Beginnings and ends of day

[Novembergirl]

I would be interested in views on a couple of questions:

Firstly, do many nurseries use one room as a sort of early arrivals and late departures waiting room for children of all ages (including crawling babies and lively toddlers) before they separate out into their own rooms or are collected by parents?

Secondly, how worried should you be if the child to carer ratios are not always adhered at the beginnings and ends of days?

Our nursery has open house from the start - lots of different types of activities in each room that the children can choose.

At the end of the day, yes, they do tend to group them into one room, however the nursery has 2 buildings, one for 1 to 2.9yo and the other for the older kids, so it's not like you've got crawlers with 4 yo.

To be perfectly honest, I love our nursery and have never felt the need to check the ratio - there always seems to be plenty of staff and that's it.

At our place all the home rooms (so individuals rooms where the children are split per age) are open from 8am to 6pm and if you are dropping off or picking up within that window then it is all done within the home room environment. If you have requested hours outside of these ranges - so for example - one of my friends does a 07:30 to 17:30 day and an other does 8:30 to 6:30pm - then there is one early/late room where all the children irrespective of age are taken - this allows the nursery to consolidate staff numbers right at the beginning and end of the day.

To answer your second point - well ideally I would expect the right staff ratio to be there at both the beginning and end of the day, but I guess there are instances where this doesn't happen - normally when someone has called in sick and they're waiting for agency cover or someone has transport problems. We're all sometimes late for work for a variety of reasons and nursery staff are no exception. So - I guess it's often inevitable but shouldn't be the norm.

If there is staff sickness at our nursery, the manager and assistant manager step in and come out of their office to make sure that the ratios are correct!

Hi i worked in a nursery, and as Shimmers said, Deputy and Manager were supernumary so fee to cover when shortstaffed.

Ofsted do not allow ratios to be ignored for even a short space of time e.g someone going out of the room to prepare tea etc. So a nursery should ensure they have adequate staff to cover all occasions.

We did mix age groups up sometimes, just to give the children a change of scenery, to allow them to mix (esp those soon to be moving up a group) and for siblings to get a chance to get together during the day. But we always ensured we were at correct ratios, and if children showed a dislike of being in another room, they wouldn't be forced to go.

I have a concern, about our VERY good nursery.
Open from 8am - 6pm.
But when I collect ds, often at 5.50pm, he is waiting, with one person, in the reception area, by the front dooor,
I do not find this acceptable.
But , have not complained, to date.

Hmmm really tricky Rachel. We did used to do this once it got to a couple of minutes before six, but would always amuse the child, not just have him packed up and make him sit there.

Naturally we all clock watch at the end of a busy day and can't wait to get home!

If i were you i'd say i don't mind him having his coat on etc, but if they could make sure he had something to play with whilst he waited.