My sons nursery went under earlier. We were heartbroken as our LO had made fantastic connections with the other children and they were just a genuinely very good nursery. There were also very practical for us as they were within walking distance (this is huge for me as I'm epileptic and cannot drive), plus they were also very flexible with hours, etc.
The manager and owner then made the decision to set up as childminders Their plan is to sell the large nursery building and set up somewhere much smaller. Currently they're still in the nursery but it is on the market. There prices went up and the group of children reduced from approx 10 per class to five in total (somedays I've noticed there are only 3 children including mine.) All that said they have delivered on everything they have promised they take my LO on excursions at least 2 out of 3 days per week (ie the beach, forests and local shows so more than the usual pop to town and park) they cook all their food fresh and give the children lots of individual attention.
We were (naively) surprised at how much this change affected our LO, they asked about their friends lots and just generally seemed unsettled this has calmed now, although we are still concerned about the mix of children. Whilst all lovely, our child will be 3 next month and on some days he may only be with very young children.
For this reason we looked at our catchment pre school who have given him a place from age 3. It's a lovely school and has all the usual bits you would expect in a good school/preschool. However, all our flexibility will be gone. Wrap-around care is book a week in advance and if it's full it's full and there is no none term time provision. The cost would be nil as we'd get the 3 year old funding, the only bit to pay would be the wraparound care which is £14 per day.
Point of this incredibly long thread? - I'm about to hand our nursery notice in this morning when LO has a berserk tantrum at the door (unusual) and the staff say it's best that I just leave quickly. He has then spilled the beans about big school so the manager calls and asks what's going on and then offers me the 30 funding where he is.... so which would you choose?
I've gone on but cons of current set up:
Expensive
Very few children my sons age
Slightly flakey owner
The unknown about there new building
Cons of pre school:
Much larger class sizes
Very school structured style (dinner with the whole school/no separate pre school toilets from what I could see)
Lack of flexibility
Another big change