That day nursery can be as good as school nursery ?

[Sootyandsweep2019]

Pregnant and stressed. Will need to, ( financially), return to work 3 days a week when baby is 5-6 months old.

Looking at childcare options and, pre-lockdown, found what I thought was an absolutely lovely day nursery that takes babies 3 months to four years.

Staff seemed lovely, lovely outdoor play area, pets/ farmyard animals,regular trips out, home cooked / nutritious meals , literally everything you could want.

Naively I also felt for a baby that I would prefer a nursery over a childminder , as there are people around, ( in case anything untoward happened), and everyone coming into the setting is DBS checked. I also assumed that , ( if settled ), baby would stay there until reception as they follow eyfs. However, I've just spoken to my sister , ( who works in a school), and she has told me in no uncertain terms :

-Day nurseries are full of bored 17 year old staff who don't care.

• They're horrible places which are lonely and boring for children.

-School nurseries are soooo much better, shge doesn't know anybody who would keep their child in a day nursery over a school nursery.

Have i got everything wrong ? Genuinely feel quite stressed and upset

She is talking rubbish. Day nurseries hours suit parents working hours better. Our school nursery was only half days, which alternated, so some mornings, some afternoons. I worked full time. Where was she to go for the rest of the day, and who would collect at 12.30 of drop off at 1? It was ridiculous. Plus she had been at the day nursery since a baby. Dont think school nurseries take babies, do they? Well ours didnt, ours was only from age 3.

Sorry but your sister is talking absolute nonsense. Such a ridiculous generalisation. Has she perhaps seen one day nursery and made her mind up about them all? All of my children have gone to (and two of them will return to) a lovely day nursery when lockdown is lifted. My older kids are now at school playing and achieving happily alongside children who went to the school’s nursery and other day nurseries. It makes absolutely no difference in my experience. And also the staff at our day nursery are not 17 years old, they are lovely, qualified, warm and friendly people whom my kids have adored. Make the right choice for you and don’t listen to bias.

School nursery is often easier to settle into the attached school as most of the class will be the same.

Generally impossible if you work because generally cover 15 hours or possibly 30 term time only so need to sort wrap around and holiday cover with a childminder or Day nursery anyway!

I don’t think your sister working in a school gives her any insider knowledge about private day nurseries over and above anyone else. She might feel that her particular school’s nursery is very good, but her generals criticisms of private nurseries carry no more weight than anyone else’s.

DD was going to an excellent private day nursery. It’s in the countryside, is a fairly small setting with extremely dedicated staff who put a lot of effort into creating an engaging programme for the children with lots of visitors (they’ve had farm animals brought in, police visits, local museum bringing things to show them etc). DD has absolutely flourished there. I will say, we looked at quite a lot of nurseries before we found “the one” and there were a few that we felt were just about cramming in the most amount of children possible for the highest returns. One was advertised as being “on a farm” but when we got there they just had a Shetland pony in a little garden area next to the nursery.

In my experience, you’re best just judging each setting on its own merits and ignoring other people’s judgemental comments. Otherwise your sister’s obvious bias could get in the way of your child attending the best setting for them.

Both of mine went to day nursery. With DS2, I stopped working at the point he was 3-4, but I kept him in rather than transferring to school as he was happy, he could do 2 full and one half day which was logisticly easier and I wasn't certain about what I would do work wise.

The sole disadvantage my DCs had coming in from an external provider was that some of the class (and certainly the parents) had bonded already and it was harder to fit in around established friendships. In some schools that will matter more than others.

They need a strong, attached relationship with a consistent adult. It isn't really possible to do this at a nursery - even if your child has a key worker, ratios mean that the key worker's attention will be spread very thin.

Of course it is possible for strong attached relationships. DD is 11 and still remembers her key workers from nursery. We have kept in touch with a few of them. It’s a myth that nursery staff are over run and can’t focus on children.

"They need a strong, attached relationship with a consistent adult. It isn't really possible to do this at a nursery - even if your child has a key worker, ratios mean that the key worker's attention will be spread very thin."
And school nurseries dont have staff ratios? Of course they do. Exactly the same in school nursery. Absolute load of bollox.

I actually prefer that my kids made attachments to a range of adults. Dd3 has a keyworker who is always in her room, but there are other adults in there too who engage with her. She loves them. They regularly mix with other rooms during outside play so they get to meet other staff and interact with them too. My dd's cousin attends the same nursery and often dd is taken in to see her and play with her when time and ratios allow. My niece doesnt nap, but other babies do so they allow them to play together which is lovely.

The day nursery my DD attends is lovely, staff aren't bored 17 yr olds at all they take their role very seriously and update us with her eyfs progress even when she was under 1! I'm sure it varies by nursery, I think have a look and decide for yourself. For work I needed them to be open longer hours and during school holidays too compared to school ones too.

In a nursery with low staff turnover and good staff ratios, those attachments absolutely do happen. My DDs had the same keyworker through their entire period in nursery.

And of course children already have a consistent attachment to an adult - that would be their parents, who despite having to work are still with their children for more hours in the day than anyone else.

In primary in the younger years it was obvious the kids who attended the loca nursery

They weren’t the best behaved!

"They need a strong, attached relationship with a consistent adult. It isn't really possible to do this at a nursery - even if your child has a key worker, ratios mean that the key worker's attention will be spread very thin."

@MintyMabel, that really really isn't true. In a preschool room we have an official ratio of 8 children to 1 adult, but in reality it's more like 4 to 1. You would never get this ratio in a school preschool. I love my key children dearly and have extremely strong bonds with all of them, and every other child in my class. We have 26 children on our roll for our class, but usually between 15 and 20 in on any given day, in various combinations. The children get to know all of us really well, as we do them. Yes we have primary responsibility for our own key children, but we work with each and every one of them. I can tell you, off the top of my head, where each child is in terms of development, need and interests.

Having been in constant contact with our parents during the lockdown, I can tell you that most of our children have been really missing their keyworkers, indicative of the strong relationship that they have. One of my key children has been crying for me at bedtime, have known them since they were six months old and had them as my key child for a year and a half, 8-6, five days a week. It breaks my heart and I miss them so much, all of them.

This thread has upset me a little, we work incredibly hard and care deeply for your children. It is a hard, often thankless (by the parents) job. I love my children at work almost as much as I love my own two DC. I would lay my life down for them, as would all of my colleagues. Please don't dismiss us as uncaring, glorified babysitters. We are so much more than that and mostly highly qualified.

I much prefer school nursery as my kids went up into reception so got them prepared and was a smoother transition. They have lunch in the dinner hall, use the library, have music lessons with the music teacher and pe with the sports coach and do cooking etc. Ours has a massive early year’s playground and they get to play with the reception children too.

They need a strong, attached relationship with a consistent adult. It isn't really possible to do this at a nursery - even if your child has a key worker, ratios mean that the key worker's attention will be spread very thin.

Absolute rubbish.

Why does it have to be either/or? Lots of people (including me) do both! So baby goes to private nursery until the pre school year then go to a school nursery. I moved ds out of his day nursery at 3 to attend a school nursery, it prepared him nicely for reception class.

@SamsMumsCateracts You’ve misquoted me there. I agree nursery staff can be fantastic at building bonds with children. You sound like you are doing a great job.

The nonsense that you can’t do it was spouted by @Babamamananarama

I much prefer school nursery as my kids went up into reception so got them prepared and was a smoother transition.

Our local authority do transition with children no matter what nursery they are in. In fact our private nursery was in a different L.A. area but the staff still came through to our school to help with the transition.

And school nurseries dont have staff ratios? Of course they do. Exactly the same in school nursery.

In fact, ratios are far likely to be stretched to the maximum in a school nursery as it is the LA who allocate staff and they have no extra money to do better than the bare minimum.

The sole disadvantage my DCs had coming in from an external provider was that some of the class (and certainly the parents) had bonded already and it was harder to fit in around established friendships.

The school nurseries have morning and afternoon sessions and provide sessions from 3 to 5 yrs, with not every child going every day. In a class of 28 pupils coming from a nursery that had 80/80 there was only one other child who had been in the same session as DD.

@MintyMabel I do apologise, so it was.

Posted too soon, silly phone! @MintyMabel Thank you for standing up for us, it sounds like your daughter had lovely key workers and it warms my heart that she still remembers them. I hope my key children remember me, I haven't forgotten a single one of them.

All the private day nurseries around here are amazing. We've used one for both of our dc and the quality and facilities are fantastic and they are also very flexible (open 8-6) and all year round.

The school nurseries are a bit sad. Mostly staffed by mums from the village doing part-time work around childcare (I'm assuming they must have some qualifications, but what I mean by that is that they aren't building a career in it, it's just something they've taken on because it's convenient around their own childcare needs and I imagine they'll move on when their dc are no longer preschool or primary age). They are in sad little annexes attached to the school, with like a little paved fenced area for outdoor space. Our day nursery has several acres of land and a mud kitchen and a little wooded area with forest school. It's lovely.

I'm sure they are all different and there may be areas where school nurseries tend to be better, but that certainly hasn't been my experience. The only people who I know who used school nurseries have been either people who work at them (so have their own dc there with them too) or who are SAHP. If you need proper year round childcare that covers the whole work day, it would be hard without additional wraparound care as our school nurseries are term time only 9-3.

I worked in a nursery. Utter rubbish it is filled with 17year olds! They wouldn't even be qualified!!!

The nursery I worked in had a mix of age workers from young apprentices to those about to retire!

I wouldn't hesitate putting my baby in a good nursery. I prefer it to CM as everything in a nursery is age specific for the child and as u say u can feel assured about who is going to come into contact with your baby.

I work in a private day nursery, I'm 30 years old and, while I'm older than a good chunk of the staff, it doesn't mean they are inexperienced or don't care. One of my DS' staff in the baby room is 17 and she gives him so much love and attention.

We do lose a percentage of the children to school nurseries when they hit preschool age, however we also have children that go to a huge variety of schools - last year there were 18 different schools that our children attended - and most do stay. I have 7 year olds who still keep in touch and recognise me from my time at nursery and wouldn't hesitate to go private even if I didn't work there.

Our day nursery is amazing. The staff range in age and the youngest are in their teens (the oldest just turned 60). The young ones are either fully trained or are training on the job and they're great. It's very insulting to presume a 17 year old couldn't be any good at a job. It's very physical and requires a lot of energy. I am more than twice that age and I just do not have as much 'go' as them!

Our nursery keeps sending out lovely messages for the children, and activities that we could do with them if we like, and they've recorded and read bedtime stories for us all - they couldn't be doing more if they tried. And that's in a weird situation where they must be really worried financially.

No, I can't imagine school nursery would be better.

This is why you need to look for yourself at all settings for yourself. I'm not sure why you would have disregarded childminders: your reasoning is based on misconceptions.

All Early Years settings have ratios. Baby and toddler ratios are especially restricted. A school setting is likely to have a qualified teacher, therefore the ratios can be up to 1:13.

Childminders and those living with them must be DBS checked (except those who were CRB or police checked in the days before DBS). Same as nurseries and schools.
Visitors do not have to be checked (thank you Philip Pullman!), but they are not allowed unsupervised access to the children.
That should not put you off a childminder because there are visitors to nurseries and schools, too - and they're less well known to the childcare provider. Schools especially have parents and visitors coming in all the time.
Before lockdown, intergenerational groups were the latest popular idea and many nurseries and nursery schools were happily setting up playgroups in care homes. I never understood why people complained about childminders having known and trusted family members visiting, yet were so enthusiastic about taking other people's children to unvetted care homes that were a far greater safeguarding risk.

It's best to look at all the options available to you and to go with your own instinct. Has your sister seen the nursery you've chosen? I wouldn't listen to her until she has.

If you want a counter-example, the private day nurseries near us are lovely, with big gardens, lots of creative play, language and tennis lessons, one even has its own chickens. Chefs on site, lots of food from their own vegetable gardens. Pretty expensive - £1500-2000 per month.

The school nurseries are bleak places (I looked around two when we moved here), with places allocated by the council based on "need" - so in effect, full of very deprived children. Mass-produced meals, children all in one room with access to a tarmac playground only at break times, no extra-curriculars, very regimented curriculum.

Obviously not all private nurseries are as nice as that, and not all school nurseries are bleak. But your sister needs to get that chip off her shoulder.

I’m a teacher (only relevant as your sister works in a school which you seem to think makes her an authority) who strongly disagrees with your sister. My son attends a private nursery and has done since 12 months. I actively chose a nursery above a childminder. He loves it and so I. However, I feel mine is a particularly fantastic nursery.
One thing that’s quite different about this nursery, however, is that it doesn’t have age rooms. Instead each key person has a ‘family’ of 5 mixed-age children they spend the day with and they navigate the setting going to different rooms and outdoor spaces. I really like this set up and it’s meant my son has developed an excellent bond with his key worker. They have heaps of outdoor spaces and are outdoors in all weathers correctly kitted out. My son has thrived in this environment.