Nursery class of 74 :0

[tryingtobemarypoppins2]

My DS's nursery is a large open plan setting with 74 children per session.....I just can't get my head around this!

Anyone had any experience of this?? Good or bad....

EEK!

Bad.

You end up herding groups of children like sheep and not knowing their names.

That's a lot! My daughter's entire nursery has about 50 or so kids in it. Everybody knows her name.

I would look at the over all quality of care, before you judge on room size, the ratio's are still the same whether the rooms are large and small (in fact i have seen a smaller nursery work on the basis with one staff member in each room completely in ratio but with no other support, completely unprofessional in my mind)
I would look at what kind of activities are on offer, ask the staff what the room sizes are like, it could be that they have three toddler rooms, there for spreading the ages and abilities out.

I work in an 80 place day nursery and i know all the children by name, even the 4 set of identical twins none of which are in my class.

Look at the nursery and go with your gut feeling before judging the number of children attending.

Cookielove thank-you. It is only ONE room however I do understand what you are saying. The smaller nursery I looked at had no more than 15 children and 3 adults but I was a bit worried the activities were a bit less chanllenging and there may be too much structure, however I do feel that he is lost in the hugh nursery and inpersonal, his behaviour demonstrates he feels overwhelmed by it. I'll give it to Christmas and go from there. I hate having to be a grown up!! Thanks so much for the support.

Ok, 74 in one room does sound a lot i mis read your OP, it must be a big open space, it worries me if it is not separated out into different sections, even if not just for play.

Do go with your gut feeling