First Steps at Cansfield Day Nursery and Pre-school

We provide day care for 51 weeks of the year (excluding Christmas) for children ages 0-5 years providing funded and non-funded childcare places.

First Steps at Cansfield has been in operation since 1994 and most of the staff that work here have enjoyed many years of continued service. Our Manager is approaching 25 years service here, and between our 12 nursery staff there is a combined continued service of 161 years! This offers the children and families a unique stability that is often not found in most childcare settings. The building is purpose built and we have a separate dining room, meals are cooked fresh daily and meet all individual dietary requirements.

All our staff are qualified to level 3, some staff are qualified up to level 5. Our Special educational needs co-ordinator has completed an Early Years SENCO Award, and all staff complete continued professional development training as standard.

We are a fully inclusive setting and offer full and part-time places for children aged between 6 weeks and 5 years, which can be full year or term-time only. We also offer free funded places for eligible 2-year-olds and all 3 and 4-year-olds, and these can either be used term-time only, or stretched weeks all year round. We have 3 indoor learning environments, where our smaller room sizes allows a close knit community feel to our nursery. In our Baby room, (0-2 years) we take no more than 3 children on any session, our toddler room (2-3 years) takes no more than 8 children on any session, and our Pre-School room (3-4 years) takes no more than 16 children on any one session.

Whilst following the Early Years Foundation Stage, our curriculum is play-based, incorporating The Curiosity Approach into our communication rich environments. Each of our environments are filled with resources that are age appropriately stimulating, engaging, and incite curiosity, to create environments that the children enjoy learning through play within. We have 2 well-equipped outdoor play areas, one for use by our children 0-3 years, and the other for our 3-4 year age group.

Once your child starts school, the care is continuous as we work with the following primary schools in Ashton-in-Makerfield:

St Oswald's Catholic Primary School

RL Hughes Primary School where we provide breakfast and after-school club services. We also run holiday clubs during all school holidays except Christmas.

We offer extracurricular activities to support your child's learning in the Early Years Foundation Stage and have access to extensive provision such as gymnasium, sports hall and library within our on-site school, Cansfield High School. Our pre-school children have weekly swimming lessons at Ashton Leisure Centre.

Our most recent inspection by Ofsted was in August 2022 and we were graded as a 'Good' nursery. Please see below for the link to our Ofsted report. 

We have close links with our community nursery nurse who is readily available to offer parents & carers any additional support and guidance they may need.

We accept all variety of childcare vouchers, tax-free childcare payments, or fees can be paid via standing order or using a debit/credit card/cash or cheque will be accepted.