The Meadows Nursery School
GoodTakes funded hours★ 5.0 on GoogleBirth to 8+Open for decades
A day nursery in Hastings for babies from 9 months up to school age, open 08:00 to 18:00, 5 days a week. They take the funded hours. They do not publish prices, so ask. Rated Good by Ofsted in January 2024. Open since 2006, with 57 places.
What it costs
Prices change without notice. Treat these as what to ask about, not a quote.
Funded hours
15 funded hours per week: The 'universal entitlement' for all children available from the term after they turned 3 years old and Available for Families with children aged 2 years receiving some form of assistance. 30 funded hours per week - Working Parents' entitlement: Available for children from 9 months old meeting Working Parents' eligibility criteria.
Worth knowing. The funded hours are available from the term after the child's relevant birthday. These are for 38 weeks per academic year ('Term Time attendance'), alternatively the hours can be stretched with reduced weekly funded hours across all full weeks of our operating year ('Stretched or Full Year attendance').
What childcare usually costs in East Sussex
This is not this setting's price. It is the median hourly fee across all providers in East Sussex 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
TN34 2EWWhat 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, 31 January 2024 · read the full report
What it is like to attend
Children and their families are welcomed by smiling staff at this happy, homely nursery. Children delight in seeing familiar staff and are eager to enter. Children settle well to explore the activities set up for them. Younger children enjoy joining in with rhymes, engrossed in watching adults encourage them with puppets. This supports their listening and attention skills effectively. Staff promote children's interest in stories well. Older children enjoy exploring porridge oats, and they talk about the different-sized quantities. Staff encourage them to recall the story of
'Goldilocks and the Three Bears' that they recently shared. This successfully supports their literacy and mathematical skills.
Staff promote children's positive attitudes to learning by frequently praising them.
What Ofsted told them to improve
To further improve the quality of the early years provision, the provider should:
- support staff to identify when they can offer further challenge and extend learning further during activities, with a particular focus on older children
- encourage staff to give children more time to respond when asked questions, to support their thinking and language skills.
- 31 January 2024Good
- 25 April 2018Good
- 16 October 2014Good
Rated Good or Outstanding at 3 of the last 3 graded inspections.
Still missing for The Meadows Nursery School
- What it costs
- Meals
- Nappies
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.