportunities for disadvantaged children should they be welcomed into the setting in the future.
Curriculum and teaching: Expected standard
Leaders have used their knowledge of child development to design a curriculum that ensures children have opportunities to develop in all areas of learning. Children are given plenty of opportunities to develop their thinking skills through experiences and exploration. For example, toddlers squeeze lemon and orange slices into cups during sensory play while staff narrate and introduce new vocabulary.
Babies are introduced to mathematical language, such as when playing with water and rubber ducks. Staff count the ducks and then sing well known songs and number rhymes to secure their learning. However, staff are at varying levels of professional development and understanding of how children learn. This means that some staff deliver the curriculum more expertly than others. Overall, the curriculum is adapted well for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities and those with barriers to learning. Staff know the children well and tailor teaching to different children's needs and stages of development.
All children have daily access to the outdoor provision to develop their larger muscles and strength. Older children enjoy navigating scooters up and down a slope or digging for vegetables in the mud kitchen. Babies enjoy crawling through tunnels and enthusiastically attempt to catch bubbles.
Achievement: Expected standard
All children are well prepared for their next stage in learning, including school. For example, toddlers tidy up after mealtimes and drink from open cups. Older children put on their own shoes and coats ready to play outdoors and learn to walk downstairs safely.
Children show resilience and keep trying during harder tasks, for example when trying use scissors to cut. They try and try again until they succeed. Children access resources independently. Babies crawl to resources they wish to play with and concentrate on achieving goals, for example scooping water up with a cup carefully and pouring it back out.
Children are confident communicators. For instance, they talk avidly with others about what they are making with dough. Children know about numbers and count how many circles they have and how many more they want in their design. Children celebrate their achievements, such as completing a puzzle, and enjoy their learning.
Behaviour, attitudes and establishing routines: Expected standard
All children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities and those with barriers to their learning, have a positive attitude to learning and are focused and engaged during activities. For example, older children concentrate on building dinosaurs with screws and screwdrivers, swapping parts, sharing and offering each other ideas. Babies clap along during group time and attempt to copy staff's actions with big smiles.
Leaders and staff have high expectations for children's behaviour. Staff praise what children do well. Staff use a range of approaches, such as picture cards, sand timers and songs, to help children to recognise changes in the routine of the day at the setting. Mostly, staff help children to learn positive behaviours, such as by having a 'helper of the day'. Leaders ensure that staff adapt their support to support the behaviour of individual children. However, on occasion, staff do not manage some children's behaviour consistently well. This leads to some children being unclear about how to behave.
Leaders have developed a positive environment, where staff get to know the children well. The key-person approach ensures that babies needs are met sensitively and children enjoy sharing their play with staff, who are well known to them. Leaders promote the importance of regular attendance with parents and carers. Leaders explore the reasons for any absences with parents and offer help, when required, to facilitate children's regular attendance. Leaders recognise the importance of children arriving in a timely manner, so that they make the most of the learning opportunities available to them.
Children's welfare and wellbeing: Strong standard
Leaders and staff consistently prioritise all children's wellbeing at the setting extremely well. Children, including those with barriers to learning, are taught to recognise different emotions to help them confidently discuss different feelings. Younger children share how they feel, for instance, by using a picture chart. All pre-school children take part in weekly forest school activities. This positively impacts their wellbeing, as they enjoy sustained learning outdoors in the fresh air. This contributes to all children's, including those with barriers to learning, emotional development and sense of overall self-esteem.
Children are supported to develop an excellent understanding of health and wellbeing. For example, they learn about oral health while brushing their teeth after lunch together. Wellbeing bags are shared with parents that include healthy eating activities, potty training books and tips and oral health resources that include toothbrushes and toothpaste. These resources support families to work in partnership with the setting to have a positive impact on children's health, to develop life long healthy habits.
Parents comment that staff and leaders genuinely care about families and ensure strong communication to offer well-considered support to meet the needs of families changing circumstances. For example, leaders have amended their opening hours to meet the needs of working parents. Key-person relationships with children are secure. Staff notice when children are sleepy or need routines adapting sensitively. Children are settled and well cared for.
Leadership and governance: Expected standard
Leaders have made swift improvement since the previous inspection to ensure that they are delivering a curriculum that is ambitious for all children. They collaborate with external agencies to identify areas for development and have taken action to develop staff confidence in managing behaviours positively. Leaders have improved training methods for staff to make certain that staff remember their learning well. Supervisions for staff have been developed to improve the quality of their practice. A robust recruitment procedure ensures that staff are well suited for the roles.
Leaders and staff attend mandatory training to ensure they are confident in safeguarding and have recently joined a new training organisation to complete further ongoing training. Leaders should continue to develop their evaluative approach and training programme offered to ensure effective sustained professional development for all staff.
Leaders understand priorities for local children and use this to support children's wellbeing. For example, knowledge that many children within the area are without gardens, they ensure that children get lots of outdoor access and forest school sessions. They are dedicated to enhancing outcomes for all children, including children with special educational needs and/or disabilities and children who are disadvantaged.
What the setting must and should do next
The provider should:
- Leaders should support staff to build on their skills in providing consistently high-quality interactions to ensure children make even further progress.
- Leaders should further develop their evaluative approach and training programme to ensure effective continuous professional development for all staff.
- Leaders should strengthen staff confidence and consistency in supporting children to fully understand behaviour expectations.
Ofsted's words, from the report on the inspection on 19 February 2026. Read the full report on the Ofsted website. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Inspection history
- 19 February 2026: Full inspection, report card: Strong standard in 1, Expected standard in 5
- 23 September 2025: Full inspection, Inadequate (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
- Learn Log - Day nursery, London SE12 0JS, 0.2 miles
- Little Stars Preschool Grove Park - Pre-school, London SE12 0BX, 34 places, 0.3 miles
- Little Stars Preschool Library - Pre-school, London SE12 0BX, 18 places, 0.3 miles
- Bright Origin Nursery Baby's Castle - Day nursery, London SE12 9PN, ages 1 to 4, 51 places, 0.4 milesOfsted report card, 3 September 2026: Strong standard in 1 area, Expected standard in 5 areas; safeguarding standards met
- Crafty Wizards Horn Park - Day nursery, London SE12 9BT, ages 1 to 4, 36 places, 0.5 milesOfsted report card, 18 September 2026: Strong standard in 2 areas, Expected standard in 4 areas; safeguarding standards met
Schools nearby
- Cooper's Lane Primary School - Primary, 0.2 miles
- Baring Primary School - Primary, 0.4 miles
- Haberdashers' Knights Primary - Primary, 0.5 miles
- Horn Park Primary School - Primary, 0.5 miles
- Drumbeat School and ASD Service - Special, 0.5 miles