Wattisham Airfield Childcare Centre
GoodTakes funded hoursBirth to 8+Open for decades
A day nursery in Ipswich for babies from 3 months up to school age, open 08:00 to 18:00, 5 days a week. £66.00 a day for 3 month to 3 year olds, and they take the funded hours. Rated Good by Ofsted in May 2022. Open since 1993, with 52 places.
What it costs
Prices change without notice. Treat these as what to ask about, not a quote.
8:00am to 6:00pm - Full day - £66
One published rate. What you pay depends on the days you need and the funded hours you can claim.
Funded hours
Worth knowing. Funded children - £1 Breakfast if required.
What childcare usually costs in Suffolk
This is not this setting's price. It is the median hourly fee across all providers in Suffolk 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
IP7 7REWhat 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 May 2022 · read the full report
What it is like to attend
Children are happy and settled. They feel safe and secure in their relationships with staff. Children develop close emotional attachments, seeking out staff for reassurance and to share in their play. Older children enjoy having visitors come to the nursery. They are confident, chat to the inspector and are keen to share their artwork. Children mostly behave well. Staff use sand timers to help children understand when their turn is over. Children enjoy the 'high five' for their individual efforts and beam with delight.
Those children who learn best from being outdoors can do so. Children benefit from interesting activities and resources, both indoors and in the garden. They enjoy the activities and resources provided to them and show good levels of engagement. Overall, staff are led by children's interests. For example, children take part in an activity, finding plastic bugs in a dry flour and chocolate powder mixture. The purpose of the activity is to use tweezers to pick up the bugs, supporting children's ability to make movements using the small muscles in their hands and wrists. However, children notice that when they blow the flour from their hands it makes a satisfying cloud. Staff readily move the activity on to explore textures and talk about them.
What Ofsted told them to improve
To further improve the quality of the early years provision, the provider should:
- develop staff teaching skills to enable them to maintain the highest quality of teaching that builds on what children already know and can do n review and improve the organisation of routine times, when all children are sitting together, to support them to listen attentively and concentrate.
- 17 May 2022Good
- 19 September 2017Good
- 31 March 2014Good
Rated Good or Outstanding at 3 of the last 3 graded inspections.
Still missing for Wattisham Airfield Childcare Centre
- 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 £66.00 a day 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.