or is this normal in some nurseries?

[newryan]

If you work in a nursery can you tell me if these things are normal practice?

1. Toddlers walking around with bottles of milk, sometimes empty, for over an hour at a time.
2. TV on in the background a lot.
3. Children being allowed to go and eat their snacks whenever they want, even if they are missing an activity.

This place is not really a daycare facility, it advertises itself as an educational pre-school, if that makes a difference.

Thanks.

I only worked in a nursery for a year, and over 10 years ago but none of those things happened.

Not in my experience. I know the dc's nursery has set times for snacks, although the children can choose their snack.

No tv either.

No, none of those.

No TV at all.

Toddlers shouldn't be eating unsupervised in case of choking.

Not at my sons nursery

Not really educating them about table manners is it?

mine went a very lax nursery, and even they had set times for snacks, and only had a movie on at wind down time at the end of the day.

jucie cups where at a special table where they could get them though.

It sounds like the kids have taken over the nursery!

i wouldnt be happy if I found out this was happening at my kids nursery!

Parents would be horrified to know what went on in many nurseries.

The examples you give make me think this is a place with very few qualified staff, weak management and low staff:child ratios. Considering working in a nursery can be low paid, you don't have to be qualified (or even literate), many places have very very low standards I would be surprised if they had a qualified early years teacher.

Two of the things you describe (the TV & toddlers wandering around with bottles) are NOT good or normal practice. For safety children that are eating & drinking should be well supervised. A child wandering around with a bottle won't be able to get involved in constructive play either- so it makes me think they offer 'free play' without really understanding how that works (due to the lack of qualified staff)

The grazing snack is quite common in places that promote self directed play. I actually agree with it for many reasons: If you have a really well planned environment, with adults that understand the curriculum & the children accessing it- a flexible snack allows children to start & finish their projects & activities on their own schedule. Some children take longer to settle in to something, or want longer to experiment, or are really captivated by something so want to do 100 times. Giving children a little control over when they eat also encourages them to be mindful of how they are feeling & to take some responsibility for managing that. So they become more self reliant and independent.

This place sounds like it is using 'free play' as a cop out though, places like this are the reason parents can't understand how children learn through play.

I don't work at the nursery but am in and out at odd times and I've never seen any of those things happen. Snacks are always at a set time, they sit down for them at the same time and then it's all cleared away. They don't have a TV.

I should add- that a key factor of the 'rolling snack' time- is that it is still only available for a set time (say 10am-11am) so that children are still hungry for their lunch AND importantly it is supervised, so that children are still reminded to wash their hands, eat sensibly & no mistakes happen with allergies, chocking, overeating etc...

I've never seen the bottles thing, and I have been in a lot of nurseries.

Some nurseries use TV, some don't - but again, I haven't been anywhere where it has been on as background. Some nurseries will have it on at the end of the day so staff can tidy up, or after lunch for kids who don't nap, or for Christmas movies though.

Rolling snack times are fairly common and generally thought of as good practice - snack might be available between 9am-10am for example, and children can choose if/when they come to the table and what they eat. An adult should always be sitting with the children at the table though.

They do have a teacher and plenty of staff. We are not in UK so I am prepared for some cultural differences, just trying to work out what is cultural and what is not.

When I asked why one of the toddlers had a bottle, I was told "because he cries if we take it away". At snack time, many of the children are spoon fed by the leaders, even 2 and 3 year olds, but I think this might be partly cultural. If they don't eat their snack at snack time, they can opt out of activities later in the morning to go and eat.

Not very impressed tbh.

The tv is not on all the time, but there was quite a long spell (an hour maybe) in the late morning when the 2 year old class were just playing and watching at the same time.

Where are you? Maybe there's someone on here that is from the same place that could say if it's the norm?

My work takes me into a nursery quite a bit and none of this is the norm.

The staff are all trained/qualified in early years childcare/SEN and there is a timetable for snacks, etc. The children are from 2 years and not spoon fed. They might get some help with something tricky but definitely not fed!

They don't opt out of activities, as there is usually 3-4 groups doing something (reading, dressing up, painting, garden time, role play...), so no child is left doing nothing. If one is having a strop of hard time, often the head teacher will sit with them a do 'something special' (make something with clay or lego) until they want to join in an activity.

Drinks are given at snack time (of course if a child is thirsty a sippy cup is given then put back in the kitchen when t he child is finished (sitting at a table, not wandering about).

There is no TV at all.

I can see the point of an hour of supervised snack, but that wasn't what they did. One boy didn't want to eat at snack time then when they were finishing the morning with songs in a circle he went to get his bag and sat eating apart from everyone else.

No, not in our nursery, and we visited one, and turned it down flat, when their idea of activities for 3 year olds when it was too wet to go outsdie to play was to put a DVD on. We could do that at home and save ourselves a fortune.

Why can't they have nursery rhymes on CD or talking books, if it's jsut as background noise whilst the children are playing?

We are in SE Asia. The spoon-feeding is normal here, I do know that. I have to take deep breaths every time I see a child having rice stuffed into their mouth through the fence of the ball pit at the soft play!

1. No. Toddlers/babies are given milk bottles under supervision at times advised by their parents as per their usual routine. They do have water with cups available all day for use on request if any children want a drink between meal times.

2. No TV not on in background a lot. They have some set times to sit and watch something. Usually calm down times while getting everyone ready for lunch time etc. They do have a big flat screen on the wall and sometimes use it to play music (with just colours etc showing on screen) for dance time.

3. They have recently started letting dc come over for snack when they are ready instead of a set time to sit everyone down. It is still at sort of a set time though, it doesn't go on all day like that. Lunch time they all still sit together.

1 and 2 sound like bad practice to me, 3 is debatable. There has been a push in recent years to 'free flow' where young children are encouraged to do things as they want to rather than at set times, and in many ways, a child led environment is a good thing. But it can go too far, and if a child is eating alone when all the others are engaged in a whole group activity, then it has gone too far IMO. But there is nothing wrong with having the snack table set up for a certain amount of time and allowing children to use it when they are hungry. In my experience, it works best when the time is limited to an hour or so and all the children know that they have to eat somewhere within that time.

It does sound like there are some cultural differences at play here.
At my children's nursery I never saw a child wandering with a bottle. Water was freely available all the time, but there were set snack and meal times. Children and staff sat around the table for this
Classical music was played in the background sometimes, but tv was strictly limited to 30 mins a day.
There was a mix of structured activities for the older ones, and plenty of 'free play'

Yes. It felt to me like they were just trying to keep the kids and parents happy. At the end of the morning they sing a few songs and then give out "achievement certificates" to a few different children each day. Many of the kids are running around making noise during this time, the parents are coming into the room to collect, kids are running to their mums and the staff are shouting louder and louder over the noise.