Bidborough Village Nursery School
GoodTakes funded hours★ 5.0 on GoogleBirth to 8+Long established
A pre-school in Tunbridge Wells for from 2 years up to school age, open 09:00 to 15:00, 4 days a week. They take the funded hours. They do not publish prices, so ask. Rated Good by Ofsted in April 2022. Open since 2015, with 44 places.
What it costs
Prices change without notice. Treat these as what to ask about, not a quote.
Funded hours
Universal Funded Hours; Funded Hours for Working Parents; Free for 2 (FF2) Funded Hours.
Worth knowing. As long as parents utilise a minimum of 12 funded hours with us, there are no additional costs for snacks, drinks, handcraft materials, or any other extras.
What childcare usually costs in Kent
This is not this setting's price. It is the median hourly fee across all providers in Kent 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
TN3 0XDWhat 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, 19 April 2022 · read the full report
What it is like to attend
Children receive a warm welcome on arrival at the nursery school and have the individual support they need to separate from their parent or carer. This enables all children to settle happily and quickly and to start their play and learning promptly.
Children access an environment that staff plan successfully to help ensure that all children make good developmental progress. Children play calmly and with purpose at their chosen activity and concentrate for extending periods. For example, children sat colouring using different-sized pencils and stencils, chatting animatedly. They showed great skill in holding the stencils while drawing the shapes, which supports their early writing skills.
Children show great delight as they join in with glee to singing and story sessions.
What Ofsted told them to improve
To further improve the quality of the early years provision, the provider should:
- revise how changes of routines are managed to ensure that they are supportive of all children and do not disrupt their learning n explore differing ways to enable children to learn more about managing turn taking independently.
- 19 April 2022Good
- 28 September 2017Good
Rated Good or Outstanding at 2 of the last 2 graded inspections.
Still missing for Bidborough Village Nursery School
- What it costs
- Meals
- 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.
- What does it cost, all in? 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.
- Do you have a place for a child of my age now? 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.
Pre-schools within a couple of miles
This one is first. Tick it and one or two others to see them side by side.