The Day Nursery
The Day Nursery is a day nursery in Peterborough for children aged 0 to 4, with 64 registered places. Ofsted report card, 14 January 2026: Strong standard in 6 areas; safeguarding standards met.
32 - 34 Priestgate, Peterborough, PE1 1JA
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
- 64 (Ofsted childcare register, as at 30 June 2026)
- Registered
- 25 May 2005 (Ofsted childcare register, as at 30 June 2026)
Opening hours
Monday,Tuesday,Wednesday,Thursday,Friday : 07:30 - 18:00
Source: Ofsted report, inspection on 14 January 2026
Who runs it
The Day Nursery is run by The Day Nursery Peterborough Ltd (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 14 January 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 thoroughly enjoy attending this extremely warm and welcoming nursery. They arrive with confidence and are eager to start their day. The key-person system is highly effective in helping children to settle. Staff closely mirror babies' routines at home to provide a smooth transition into nursery and to meet their ongoing needs. Children build close, trusting relationships with the adults who care for them. Children's extremely positive interactions with staff and each other show that they are happy and settled.
All children, including those who face barriers to their learning, are very well supported to achieve and thrive. Children are swiftly assessed on entry to ensure that targeted support is quickly put in place. Staff demonstrate high-quality teaching. They thoroughly understand how children learn. They ensure that activities are fun and capture children's interests. Children benefit from a broad range of experiences. They take part in daily activities that help them learn about recycling, sustainability and how to care for the environment. Children develop a very strong sense of belonging in the local community. They regularly visit places of interest, such as the museum and cathedral. This helps to broaden their understanding of the world around them.
Children's regular attendance helps to ensure that they benefit fully from the whole curriculum. Children are very well prepared for starting their next stage of education. They are encouraged to be fully independent and confident to manage their own self-care. Staff help parents to support their children to be ready for school. They provide information sessions for parents so that they can help children develop these skills further at home. This includes information on the importance of self-regulation and how children's brains develop. Parents comment that their children are 'thriving' due to attending this nursery. Children play in a language-rich environment. Staff help all children to consistently build an excellent range of vocabulary and communication skills.
What Ofsted found in each area
Inclusion: Strong standard
Staff have high expectations for all children in the nursery to achieve well. Those working with children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) and those who face other barriers to their learning are highly trained and skilled. Staff demonstrate an excellent knowledge of child development. They quickly identify when children may need additional support in their learning and set well-considered targets for development. Leaders have developed their own SEND curriculum, which helps to provide a more tailored, flexible and rounded approach. Children's individual targets are precisely focused on what they need to develop next.
Staff work tirelessly with parents and other professionals to ensure that all children's needs can be met. Leaders work with parents to access additional funding for children who are eligible. Together, they decide how best to use the funds to enhance the experiences for their children. This includes specialised equipment and resources that can be used both in the nursery or at home. Children who speak English as an additional language are extremely well supported in the nursery. A parent lending library includes dual language books to read at home, and parents are regularly invited to read books to children in their home language.
Curriculum and teaching: Strong standard
Teaching is highly effective across all rooms of the nursery. Staff know the children extremely well. They take the time to help them settle and build loving, trusting relationships from the start. Staff working with babies are highly skilled and trained. They understand baby development, including the importance of developing and strengthening children's large and small muscles. They give them space to crawl, climb safely and provide equipment to help them pull themselves up to standing. Staff maintain eye-contact when talking to babies and repeat words to begin building their vocabulary.
Leaders have established their own highly ambitious curriculum, including a separate, more flexible educational curriculum to support children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). They have high expectations of staff and consistently review practice to identify where improvements are made. Staff work diligently to promote the importance of books and a love of reading. A lending library for children and parents, encourages and extends this learning at home. Staff skilfully weave mathematics, such as counting and problem solving through everyday routines and activities. For example, at the tea table, staff encourage children to think about how many more children they need to fill the empty chairs. Overall, the curriculum is highly effective, and precise, targeted teaching helps to embed learning. This ensures children are very well prepared for the next stage of their education.
Achievement: Strong standard
Children make very good progress throughout their time in the nursery. They build excellent language and communication skills alongside their personal, social and emotional development. This means children are consistently taught the essential skills they will need in later life. Children are confident to express their own wants and needs and ask for help. Children, including 2-year-olds, listen attentively to stories demonstrating their excellent listening and attention skills. They excitedly ask for more books when the story is finished.
Children develop a secure knowledge of mathematical concepts, for example, as they learn to weigh and measure ingredients as part of cooking activities. They count with confidence, such as when playing hide and seek. Children, including those who face barriers to their learning, quickly make considerable progress from their starting points.
Behaviour, attitudes and establishing routines: Strong standard
Leaders and staff create a safe learning environment that encourages a very positive attitude to learning. Children listen and follow instructions very well. They listen attentively in group activities, such as circle time, and show impressive levels of concentration and focus. Children behave extremely well. The eldest children fully understand the behaviour expectations. They know to share and take turns and are confident to model this positive behaviour with others. Staff help children to know what is expected of them from a young age. For example, when the bell is rung, children know that this means that it is time to stop and to work together to tidy away the toys. Staff are positive role models. Parents comment on the excellent manners their children use and feel this positive practice has been reinforced by nursery staff.
Staff understand the importance of building valued and positive partnerships with parents from the start. They gather the essential information about their child to help them settle and explain the benefits of regular attendance. Parents comment extremely positively on the information they receive about their children's daily activities and ongoing progress. Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities are supported very well by staff to manage any difficulties they may face during changes in routine. Staff consistently monitor routine activities so that they meet the needs of all children.
Children's welfare and wellbeing: Strong standard
Leaders understand the diverse needs of the children who attend the nursery and provide constant, tailored support. Children quickly build extremely close bonds with their key person. Toddlers thoroughly enjoy their interactions with staff. They smile as staff approach them and are extremely eager to participate in a game of peekaboo together. Staff provide a safe environment where children are encouraged to speak openly about their feelings and emotions. They teach children how to act respectfully towards others. As a result, older children are extremely confident to manage their own minor conflicts and tell their peers how they feel.
Freshly cooked meals are healthy and well balanced. Careful consideration is given to government guidelines to ensure that there are low levels of sugar and salt in the food. Mealtimes are used very effectively to promote children's growing independence. From the age of 2 years, children serve their own food at lunchtime. They work together to identify who needs a plate and cutlery. Children highly benefit from embedded routines that promote a sustained and healthy lifestyle. They participate in the 'daily mile' giving them movement outdoors and the opportunity to safely take in the sights and sounds around them. This includes babies who further benefit from time in the fresh air. Regular Yoga sessions for older children and music and movement sessions for younger children help them to develop their physical flexibility, balance and core strength muscles. This also helps them to develop high levels of concentration and focus for extended periods of time.
Leadership and governance: Strong standard
Leaders appreciate and value their staff. They monitor practice to help nurture and guide staff's personal development. Regular supervision sessions consider staff's wellbeing and identify professional training opportunities. Leaders are passionate about continuing professional development opportunities for all staff using tailor-made, customised and bespoke training. This means staff can continually deliver high-quality teaching experiences and constantly build their skills. Leaders strive to provide children and their families with a first-rate provision that celebrates each child individually. The owner of the nursery is an active contributor to numerous local and national early years groups and forums. This helps to bring new initiatives and practices to the nursery that benefit children's experiences.
Leaders give staff the time they need to support children who face barriers to their learning. This enables staff to tailor their teaching effectively to meet children's individual needs. Leaders are very reflective, and the nursery is always evolving. They demonstrate an accurate view of the strengths and areas of focus. Leaders consider local published data for children under 5 years, such as oral health information. They use this information to decide what steps are needed to best support the current cohort of children and families. For example, parents who are dentists visit the children to talk about the importance of teeth brushing.
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 disadvantaged children, those with special educational needs and/or disabilities, those who are known (or previously known) to children's social care, and those who may face other barriers to their learning and/or wellbeing.
Ofsted's words, from the report on the inspection on 14 January 2026. Read the full report on the Ofsted website. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Inspection history
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
- Nene Valley Day Nursery - Day nursery, Peterborough PE1 2TG, ages 0 to 4, 50 places, 0.3 milesOfsted, 9 December 2021: Good overall; safeguarding is effective
- Shiny Stars Pre-School - Day nursery, Peterborough PE1 2EA, ages 2 to 4, 27 places, 0.4 milesOfsted, 4 June 2025: Outstanding overall; safeguarding is effective
- West Town Pre-School - Pre-school, Peterborough PE3 6DD, ages 2 to 4, 44 places, 0.5 milesOfsted, 17 July 2025: Good overall; safeguarding is effective
- ABC Kids Nursery - Day nursery, Peterborough PE3 6AR, ages 1 to 4, 62 places, 0.5 milesOfsted, 28 September 2022: Good overall; safeguarding is effective
- Beeches Preschool - Day nursery, Peterborough PE1 2EL, ages 2 to 4, 26 places, 0.6 milesOfsted, 26 November 2024: Good overall; safeguarding is effective
Schools nearby
- Clare Lodge - All-through, under 0.1 miles
- Bishop Creighton Academy - Primary, 0.3 miles
- The Beeches Independent School - Special, 0.5 miles
- The Beeches Primary School - Primary, 0.5 miles
- St Augustine's CofE (Voluntary Aided) Junior School - Primary, 0.6 miles