Ducklings Monkston @ St Barts
GoodTakes funded hours★ 4.5 on GoogleBirth to 8+Long established
A day nursery in Milton Keynes for from 1 year 6 months up to school age, open 07:30 to 17:30, 5 days a week. They take the funded hours. They do not publish prices, so ask. Rated Good by Ofsted in September 2023. Open since 2020, with 43 places.
What it costs
Prices change without notice. Treat these as what to ask about, not a quote.
Funded hours
15 and 30 hours funding.
Worth knowing. Consumables fee is £2 per week (£76 a year)* *The annual consumables fee of £76 (voluntary for children who already receive funded hours).
What childcare usually costs in Milton Keynes
This is not this setting's price. It is the median hourly fee across all providers in Milton Keynes 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
MK10 9FJWhat 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, 18 September 2023 · read the full report
What it is like to attend
Children show a keen curiosity in all aspects of their play. They confidently explore and extend their play by transporting resources from inside to outside. Staff have developed an effective curriculum that successfully identifies children's needs and uses their interests to extend their experiences, thinking and knowledge. Staff use children's interests to plan for their next steps in learning and to close any identified gaps in their development. For example, outdoors, staff encourage children to use digging tools to explore mud, especially children who have not experienced this before.
Staff use information about children's home lives to enhance and enrich their experiences in the pre-school. For example, children confidently experiment with a wealth of new experiences outdoors, such as discovering plants, leaves and bugs, and they use tools that they may not have used before.
Children learn to develop personal care skills quickly and purposefully. They use staff demonstrations and explanations well to help understand the importance of routine hygiene procedures. For example, children follow pictorial aids and listen to staff when washing their hands after toileting and before snack time. Children learn to make healthy choices at snack time. They use knives to cut stalks off strawberries and to chop bananas into chunks. They independently find their boots to play in the nature garden and attempt to put them on themselves. Children confidently communicate and express their needs through words, gestures, expressions and pictorial aids.
What Ofsted told them to improve
To further improve the quality of the early years provision, the provider should: - use information and initial observations more effectively to fully support children to settle in and develop secure bonds and attachments with staff n develop staff's confidence to change practice promptly to make a bigger impact on children's experiences and learning.
- 18 September 2023Good
- 8 November 2022Needs improvement
Rated Good or Outstanding at 1 of the last 2 graded inspections.
Still missing for Ducklings Monkston @ St Barts
- 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.