Key Day Nursery
GoodTakes funded hoursBirth to 8+Open for decades
A day nursery in Chippenham for babies from a few weeks old 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 They do not publish prices, so ask.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 November 2021. Open since 2009, with 61 places.
What it costs
Prices change without notice. Treat these as what to ask about, not a quote.
Funded hours
Free Entitlement Funding from the Government in the term after their third birthday.
What childcare usually costs in Wiltshire
This is not this setting's price. It is the median hourly fee across all providers in Wiltshire 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
SN15 3AJWhat 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, 17 November 2021 · read the full report
What it is like to attend
Children leave their parents with ease and happily enter this welcoming and inclusive nursery. They are keen to join in with activities. When visitors enter the room, older children say, 'Welcome friends!', showing they are comfortable in the nursery. Young children are confident to explore the environment, knowing there is a familiar person nearby for reassurance if needed. Children form positive relationships with adults and other children. They play together and have fun, saying, 'You're a funny onion' and laughing out loud.
Children have many opportunities to practise what they have learned. Staff have high expectations of children and encourage them to solve problems for themselves. When children make their own play dough and want to make train tracks, staff ask them what they may need to do it. Together, they look at the different tools and try out which ones work the best.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, parents have not been able to enter the nursery, but report that they have very good communication with the manager and their child's key person. They report that they really benefited from the family activities, such as pumpkin carving, that were held before the pandemic. Parents say staff go
What Ofsted told them to improve
To further improve the quality of the early years provision, the provider should:
- train staff to deliver a consistently high-quality curriculum for literacy and for any specialist programmes, such as phonics n help staff working with the younger children to understand the importance of teaching them how to develop their self-care skills.
- 17 November 2021Good
- 29 August 2017Good
- 2 July 2014Good
Rated Good or Outstanding at 3 of the last 3 graded inspections.
Still missing for Key Day Nursery
- What it costs
- Meals
- 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.