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Solid Start Nursery Limited

Solid Start Nursery Limited is a day nursery in Dagenham for children aged 2 to 4, with 24 registered places. Ofsted report card, 19 March 2026: Expected standard in 6 areas; safeguarding standards met.

Bethel Christian Centre, 170 Bennetts Castle Lane, Dagenham, RM8 3XP

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
24 (Ofsted childcare register, as at 30 June 2026)
Registered
15 November 2023 (Ofsted childcare register, as at 30 June 2026)

Opening hours

Monday : 08:00 - 13:00,Tuesday,Wednesday,Thursday : 08:00 - 18:00

Source: Ofsted report, inspection on 19 March 2026

Who runs it

Solid Start Nursery Limited is run by Solid Start Nursery Limited (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: Expected standard
  • Leadership and governance: Expected standard
  • Safeguarding standards met

Source: Ofsted, inspection on 19 March 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 are keen to enter the caring, well-structured and inclusive nursery. Staff warmly greet every child, creating a strong sense of connection. Children start each day with calm, familiar routines that help them feel safe and ready to learn. All children, including those with barriers to learning, settle quickly and happily explore a wide range of exciting activities, resources and experiences.

Staff know children well and weave their interests into the different areas of learning. They support all children by implementing tailored next steps in learning. These next steps guide the children's progress effectively. Staff are knowledgeable and identify children's differing needs well. They offer targeted support to children with special educational needs and/or disabilities, ensuring that they thrive and achieve. Staff use adult-led activities to teach children turn-taking skills. They role model kindness, and children reflect these attitudes when sharing with each other. This support helps children understand how to behave well.

Children develop secure bonds with staff and confidently share their thoughts and ideas. For instance, children enjoy using a range of media for painting and drawing. They sustain focus and engagement as they mix colours in cups. They are eager to share their achievements with others and explain to adults how they have made the colour 'green'. Children proudly show their finished paintings to adults and their friends. Staff celebrate their successes. This boosts children's confidence and develops their self-esteem.

All children, including those with barriers to learning, are typically prepared well for their next stage of development. They make appropriate progress from their starting points and gain the skills they need to move on to school. For example, children learn to become independent and complete tasks for themselves. They put on their coats, wash their hands and serve their own food. Staff help children to express their needs clearly, developing their vocabulary, confidence and a secure sense of emotional wellbeing.

What Ofsted found in each area

Inclusion: Expected standard

Leaders are committed to supporting all children, including those known to social care. Staff work consistently well with parents, for example by sharing strategies to support children at home and in the nursery. This helps ensure that families feel supported and that children can embed their learning and make progress through a shared and consistent approach. Leaders ensure that staff receive ongoing training to recognise when children may require additional support. This includes a graduated communication and language programme, where staff consistently modify their language for the different level of needs of each child. This successfully improves children's understanding of language and helps them become fully involved in learning.

Staff offer targeted support to children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), such as providing a higher level of adult support during activities. They monitor children's progress through close observation and assessment. However, staff do not always recognise when to make further reasonable adjustments to ensure that all children, particularly those who engage less readily, take part consistently in whole-group activities such as circle time and benefit fully from the intended learning. Leaders maintain effective links with other professionals and seek advice to make certain children have the right support. This ensures that children with SEND and those known to other services continue to make secure progress. Leaders use additional funding collaboratively with parents and carers to identify how best to promote each child's development. For instance, they buy dual language books to support children who speak English as an additional language.

Curriculum and teaching: Expected standard

Overall, leaders understand the quality of the curriculum and teaching. They monitor staff practice, provide feedback and encourage staff to share ideas. This builds staff confidence and enhances children's learning opportunities. However, at times, teaching is not consistent to develop children's thinking and spark curiosity to help deepen their learning. Leaders know children and their families well. They use this knowledge to identify learning gaps and plan a curriculum that builds on what children already know and can do. Staff draw on children's interests, such as painting, drawing and imaginative play with dinosaurs, to plan activities that capture and sustain their engagement.

Staff embed rich vocabulary and mathematical learning throughout daily interactions across all age groups. They use singing, storytelling, engaging in purposeful conversations with children and providing commentary in activities. Children explore early mathematical ideas through everyday experiences. For example, they use cooked spaghetti to learn about long, short, full and half full. They sing number songs, and staff help them to recognise numbers. Children's physical development is effective. Practitioners understand steps in their learning to help build on their fine motor skills and large movements to develop their physical strength. Leaders and staff adapt teaching for children's individual needs, including for disadvantaged children, those with special educational needs and/or disabilities and children learning English as an additional language. For example, they use visual cues, such as picture cards and now and next boards. These adaptations help all children to take part in the curriculum.

Achievement: Expected standard

Children typically make secure progress from their starting points across all areas of learning. They communicate confidently and request help or support from staff. Children are able to wash their hands and put on their coats. Older children take responsibility for placing children's names on chairs and removing them after lunch. Children feel proud of their efforts and build their confidence. Children show they are developing their core strength and coordination as they run around the cones in the garden, ride the scooters and pedal the bikes.

Children are keen to take part in regular whole-group activities such as circle time. They sing songs, and children are excited to take part in telling the story, practising their language and developing their recall skills. However, not all children consistently join in and engage. This means that children do not consistently access the intended learning and fully benefit from the experience. Overall, children, including those who are disadvantaged or with special educational needs and/or disabilities, are suitably prepared for the next stage in their learning journey, including their move on to school.

Behaviour, attitudes and establishing routines: Expected standard

Leaders promote good attendance and punctuality. They give reminders in newsletters and praise punctual parents and carers. Children's attendance is closely monitored, and meetings are held to support families where needed. This ensures that all children get the most from their time at nursery. Effective key-person systems support early development of positive trusting relationships between children and adults. Children are polite, calm and well mannered. For example, they give each other hugs and support one another with their needs, such as holding their friend's hand to walk them to the carpet area for circle time. Regular songs and activities that celebrate children's individuality and kindness help them to learn how to care for others and be proud of their differences.

Staff are kind and attentive to children's needs. This helps children to feel confident in their surroundings and ready to learn. They readily go to staff for reassurance and to ask for help. Staff use encouragement and meaningful praise to support positive behaviour. They adapt their expectations and consider children at different stages of learning. Children respond to gentle reminders of nursery rules, such as using an 'indoor voice' and that 'sharing is caring'. Children enjoy a range of learning opportunities, such as independent play, group time and one-to-one activities. Children learn to play collaboratively with their friends. They delight in making patterns together with foam. They show respect towards each other as they share the tools.

Children's welfare and wellbeing: Expected standard

Personal care for all children is carried out in a sensitive manner. Staff encourage children to make choices to promote their own wellbeing. For example, children choose when they would like a drink and what fruit they want for snack. Staff get to know all children well and build secure trusting relationships with them from the start. They help children to understand by using songs and pictures to name how they feel and manage their feelings. This supports children's feelings of emotional security and wellbeing.

Children understand the daily routines, which helps them to feel secure in knowing what comes next in their day. Routines such as sleeping and eating support children well. Staff use objects of reference and picture cards to show what happens now and next, helping all children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities and those who speak English as an additional language, to understand the structure of the day and feel confident during transitions. Staff effectively promote children's good health and physical exercise. Children enjoy healthy and balanced home-cooked meals that are tailored to their individual dietary needs. During snack time, children learn about vitamin C in the oranges and how it makes their bodies strong. Children thoroughly enjoy the indoor movement sessions and learn about personal safety as they ride wheeled toys and move freely, yet safely, in the outdoor area.

Leadership and governance: Expected standard

Leaders are determined to give children the best start. They have a clear and ambitious vision for what they want for all children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities, and children from disadvantaged backgrounds, to learn and achieve. They have a secure understanding of the setting's strengths and areas for development, with a clear improvement plan in place. Leaders take prompt action to minimise gaps in all children's learning. For example, they engage with outside professionals to support individual needs and put interventions in place. They consider the needs of children when planning continuous professional development opportunities. For instance, they plan training in a joint attention programme to help staff to provide children with effective support.

Leaders have well-established partnerships with parents and carers. They actively seek their feedback, which they use to shape improvements. Parents and carers consistently express how much they appreciate the individual care and support their children receive. They value the support for home learning. This consistency helps the children to make progress and thrive. Leaders have high regard for staff wellbeing and workload. They recognise and value staff's individual skills and levels of experience. Staff enjoy working at the setting and are supported well by leaders. Safeguarding remains a central focus, with leaders maintaining high expectations and ensuring it is a priority in training and team discussions.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

  • Leaders should support staff to further improve the organisation of planned activities to ensure all children can fully access the intended learning goals, including those who engage less readily.
  • Leaders should support staff to strengthen their interactions with children to improve teaching to a consistently high level, particularly by developing questioning techniques that promote critical thinking and deeper understanding.

Ofsted's words, from the report on the inspection on 19 March 2026. Read the full report on the Ofsted website. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Inspection history

  • 19 March 2026: Full inspection, report card: Expected standard in 6

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

  • Ashbourne Day Nurseries at Dagenham - Day nursery, Dagenham RM8 2TR, ages 0 to 4, 46 places, 0.3 miles
    Ofsted, 16 September 2025: Good overall; safeguarding is effective
  • Quality Kidz Nurseries Ltd - Day nursery, Dagenham RM8 2RS, ages 0 to 4, 64 places, 0.3 miles
    Ofsted, 18 July 2023: Good overall; safeguarding is effective
  • Purple Penguin at the Vibe - Pre-school, Dagenham RM8 2UT, 0.3 miles
  • The vibe - Pre-school, Dagenham RM8 2UT, 0.3 miles
  • Kinder Kapers Too - Day nursery, Dagenham RM9 5NB, ages 2 to 4, 136 places, 0.3 miles
    Ofsted, 14 September 2023: Good overall; safeguarding is effective

Schools nearby

Solid Start Nursery Limited on the Ofsted website