Looking at a nursery today for the first time.

[Horshamchildminder]

I have an appointment to see a nursery for DD for Jan (she will then have just turned 3).
I am quite nervous. I have always worked in Nurseries/childcare and TBH that has made me nervous of it.

Trouble is, when I was training for my NVQ, I worked for 2 years for a CRAP nursery, which was my first/main experience of nuseries.

I really want to like it. It is in a good location for me, outstanding ofsted report and has excellent recomendations. I know that not all nurseries are bad but its difficult to judge - all the parents at the crap nursery I worked at thought it was great, as there was such a put on when they were around.

I know I am being silly really! Never looked for childcare for my own DC before - its always been me who is the childcare!

Why is your DD going to go to nursery?
do you need care say 8am-6pm? If not, then how about looking at pre-schools (what oldies like me used to call playgroups).
I expect you will get a feeling when visiting somewhere, trust the gut feeling.

Its just for the entitlement that she gets free from 3years. So its only for a few hours a day. I am also going to look at a playgroup, to see what I feel is best for her. The silly thing is - I am 90% sure she will love nursery and won't care. She loves being around other children, and at toddler groups, she isn't interested in me at all and I just play with DD2 and watch DD1 from a distance.

The main thing that worries me, with any childcare really. Is that at this crap nursery, 100ish parents had felt that it was good and obviously must of liked it when they looked around. But it was crap. (Eventually ofsted picked up on that and it is now closed).

It is scary when you know how bad the bad ones are, isn't it? I did child observations in one nursery and left concluding that I would be reluctant to leave a pet there... I also worked briefly in a very well thought of nursery and it indeed had its lovely side but I was still quite shocked at the significant pockets of poor practice. IMO it ALL comes down to staff and whether they are any good, pretty much. As long as the environment wasn't dirty and/or unsafe I'd look for good staff over superduper facilities any day. But, having said all that, most children get such a lot out of playing together and with a range of new activities at this age that they will gain something from a few hours of preschool/nursery even it is of a satisfactory rather than an outstanding standard, imo. Good luck.

When in the pre-school room (in the case of a nursery) sit down on the floor, get a child's eye view. See how people react, children and adults - as when parents visit a nursery they don't always get encouraged to sit and spend time. Watch how your DD interacts with the staff, how the staff interact with you, how the staff interact with each other.
The manager should not be leaving you unattended as you are a visiter, so the reaction you get from them may be very revealing... a good manager I feel will quite happily accept your need to spend a while there and they will interact with the children, staff, plus yourself.
Try to avoid the walk into, look around, walk out a minute later type tour... when I've been in nurseries I've wondered how parents who got that sort of tour got any idea of what the place was like.

Well I have been. Think its great really. I was allowed to stay as long as I liked so I let DD have a good play with everything, while I got a feel for the place. The children are left to it most of the time, but I like that, as I think they are too young for loads of "learning" that you often see and learning through play is what I would favour definatly. The facilities are far better than I have ever seen anywhere else.

The problem I now have is that the sessions are 1-4 which is odd considering it is attached to a school, which I think finishes at 3.15. I was planning to CM from that school so I can tie the school runs in. Now I am not too sure how that would work.

The one thing I did think was that the staff didn't seem over enthusiastic. And the head teacher did say they are usually doing observations etc while the children free play.

1-4 is odd hours and is more than current entitlement as well isn't it? Expect there must be other parents picking up at school finish time, they can't all be hanging around for 45mins.

The 1-4 starts in September when the entitlement hours increase. I think thats why everybody wants the morning places (full up)

They would be better off doing 12.30 - 3.30.