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Staffing levels at nursery.

7 replies

Dingle · 09/09/2004 19:03

I'm trying to get together some info to go armed with when I visit the SN co-ordinator at the mainstream nursery my dd MAY be attending after her 3rd birthday.
What staff/child ratios are in place at other nurseries please?

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roisin · 09/09/2004 19:30

Nursery class attached to school for children aged 3-4: 26 children. Minimum supervision was one qualified teacher and one qualified nursery nurse.

(In practice there was often at least one other adult there as well, sometimes two: a placement student, or a volunteer parent helper. In addition some children were taken out for one-to-one or small group work with the main school's literacy support workers.)

HTH

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tamum · 09/09/2004 19:36

Private nurseries are usually one adult for every 5 children between 2 and school-age (up here, anyway). Good luck!

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Slinky · 09/09/2004 19:43

According to OFSTED guidelines, staff/child ratios are:

1:3 for babies to 2yrs
1:4 for 2yo - 3yo
1:8 for 3yo - 5yo

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jampot · 09/09/2004 20:24

I was speaking to our nursery teacher today and she told me the legal limit was 1:13 - I was pretty gobsmacked. They have 22 kids coming in a couple of weeks and only 2 staff

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roisin · 09/09/2004 20:28

Slinky - those OFSTED guidelines are for day-care nurseries. State nursery classes, where children are only there for 2.5 hrs, and they don't need to be fed etc., come into a different category altogether.

Interestingly these nurseries used to be for 4 yr olds, then as school entry age came down the nursery age came down ... but the recommended ratios didn't change!

However, I don't know what sort of nursery Dingle is referring to.

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Slinky · 09/09/2004 21:04

ooops - thanks for reminding me of that Roisin

I've only dealt with day-nurseries, both as an employee and parent. As you say, very strange that they are taking younger chlidren yet fail to adjust the child/staff ratio.

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Dingle · 09/09/2004 21:45

Roisin, it is a nursery attached to our local state school. I asked about SN in a previous visit, as I was advised by portage that there can be problems when it isn't covered under government funding,they've said they have a special SN budget and funds would not be a problem. Headteacher even commented that they could get in SALT specialised in DS and pay for some of the other resources from their budget.

However nursery staff visit did seem so clued up on SN.

Ratios are 2/28!!! DD will just get lost in there unless she get's additional help.I'm not prepared for that to happen.