It is quite shocking to me to come onto this site that i have sent so many of my parents on and find pretty much every one here complaining so i thought that i would also complain.
- Early years educational entitlement: first off we dont have to accept it as private nursieres and when we do its at a loss to us and yet every parent seems to think its a god given right to get there 15 hours when in fact 15 hours is a pilot and legally you could only give 12.5 and when you explain you dont have enough space at your nursery they seem to think you should automatically find some somewhere and then they would be the ones to complain when you went over ratios so tip being its free dont complain and be greatfull that any nursery is still running the scheme to begin with
Plus early years etitlement does not run on a back log you have to sign the head count form and have it back by a certain date usually two weeks after the term starts and yes you have to do a new one for each term and it is up to the nursery to send it off (ask your nursery for a list of eyee dates) and yes you are responsable to pay for the sessions if you miss two weeks of eyee because the nursery no longer gets the finding for that place and are losing money so dont be suprised at it
-Lateness: yes sometimes it cant be avoided but ring the nursery we usually are understanding if you dont do it all the time but if you do we will charge you a ridiculous ammount of money because staff finish at certain times and they dont want to have to stay extra because you are running late again and did not have the thought to ring and we LEGALLY have to call social services and say a child has been abandoned after half a hour so be on time and let us know because we dont want to traumatise any children by having to send them off to social services
-Weather conditions: Nursery workers are people too shockingly enough we have families of our own and people who care about us enough to not want us to be trecking miles to get to work in heavy snowfull and alot of ice. contary to popular belief of the children we do not live inside nursery so we have to travel there and we have to travel back while also worrying about making sure the temprature is above 15 degrees in all areas of the nursery or we have to shut LEGALLY
-The actual nursery: yes it may look like chaos but we have carefully honed ratios we abide by and we have to allow children free choice beccause of the eyfs so while it may look like a bomb has hit it if you look carefully there are many areas of learning happening plus think of what your house looks like with one or two children think of a nursery with 16 youll be amazed at how tidy we are
-Staff: we are a lovely bunch really we dont get into this job for the excellent salaries (because mainly you could get paid more for working in tescos and you dont get as much hassle ) we dont get into it to be mean to parents we dont need to be leared at by men we are not intrested in we dont want to yelled at or steal your husband/wife and yes we may be young but thats because we want to have a lot of energy to run around with your child so they can have the best experience so be nice to us and we will be nice to you
-Bringing toys ect into nursery: Dont do it seriously we have toys its a nursery trust me we have toys and games and activities what we dont want is things coming in and then the child not wanting to share and then getting upset/the toy getting broken and then the child getting upset or the toy being lost and parents and children getting upset. Children can hide a million of things and when they get lost parents look to us as if we are magical and can find it immidiatly which we cant so please dont bring it in especially not if its my child wont sleep without insertfluffyanimalnamehere and its the only one of its kind because we dont want to have to look after that we have children to look after and that is more important
-Clothes: for goodness sakes name your childs clothes and shoes and socks and anything else you want to keep because you are not the only one to have that item unless you made it yourself and if it doesnt have a name on it it could get mistaken as someone elses and no matter how hard we try we cant memorize every peice of clothing in every childs wardrobe so if someone says its theres we are going to beleive them unless it is named so name it !!
-Sickness: noone likes it when children are sick or have dodgy stomachs but we also dont like it to spread to other children so LEGALLY we say if your child has either one of these things keep them out of nursery for 48 hours after it all finishes and no were not mean we just dont want it to spread and yes they may seem fine and you may have to go back to work but viruses spread even when your child seems fine also if your child is given antibiotics you have to keep them away for 24 hours after they first have it incase of a reaction were not being mean i promise (and yes i know some nurseries dont enforce this but when they do dont be shocked)
-Nits: they are like the plague and its evil and you feel bad when you discover it or your told by a nursery worker but dont feel shame we are not telling you to be cruel were telling you so you can treat it and please do treat it and dont complain your child has got them if you send them without there hair up because there isnot anything we can do about nits except let the parents handle it so please dont shout at us because we cant do anything about it
I do know that mums need a place to vent and air out there problems but please think about the nursery workers you shout at and are rude to because they do work hard and are often nice and happy to help if you talk to us, if you dont talk to us we dont know whats going on but please dont pick a time to talk to us when we are say hands deeps in blue paint with a group of children then complain that we are not giving you my full attention
Feel free to ask me anything you want to know about nursery life ive been doing this 12 years now :)