Ashdon Childrens Nursery
OutstandingTakes funded hours★ 5.0 on GoogleBirth to 8+Long established
A day nursery in Saffron Walden for children from birth to 8+, open 07:45 to 17:30, 4 days a week. £9.20 an hour, and they take the funded hours. Rated Outstanding by Ofsted in July 2024. Open since 2016, with 79 places.
What it costs
Prices change without notice. Treat these as what to ask about, not a quote.
Additional optional non-funded hours of attendance are charged at £9.20 per hour.
One published rate. What you pay depends on the days you need and the funded hours you can claim.
Where this came from
The outlined line is the one the price was taken from.
Funded hours
Free Early Education Entitlement (FEEE) schemes available to all eligible parents and carers across the 38 funded weeks, between 8.00am and 5.15pm Monday to Thursday.
Worth knowing. No fees or charges payable to access the funded hours schemes and there are no top up fees. Meals and snacks are chargeable at £4.50 per day.
What childcare usually costs in Essex
This is not this setting's price. It is the median hourly fee across all providers in Essex from the Department for Education's 2025 provider survey. No national data holds what an individual nursery charges, so ring and ask.
Places, hours and the day
Who they take, when they are open, and what a day there includes.
Where it is
CB10 2ETWhat the inspector found
One grade is one visit. A run of them tells you whether it has been good for years or has only just got there.
Ofsted inspector, 3 July 2024 · read the full report
What it is like to attend
Children flourish in the warm and welcoming nursery. They have a genuine thirst for learning. This is because staff plan an enticing curriculum with activities that embrace children's unique interests and preferred patterns of learning. These sustain children's engagement for long periods of time and result in a calm and productive environment.
Children demonstrate high levels of engagement in the activities that are provided for them and use resources and tools on offer to extend their own learning. The language-rich environment that is created by staff supports all children to acquire and use language, and they are excellent communicators. Children are confident to express their own ideas and needs, and staff listen and respond with great interest.
Children are highly independent and confident. They are rapidly developing the key skills needed to be ready for school.
- 3 July 2024Outstanding
- 30 August 2018Outstanding
Rated Good or Outstanding at 2 of the last 2 graded inspections.
Still missing for Ashdon Childrens Nursery
- Youngest age taken
- Nappies
- Waiting list
No dataset holds any of this. Two parents telling us the same thing puts it on the page for whoever looks next.
What to ask them
Some of this is above, from the setting or from parents, and it can go out of date. The rest is in no dataset anywhere. Either way it is worth ten minutes on the phone.
- Is £9.20 an hour still the rate? What is on top: meals, nappies, late pick-up, and what happens if you are late.
- How do you apply my funded hours? Whether they stretch them over the year, and the minimum days you have to book.
- Is there a place for my child's age? Baby rooms fill first and waiting lists are common.
- Who would my child's key person be? And how long have the staff been there. No dataset holds this and it matters more than anything above.
- Can I visit at a busy time? Mid-morning on a weekday tells you far more than an empty room after hours.
Day nurseries within a couple of miles
This one is first. Tick it and one or two others to see them side by side.