Stepping Stones Childcare (Cornwall)
GoodTakes funded hours★ 5.0 on GoogleBirth to 8+Long established
A pre-school in St Austell for children from birth to 8+, open 08:00 to 16:00, 5 days a week. £8.80 an hour for under 2, and they take the funded hours. Rated Good by Ofsted in September 2023. Open since 2015, with 30 places.
What it costs
Prices change without notice. Treat these as what to ask about, not a quote.
| Age | Hourly | |
|---|---|---|
| Under 2birth to 2y | £8.80Under 2 | |
| 2-4yrs2y to 4y | £6.602-4yrs | |
| All ages | £5.50Late Finish (5:00 – 5:30 pm) £6.60Early Start (7.30am – 8.00am) £11.00Late Finish (5:00 – 6:00 pm) £13.20Early Start (7.00am – 8.00am) |
Extras
Charged on top of the session rate.
- £10.00 a term snack provisionvoluntary if fully funded
Where this came from
The outlined line is the one the price was taken from.
Funded hours
Nursery Education Grant Funding for 3 and 4 years olds, 15 hours 2 year old funding, free 30 hours funding.
Worth knowing. Funding can be used between 8am and 5pm at Scol Kensa; Funding can be used anytime between 8am to 4pm at Mount Charles; £10 additional contribution each term toward snack provision (voluntary if fully funded).
What childcare usually costs in Cornwall
This is not this setting's price. It is the median hourly fee across all providers in Cornwall 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
PL25 4QAWhat 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, 26 September 2023 · read the full report
What it is like to attend
Children feel safe and content. They happily wave goodbye to their parents and find their friends on arrival. They settle quickly, and staff play with them. Staff engage them in interesting conversations. For example, they talk about what they had for breakfast. Children share that their 'mummy and daddy drink tea and coffee with sugar'. Staff extend this well and ask the children questions, such as
'how many sugars do they have?' Children listen and engage in back-and-forth conversations with staff.
Staff deliver an interesting and well-targeted curriculum. For example, staff follow the children's interest in teeth and help them to learn about healthy lifestyles and oral health. They read relevant books together and plan activities where children clean teeth that are printed on laminated sheets. Staff talk to the children about what they are doing and its impact. Children practise unscrewing the lid from some toothpaste and putting it back on. Children learn skills they can use at home.
What Ofsted told them to improve
To further improve the quality of the early years provision, the provider should:
- develop ways to engage all children in sustained, high-quality play when outside, to extend their learning and development further n build on partnerships with parents and share children's next steps of development so that parents can continue to support their learning at home.
- 26 September 2023Good
- 10 October 2022Needs improvement
- 24 April 2017Good
Rated Good or Outstanding at 2 of the last 3 graded inspections.
Still missing for Stepping Stones Childcare (Cornwall)
- Youngest age taken
- 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.
- Is £8.80 an hour still the rate? 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.
- Is there a place for my child's age? 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.