First Steps Kindergarten
GoodTakes funded hours★ 5.0 on GoogleBirth to 8+Open for decades
A day nursery in Poynton for babies from 3 months up to school age, open 07:00 to 18:00, 5 days a week. They take the funded hours. They do not publish prices, so ask. Rated Good by Ofsted in April 2022. Open since 2000, with 50 places.
What it costs
Prices change without notice. Treat these as what to ask about, not a quote.
Funded hours
Government funded 30 hours nursery funding for children over 9 months old.
What childcare usually costs in Cheshire East
This is not this setting's price. It is the median hourly fee across all providers in Cheshire East 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
SK12 1PUWhat 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, 22 April 2022 · read the full report
What it is like to attend
All children make good progress in their learning and development because staff teach them effectively. Staff listen carefully to what children say, observe closely what they can do and have high expectations of what they are able to achieve.
This ensures that children are acquiring the skills they need for the next stage of learning. The manager is committed to improving the practice of the setting and is supporting children to develop positive attitudes to learning. Therefore, children behave well and engage in cooperative play for extended periods of time.
Children demonstrate that they are happy in the setting as they are confident in exploring the environment, and older children have good opportunities to think critically about how things might work. For example, they use building bricks to make homes for their puppies, thinking about how they might need to position the bricks to make the spaces. Consequently, children grow in confidence as they learn through trial and error. Staff expose children to a wide variety of language. For example, they talk about 'seedlings' and 'shoots' as they plant flowers. This enables children to use an increasing range of words in their play. Children talk confidently about what they are doing.
What Ofsted told them to improve
To further improve the quality of the early years provision, the provider should:
- continue to strengthen the professional development of staff, and focus on enhancing their knowledge and skills in order to consistently improve the teaching of the curriculum to the very highest levels n refine the implementation of the curriculum, to extend the range of opportunities that allow younger children to test out their own ideas.
- 22 April 2022Good
- 4 April 2019Needs improvement
- 24 May 2018Needs improvement
Rated Good or Outstanding at 1 of the last 3 graded inspections.
Still missing for First Steps Kindergarten
- 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.