Sticky Fingers Day Nursery
Sticky Fingers Day Nursery is a day nursery in Hanwell for children aged 2 to 4, with 32 registered places. Ofsted report card, 22 April 2026: Strong standard in 6 areas; safeguarding standards met.
Sticky Fingers Nursery, Church Road, Hanwell, W7 3BP
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
- 32 (Ofsted childcare register, as at 30 June 2026)
- Registered
- 18 April 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 22 April 2026
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 22 April 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 enjoy learning in the warm, inclusive and nurturing environment. This helps every child to thrive, achieve and develop a consistent sense of belonging. Leaders and staff have high hopes for all children to develop to their full potential. They use their detailed knowledge of each child to provide personalised support that removes barriers to learning. Across the nursery, children engage enthusiastically in a broad curriculum. This is enriched by meaningful sequencing, which helps children explore their creativity, deepen their critical thinking and strengthen their communication skills. For example, after listening to a familiar story, children concentrate deeply as they create their own space models using construction resources and proudly talk about their designs.
Children are individually cared for by dedicated and long-serving staff. Staff provide effective support for children who speak English as an additional language. Staff give children many opportunities to be kind and independent, build confidence and experience success at their own pace. This supports children's growing ability to question, share, make choices, plan and take action in their learning pathways.
Children build secure relationships with their peers and staff and celebrate each other's successes. For example, children celebrate when their friends match a pair correctly in a game.
All children, including children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) and those who face barriers to learning, achieve very well from their starting points. They develop skills across all 7 areas of the curriculum. For example, children with SEND learn to communicate their wants and needs and extend their use of words. Younger children learn to read their name. All children show excellent levels of self-motivation and a passion for learning that prepares them well for their next stage of learning and school.
What Ofsted found in each area
Inclusion: Strong standard
Leaders and staff show a sustained commitment to inclusion. They identify children's needs quickly and seek support, from health and other professionals when needed, to reduce gaps in learning so that children meet their milestones in preparation for school. Practitioners know children well and skilfully make adaptations so that children's learning is promoted extremely effectively. For example, children keenly participate in specific activities aimed at helping them extend their attention. When necessary, leaders follow up with further services to ensure that children access any additional support.
Staff build highly effective key-person relationships, so children feel emotionally secure and progress well from their starting stages. For instance, children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) and those who face barriers to learning follow routines and confidently make choices.
Leaders have high aspirations for all children. They work effectively in partnerships with families, including families of children with SEND and those who face barriers to learning, to help each child achieve. Leaders support families of children with SEND to prepare for their transition to school. For example, designated leaders invite teachers from schools into the setting so they can share information about children and their progress.
Curriculum and teaching: Strong standard
Leaders and staff implement the curriculum effectively. They fully focus on children's personal, social and emotional development and their communication and language. Children become confident in communicating their needs and ideas, using an increasingly wide vocabulary to discuss what they are doing. They apply their language skills purposefully, including when developing their mathematical understanding. Staff model rich language and extend children's thinking, helping them to develop their vocabulary and communication skills.
Leaders prioritise children's physical development throughout the nursery. Children climb, balance and jump with sensitive adult support. Staff carry out thorough assessments when children start at the nursery to help them plan for future learning. They know children very well and thoughtfully adapt teaching around their interests. For example, they use maps to develop children's interest in numbers.
Staff work daily with their key children to support their next steps in learning very well. For example, younger children develop their sensory awareness by touching and exploring soaked seeds that look like frogspawn. Older children strengthen their small hand muscles through making frogspawn, using dough. Leaders encourage a reading culture to support children's literacy skills and prepare them for school and beyond.
Achievement: Strong standard
Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities or other disadvantages make sustained progress in counting, responding to instructions, taking turns and developing abilities in personal needs. Gaps in communication skills are gradually closing. For instance, they focus and respond to familiar refrains at story time.
Children express their needs, share ideas and engage in meaningful conversations. They are curious, independent and motivated, exploring challenges such as making own creations from paper bands.
Children also flourish in small-group mathematics sessions, where staff engage them in exciting games and problem-solving activities. For example, older children are encouraged to make and count rings as they play and work out how many more they need to make a set of 10. Younger children show great excitement in learning how tadpoles lose their tails as part of their life cycle. They also enjoy looking at books to deepen their understanding further.
Behaviour, attitudes and establishing routines: Strong standard
All children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) and those who face barriers to learning, follow routines well and understand expectations, which supports positive behaviour and relationships. As a result, children show consideration for others, and any disruptions to their play are minimised. Staff role model and promote positive behaviour. They help children to express their feelings and emotions and develop skills to manage their behaviour well.
Children confidently make choices that develop independent thinking. Practitioners use praise regularly to support children in being kind to others. They support children to learn how to play together and form strong relationships with their friends and adults. This prepares children for school and beyond. For example, children calmly tell friends that they need to join a queue to wait their turn to jump in the hoops. Leaders encourage all children to join in with activities, especially children with SEND and those who face barriers to learning.
Practitioners know children and their families well. They regularly discuss children's progress with parents and the rest of the team. Leaders promote the importance of attendance and punctuality to parents so that children are safe and continue to achieve well.
Children's welfare and wellbeing: Strong standard
Leaders and staff promote children's welfare and wellbeing consistently. When children need help choosing an activity, particularly those who face barriers to learning, staff are swift to step in with strategies that help children access the activities on offer. They ensure that all children receive the individual care to feel safe. Leaders ensure that children's meals and snacks are nutritious and meet individual dietary requirements.
Warm, secure attachments between key persons and children are well established. On arrival, younger children cuddle into familiar staff, showing they feel safe and secure. Older children are confident and independent, knowing staff understand their needs and respond quickly. These secure relationships support children's emotional wellbeing and provide reassurance.
Children show pride when they put on their coats independently and enjoy sharing such achievements with staff. Physical development is promoted through active outdoor play. Children embrace challenges, collaborate well with their friends and flourish in the praise and recognition they are given. This results in children's positive attitudes, growing self-care skills and confidence in managing their personal needs. For instance, children talk with staff about healthy foods and explain how fruit helps keep their teeth healthy.
Leadership and governance: Strong standard
Leaders celebrate that their setting is a caring family of children, staff, parents and wider community. All children, including children with special educational needs and/or disabilities and those who face barriers to learning, are supported to make strong progress from their starting points. Leaders manage staff workloads carefully. Nursery-based training focuses on strengthening staff expertise and ensuring the curriculum reflects leaders' ambitions for children.
Leaders and staff form positive partnerships with parents, who speak very highly of the care and individual support their children receive. Parents are kept regularly updated about their children's development. Parents describe the nursery as feeling like 'leaving their children with family'. They mention that staff offer support to promote learning at home, such as increasing their child's attention by playing games of matching cards.
Leaders are dedicated to driving high standards in the nursery. Staff are enthusiastic in their work. They say their wellbeing is valued and supported, so they love to work here. Staff consistently review their work to build on what children know and are able to do. They value and respond positively to children's views and contributions, helping to build their self-esteem. For example, a child confidently states that he speaks Spanish and says 'Buenos dias'.
What the setting must and should do next
The provider should:
- Leaders and those responsible for governance should sustain their work to ensure continued improvement and high standards. They should focus on creating a transformational impact on the outcomes and experiences of children with special educational needs and/or disabilities and those who may face other barriers to their learning and/or wellbeing.
Ofsted's words, from the report on the inspection on 22 April 2026. Read the full report on the Ofsted website. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Inspection history
- 22 April 2026: Full inspection, report card: Strong 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
- Bunny Park Day Nursery - Day nursery, London W7 3EJ, ages 2 to 4, 26 places, 0.1 milesOfsted, 26 November 2024: Good overall; safeguarding is effective
- Children Come First - Pre-school, London W7 3QP, ages 2 to 3, 30 places, 0.3 milesOfsted, 19 October 2022: Good overall; safeguarding is effective
- Stagecoach Ealing - Hobbayne Primary School - Pre-school, London W7 1HA, 0.3 miles
- Hungry Caterpillar Day Nurseries - Hanwell Children Centre - Day nursery, London W7 3JG, ages 0 to 4, 55 places, 0.4 milesOfsted, 24 January 2023: Good overall; safeguarding is effective
- Sticky Fingers Day Nursery - Day nursery, Hanwell W7 1AA, ages 2 to 4, 26 places, 0.4 milesOfsted, 26 May 2023: Good overall; safeguarding is effective
Schools nearby
- St Ann's School - Special, 0.4 miles
- Hobbayne Primary School - Primary, 0.4 miles
- St Joseph's Catholic Primary School - Primary, 0.4 miles
- Drayton Manor High School - Secondary, 0.4 miles
- Mayfield Primary School - Primary, 0.5 miles