Buckets & Spades Nursery
GoodTakes funded hours★ 4.6 on GoogleBirth to 5Open for decades
A day nursery in Scarborough for babies from 3 months up to 5 year olds, open 07:45 to 18:00, 5 days a week. They take the funded hours. They do not publish prices, so ask. Rated Good by Ofsted in February 2025. Open since 2004, with 98 places.
What it costs
Prices change without notice. Treat these as what to ask about, not a quote.
Funded hours
Funded sessions for children who are 9 months and older.
What childcare usually costs in North Yorkshire
This is not this setting's price. It is the median hourly fee across all providers in North Yorkshire 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
YO11 1SQWhat 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, 4 February 2025 · read the full report
What it is like to attend
Leaders and staff take time to get to know children and their families well. They create a friendly environment where children arrive happily and settle quickly. Staff know what helps to comfort each individual child or how they prefer to go to sleep.
This creates a supportive and secure environment for children. Staff's understanding of children's individual needs promotes their learning and their safety. Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities are included in all opportunities. Staff work diligently with other agencies to make sure that children get the support they need. They continuously assess risks as children play and help them to follow simple rules to keep themselves and others safe. For example, older children quickly sit down on the step outside when the gate has to be opened. This means that staff can watch them more carefully as visitors arrive.
Staff create an interesting and inviting environment to spark children's curiosity.
What Ofsted told them to improve
To further improve the quality of the early years provision, the provider should:
- improve children's language skills further, for example, by supporting parents to help children practise their new vocabulary or songs at home n strengthen further the processes for monitoring and improving the provision to provide even greater continuity in children's learning, for example by looking critically at what unsettles children and interrupts their learning and development at certain times.
- 4 February 2025Good Safeguarding: Yes
- 23 September 2019Good
- 4 June 2019Inadequate
Rated Good or Outstanding at 2 of the last 3 graded inspections.
Still missing for Buckets & Spades Nursery
- 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.
Day nurseries within a couple of miles
This one is first. Tick it and one or two others to see them side by side.