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West Cliff Pre-School

West Cliff Pre-School is a pre-school in Bournemouth for children aged 2 to 3, with 26 registered places. Ofsted report card, 29 September 2026: Strong standard in 3 areas, Expected standard in 3 areas; safeguarding standards met.

St. Ambrose Church, West Cliff Road, Bournemouth, BH4 8BE

Key facts

Type
Pre-school (Sessional day care) (Ofsted childcare register, as at 30 June 2026)
Ages
2 to 3 (Ofsted childcare register, as at 30 June 2026)
Registered places
26 (Ofsted childcare register, as at 30 June 2026)
Registered
2 October 2018 (Ofsted childcare register, as at 30 June 2026)

Opening hours

Monday,Tuesday,Wednesday,Thursday,Friday : 08:15 - 13:30

Source: Ofsted report, inspection on 29 September 2026

Who runs it

West Cliff Pre-School is run by West Cliff Pre - School Partnership (Ofsted register).

Latest inspection

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

Source: Ofsted, inspection on 29 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 and their families receive a warm welcome from staff. Children are keen to attend, settle well and find their friends and staff to play with. Children confidently explore the activities and engage well in their learning. They create imaginative games, such as caring for babies and making pretend food in the play kitchen with leaves, mud and water. Children enjoy books and bring these in from home for staff to read. They learn new words regularly. For example, children learn 3 focused words each week, as well as others through familiar songs and stories. They enjoy lots of energetic activities and outdoor play to develop their physical skills and health. Children run freely around the spacious garden, climb and balance.

Children typically make secure progress from the start. This includes disadvantaged children, those with special educational needs and/or disabilities and those with other barriers to learning. They benefit from a broad curriculum designed to meet their individual needs and next steps for learning. Specific adaptations are designed to include each child equally, to remove any barriers to their learning and to typically enable children to reach their full potential. Children have a positive attitude to learning and grow in confidence and independence to support their ongoing development.

Children have a diverse range of needs and backgrounds. Leaders work closely with families to ensure children attend regularly. They continuously monitor children's changing needs to ensure they are safe, healthy and able to thrive, both at home and within the setting. Children behave extremely well and gain valuable social skills, such as listening, respecting others and learning to play kindly together. They are cared for by staff, who are excellent role models and provide clear guidance. This helps children to address any disagreements amicably themselves.

What Ofsted found in each area

Inclusion: Strong standard

Leaders and staff have an in-depth understanding of the diverse community and families they serve. They have an embedded culture of inclusion in which they work in very close partnership with parents and carers from the start. Through their accurate assessments of children, staff quickly identify any disadvantaged children, those with special educational needs and/or disabilities and those with other barriers to learning. Leaders and staff plan strategic support and adaptations, which they rigorously review to ensure all children achieve their high expectations. For example, children who are learning to speak English as an additional language benefit from staff using sign language, picture cards and daily 'bucket time' activities to target their communication and language. Children who have limited access to outdoor play at home thrive from the extensive activities in the garden and hall to develop their physical skills and health.

Family engagement is a key strength and priority of the setting. Leaders and staff are extremely sensitive and vigilant to any changes in children's and their families' lives. They take immediate action when they identify parents and children need additional support, involving all relevant external professionals and agencies. Leaders actively support parents through the process to gain additional funding and services and closely monitor the impact of this on children's development. This highly successful and collaborative approach helps to ensure consistency of care, children's attendance remains high and any barriers to their welfare and learning are quickly addressed. This has a significant impact on the outcomes for disadvantaged children.

Curriculum and teaching: Expected standard

Leaders have designed a broad curriculum to meet the needs of every child attending. They continually review and adapt this and the quality of teaching. For instance, staff now include more crossbody movements in activities, and staff have completed training to support children's physical development even further. Staff know the children well and use their accurate assessments to identify children's strengths and gaps in their learning. They provide additional targeted support, such as one-to-one and small-group activities throughout the day. This helps to ensure all children achieve the same high expectations, regardless of any barriers to their development. Overall, staff sequence children's learning to ensure they master what they need to learn first and provide a focus on developing the skills for their future learning. Children are very independent, confident and generally able to communicate well.

Staff teach children mathematical concepts through many activities. Children learn about shapes in music and movement, count and learn about size. Staff build further on children's learning in most areas of their development. However, on occasions, they do not extend children's learning further to enhance their problem-solving and calculation skills when they find tasks easy. This does not help children to develop their mathematical knowledge further. Staff help children to learn about their world. For example, children visit the local chine where they learn about the environment and walk along the 'wobbly bridge'. They meet members of the local fire brigade, who provide guidance on how to keep safe. These activities enrich children's learning further.

Achievement: Expected standard

Children, including those with barriers to their learning, typically make secure progress across all areas of learning from the start. They develop skills to support their school readiness. Children explore with curiosity, engage well and are keen to learn more. Overall, children communicate well and learn new words regularly. They enjoy discussions, answer questions and share their ideas. However, at times, when the room becomes noisy, some quieter children are not heard when they attempt to show or tell staff something. This does not help to enhance their communication and language skills further.

Children learn to manage tasks for themselves to enhance their independence and confidence. They take pride in their achievements, such as when they put their own coats on and show staff the family members they have drawn. Children thoroughly enjoy lots of outdoor play and physical activities. They use their hand muscles in different ways during 'disco dough' and join in the music and movement activities with enthusiasm. These familiar daily activities are embedded in children's routines and help to reinforce their learning.

Behaviour, attitudes and establishing routines: Strong standard

Leaders have an excellent oversight of the needs of children and families. They closely analyse children's attendance to quickly minimise any barriers. Leaders provide additional support and adjustments to maintain high attendance. This ensures children benefit from the full curriculum. Children develop extremely close and trusting relationships with staff, who provide a nurturing environment to help all children settle and feel safe and secure. Children's behaviour is exemplary and they develop very positive attitudes to learning. They gain excellent social skills, learn to resolve conflicts amicably for themselves and form friendships. Children receive a wealth of guidance to learn to respect and value one another. They explore one another's diverse beliefs and cultures. For example, parents and carers visit to teach children about Diwali, how families celebrate Thanksgiving and to provide Eid parcels.

Children thrive within the embedded daily routines. They benefit from focused group activities and mealtimes with their key-person groups, which are skilfully sequenced to support their developmental stages. Staff continuously review and adapt activities, such as providing visual timelines and prompts to help children with speech and language delay. This helps these children to listen, follow instruction and understand what is happening next. Staff spontaneously find quieter spaces for targeted learning and respectfully move children who cannot see clearly. This skilled interaction helps to ensure every child engages fully and manages transitions happily.

Children's welfare and wellbeing: Strong standard

Leaders ensure that policies and practice are robust and consistently implemented to prioritise children's welfare and wellbeing. Their thorough understanding of the local community and needs of the families helps to ensure they are constantly vigilant regarding any risks to children, especially those who are disadvantaged. Children consistently form trusting relationships with their key persons and the familiar staff. This enables staff to nurture their emotional wellbeing and ensure new children feel safe and secure. Children learn to keep themselves safe through consistent guidance and expectations.

Staff provide a wealth of activities and guidance to help all children develop healthy lifestyles both in the setting and at home. They share their knowledge with parents and carers regarding nutrition and safe eating, such as the importance of chopping fruit to prevent choking. Consequently, children benefit from extremely healthy meals at the setting. Leaders embed high expectations of children's health within the curriculum and daily routines. Staff are excellent role models. They eat their own healthy meals with children, where they instigate discussion about healthy foods. They brush their teeth with children every day to teach them positive oral hygiene, using models and props to help ensure children who speak English as an additional language are included equally. Children join in lots of physical activities with energy and enthusiasm to encourage their small and large muscle development. This all helps to embed long-lasting healthy habits.

Leadership and governance: Expected standard

Leaders have an accurate oversight of the setting's strengths and ambition for further improvements. They involve staff in continually assessing the quality of the provision to make timely and meaningful improvements. For example, they adjust the curriculum according to what children need to learn and provide adaptations to help every child engage and succeed. Leaders work closely with external professionals to ensure they gain detailed information about each child. This includes disadvantaged children, those with special educational needs and/or disabilities, and children with other barriers to their learning, to ensure they can keep children safe and support their learning needs. Leaders implement robust procedures to ensure all adults are suitable. They ensure staff have the knowledge and skills to understand the different risks to children and the correct action to take in the event of any concerns about children or adults.

Staff welcome professional development. Typically, they build on their secure knowledge and skills through meaningful training to meet children's changing needs. For example, they have undertaken training to target specific aspects of children's physical development when they have limited opportunity at home. Leaders value staff wellbeing and ensure their workload is manageable. Partnerships with parents and carers are highly successful. Staff form very trusting relationships with parents from the start and involve them fully in their child's learning journey. Parents share very positive feedback. For example, they appreciate the reassurance and support from staff who take time to get to know their children. Children are eager to talk about their day and have developed increased confidence and independence.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

  • Leaders should enhance the teaching of mathematics to develop older children's mathematical knowledge further.
  • Leaders should strengthen the support given to quieter children to ensure staff hear and respond to their communications to enhance language development even further.

Ofsted's words, from the report on the inspection on 29 September 2026. Read the full report on the Ofsted website. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Inspection history

  • 26 May 2021: Full inspection, Good (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

  • Annabel's Nursery - Day nursery, Bournemouth BH4 8HD, ages 0 to 3, 28 places, 0.3 miles
    Ofsted, 1 November 2023: Good overall; safeguarding is effective
  • Happy Feet Nursery & Pre-School - Day nursery, Bournemouth BH4 9DW, 43 places, 0.4 miles
  • Three Gables Day Nursery - Day nursery, Bournemouth BH4 9HL, ages 0 to 4, 62 places, 0.5 miles
    Ofsted, 16 March 2022: Outstanding overall; safeguarding is effective
  • Nemo's Nursery and Pre-School - Day nursery, Poole BH13 6DQ, ages 0 to 4, 39 places, 0.6 miles
    Ofsted report card, 6 January 2026: Strong standard in 6 areas; safeguarding standards met
  • Nipperbout @ BIC and Bournemouth Pavilion - Day nursery, Bournemouth BH2 5BH, ages 1 to 4, 60 places, 0.9 miles
    Ofsted, 17 February 2023: Good overall; safeguarding is effective

Schools nearby

West Cliff Pre-School on the Ofsted website