End of day issues

[Montifer]

I'm generally happy with DS's (2.7) nursery and he loves going, is there 2 days / week.

My issue is that I pay for 0800 - 1800 (he's usually there 1000-1700 ish) but if I collect him 1730 or later, he and the 1 or 2 other children who are waiting to be collected are often amusing themselves whilst staff mop / hoover.

Tonight when I arrived at 1735 (it is usually more noticeable on a friday) DS and 1 other girl were standing by the front door and one of the staff was outside emptying her mop bucket.
Their 'room' had obviously been cleaned and they had been shooed into entrance area to wait for collection.

I suspect staff are employed until 1800 so cleaning needs to be done, but I feel that fully supervised activities should continue until 1800 or when the last child leaves and cleaning should be done when the children have left.

Is this end of day cleaning around children normal for nurseries?

Frankly, I would let it slide, as long as there is supervision from a safety point of view.

A little day-dreaming time is important to develop kids imagination and watching adults cleaning up is not a bad piece of modelling behaviour.

It is very difficult to start something new when staff are busy supervising pick ups.

Totally normal. Though we don't shove children into entrance halls. As the children leave, the groups usually end up in one room, leaving rooms empty so they can be cleaned. The children are normally allowed to play with a limited range of toys, nothing messy. We close at 5.30 so normally start to tidy toys away at about ten past, as we have a mad rush of parents collecting at quarter past. the children are usually given books to look at with one member of staff while the rest speak to the parents. The room gets hoovered/mopped when all the parents and staff have left.
We have a cleaner, some nurseries don't and the nursery nurses have to do it.
Like jaybird says, a little wind-down time is a good thing.
I am certainly not getting sand/water/paint/etc out at that time of day. I only get paid till 5.30 and would not be happy at having to stay late to tidy up unnecessary mess as I would not get paid to do it.
The nursery manager will ahve to balance everybody's needs. The nursery still needs to get cleaned, your child will ahve had 7 hours of activities, which is more than enough.

Yes it's normal
don't say anything
it's an underpaid hard job, long hours, give the staff a break!

Totally normal. When I pick my DD up, she is usually waiting in one room with all the other kids while her usual room is being sorted out. It's quite nice them all being together chilling out and singing songs or something. And she helps putting stuff away too sometimes which is a good lesson IMHO.

They do this with DD2 and it doesn't bother me, although they only have one big open space divided up, so is slightly harder for them to clean away while children are there.
One day I was the last to turn up to pick up and DD2 was helping put the chairs on the tables for the sweeping. It was her favourite activity for the whole day! They let them help tidy, which I have no porblem with, I actually like DD2 to see the cleaning that has to be done thanks to her

Besides, they have looked after my dd all day while I work, least I can do is allow them to get off as early as possible for wine too, it's not lke they earn enough to make it worth their while doing unpaid overtime.

Ofsted did criticize nurseries in general for the quality of childcare at either end of the day. When a member of staff is doing "household tasks" they can't be counted in ratio.
If a nursery is open for 10 hours 8-6 how do you staff it? If you get staff working 9 hours you are always going to be short at the ends. A nursery should ideally have staff earlier and later than opening hours for setting up and tidying up purposes but that means more problems staffing the hours. Asking staff to do the tidying means they don't need cleaners which keeps the price down.
All those problems could be overcome by ultimately spending money on them, and that money comes from the paying customers. Do you want to pay for cleaners and more staff?

It is very normal not the bit about the entrance hall though, when cleaning is happening in my nursery the children go to the other room while it is being cleaned and then go back and do small activites that do not require a lot of clean up

It would be nice to do full out activities all day but at 6pm if the child has been at nursery since 8 they are generally very tired and not up for a lot of crazy activities

I get the children to help me when i clean because they love doing it and the parents love seeing it because it means the children want to help at home and see it as a game and not something boring

thanks for all the replies, MN is fantastic for getting a bit of perspective

think it was the fact ds was lying on the carpet right by the front door (am by no means a clean freak, but it must be filthy there)

would be happy to see him joining in some tidying, although i know from experience that can be more of a hindrance than help