The Play Den Nursery
GoodTakes funded hours★ 4.8 on GoogleBirth to 8+Long established
A day nursery in Swindon for babies from 3 months up to school age, open 07:45 to 17:45, 5 days a week. £8.00 an hour, and they take the funded hours. Rated Good by Ofsted in July 2021, though that is 5 years ago now. Open since 2016, with 48 places.
What it costs
Prices change without notice. Treat these as what to ask about, not a quote.
Hourly rate — £8
One published rate. What you pay depends on the days you need and the funded hours you can claim.
Where this came from
The outlined line is the one the price was taken from.
Funded hours
15 to 30 hours of childcare, Universal 3-4 year funding & Early Learning funding for 2 year old’s (15 hours).
Worth knowing. Funded hours will be stretched over 48 weeks @ 23.75 hours per week. Term-time only contracts are available to parents or carers working in a term-time only positions (such as teachers). Minimum contract of 24 hours per week. You can elect to pay extra to enable your child to attend for 48 weeks or use the funding term-time only @ 38 weeks per year. Early Education Funding does not include meals, snacks, Care, Enrichment or I.T. packages. The Play Den’s policy is to charge a small fee to cover c.
What childcare usually costs in Swindon
This is not this setting's price. It is the median hourly fee across all providers in Swindon 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
SN2 7JQWhat 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.
- 25 July 2023 — Concern: actions taken what Ofsted published
Ofsted inspector, 13 July 2021 · read the full report
What it is like to attend
Children settle quickly on arrival and happily get involved in a varied range of learning opportunities. They engage fully in what they are doing and enthusiastically join in with activities, such as taking part in counting games and choosing songs to sing. Children enjoy close relationships with the staff, who provide reassurance and support. For example, babies have the confidence to move around freely but then return to cuddle up to staff. Children are well behaved and polite.
Staff know the children well and have high expectations for all of them. They make effective use of their assessments of children's progress to identify what each child needs to do next. These individual next steps are clearly displayed in each room so that all staff can help the children to achieve them. Staff also take account of children's interests when planning activities to ensure that they find them appealing. They offer praise and encouragement to motivate children to be active learners who make choices about their play and enjoy exploring.
Staff maintained contact with parents throughout the COVID-19 (coronavirus)
What Ofsted told them to improve
To further improve the quality of the early years provision, the provider should:
- provide more opportunities for children who are learning English as an additional language to use their home language in play and learning, and extend the range of images and resources that show positive images of diversity to help all children learn about differences n provide children with more opportunities to learn about the natural world, with particular regard to growing and observing plants.
- 13 July 2021Good
- 13 December 2017Good
Rated Good or Outstanding at 2 of the last 2 graded inspections.
Still missing for The Play Den Nursery
- 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 £8.00 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.
- 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.