Help wanted - what make's you choose a nursery...?

[teabelly]

I've just started working at a local nursery, we're trying to increase volume without increasing costs to parents. When they started there was only one other in the area, a few years later and there's now 7 main competitors.

Need some help trying to work out what we could offer to encourage new attendances...for example when I chose ds's first nursery it was because although more expensive they offered milk and nappies in the price, so dh could litterally pick ds out of his cot take him straight to nursery and not have to worry about packing a daily bag of necessities (important as I was 7-7 in London and dh was as capable with a baby as a man can be!)

Thought I'd ask the MN great and good (and not so good ) what would make you choose one nursery over another...?

TIA for your help

My choice was based mostly on the atmosphere and environment and how I thought it would suit DS (he has just started at nearly 2, so different criteria perhaps?)

I chose a very small nursery, both in terms of the overall number of children, number of children in each group, and the actual size of the facility (it is based in a converted house and has a very home-from-home atmosphere).

I also viewed a nursery in a very big, purpose built building, which was noisy, with large groups, and seemed very sterile and almost hospital like in it's environment - I didn;t like it, and thought DS would be overwhelmed.

I also looked for a good structure to the day because DS is at that age where I felt a good structure of activities would be better for him than a lot of free play.

And whether or not I liked the room leader(s) and the way they inetracted with teh children.

HTH

FrayedKnot thanks...re the structured day vs free play, we already offer things like Jo Jingles and Gymnastics (as well as we have a teacher who has a group of 4 kids (3-5yrs) per day to teach some early reading and writing skills). But we were thinking of maybe offering swimming lessons or another such activity - would his kind of thing have appealed to you?

DS' nursery does music one morning and dance another morning, which I think is enough!

I meant more that from after registration throughout the rest of the day, all activities are very structured, so the children know what is coming next.

e.g. they usualy do a craft type thing after registration, followed by a story, followed by snack, follwed by going outside to play, followed by, etc.

In the baby room (group below DS) they tend to just get lots of toys out and the toddlers move from one to another with carers interacting, iyswim.

This may be more of an age realted thing though as obviously younger toddlers would not have the concentration to have so many structured activities.

I chose ds nursery (which he goes to preschool sessions) based on:

It has cctv
It was very secure
Good garden facilities - the children help grow things
Great activities (pe, singing, learning and lots of fun)
The staff look professional, clean tidy, happy and have aprons
swimmig lessons would be a great idea

oh yes iswym Our nursery takes children aged 3mths to 5 years so yes the older children have a more structured day as you describe, and all these activities aren't necessarily every week for all.

One of the things we'd thought about but then discounted was to open earlier and later to appeal to parents who say catch the train, but unfortunately we're not on the train route through town like another nursery is, and the cost of having staff work earlier and later would not be compensated by possible new attendees, so are trying to think of other things we could do other than to increase daily rates...

Emily x posts there thanks - know what yo mean about presentable staff - nothing more offputting than nursery nurses in fashion clothing who don't look as old as your favorite pair of shoes

Oi, Tea! You work in a nursery? That a radical career change.

My tip would be for nutritious organic food. Or tey doing a bit of PR by sending home a nice pic of the kids with their friends for parents to plaster up on the fridge and show to their friends (free PR for you).

when looking at my ds day nursery things that i looked for were

environment, colourful rooms nice displays of work.
Organic food freshly prepared home cooked meals on the premises
Activities - football skills, spanish, yoga bugs and singing.
Consistentcey of staff, friendly, helpful and happy.Older room leaders 30+
Good outside playing areas.
Good structured day planned

Uwila - hello - yup for my sins now book-keeping 2 1/2 days at a nursery...didn't want to go back to London...or rather DH didn't fancy the idea of getting two kids ready by himself and then have them all to himself again until I got home from a 7-7 day! lordy he used to complain enough when it was just one child

Lounan - fab thanks Yes very important to have consistency of staff...at ds's first nursery there was a time when it seemed everytime we collected him there was a new person running his room - not easy for lo's if they're no overly pleased to be there in the first place!

Good nutritious food cooked on the premises
Space -indoors and outdoors (one we looked at was so cramped there was no room for kids to let off steam, crawl, run etc )
Somewhere that "looks" like fun -difficult to describe but I guess its a gut reaction from what you see -we looked at one nursery that was beautiful but I suddenly realised there was no evidence of "messy play" (no sand/water, paint/craft ) it was all too clinical and tidy.

Got to go now but will add to this later

Been thinking a bit more.

Something which might appeal to parents, DS nursery has just started offering flexible hours, which means as well as morning and afternoon sessions, they also offer 9-3 (ish) too.

When I was job hunting I saw several jobs advertised for school hours, but not everyone has school age children, or does, and wants to fit around children at school as well as nursery.

Both times I have chosen nurseries for mine it has been gut feeling really. I have just felt comfortable with the atmosphere. Happy children and I felt that I "clicked" with the staff straight away. A bonus is healthy food, security and long opening hours.

I have an aversion to nurseries where

a) all the staff are of a similar age
b) That age seems to be less than 20.

I've been to some large chain nurseries where the staffing was like that. It felt like they were 'mates', but that this was to the detriment to the kids, because the girls were spending a lot of time gossiping, saw them on their mobiles while taking the kids for walks. Most of all, I felt that when they were all the same age there wasn;t the staff discipline that there was in smaller nurseries where there was an owner/manager/matron.

Hence, I only consider nurseries where there is at least a couple of 'grumpy old women' type of carers!

Perhaps they subconciously remind me of my grandmas; perhaps I'm assuming they've raised a couple of kids of their own; perhaps I'm assuming that older people have more common sense; perhaps I'm assuming they'd have some backbone and speak up if a kid wasn't cared for right... in any case its a strong prejudice I have.

Display a bit of personal atttention to new propects. When I was pregnant with DD, I wrote 2 nurseries enquiring about a place. They both replied with application that were no more personal than an apartment lease. And, I thought no way are you looking after my child. One of them even required I sign something authorising them to take her for medical attention but nowhere did it askk me what doctor or hospital to contact. And another wanted a deposit before they would tell me if they had a place available (and the deposit was non refundable). So, I decided that nurseries were not for us and we used a childminder until I hired a nanny.

Okay, the things I liked / appealled to me were...

Where the workers talked to my DD, and not just to me. I know I make the decisions, but its my DD going there! So I kind of expect the nursery to interact with my DD too.

Lots of nurseries do things with the over twos, but as I only work part time, I wanted nursery to be an experience for my child, right from teh very beginning. So even before she turned one, she was doing simple activities like playing with tomato ketchup, or cornfour, simple painting, food tasting sessions (like they tried yellow foods in yellow week and wore yellow clothes). Very simple activities, but she got to do things at that early age, not just left in a room with a few toys. (That was my most important factor)

The nursery has a digital camera, and it is nice to see pics of the babies doing cornflour / wet pasta play hung up. They also do lots of heuristic stuff too.

My DD also did Baby sign and they were great in learning her signs... they now do it too, but I wanted a nursery that would respond to her.

Also, the nursery does not leave a baby to cry. In some nurseries I saw the workers ignoring the crying baby to talk to me... at the nursery I chose, They apologised, walked off to sort out the child, and then talked to me... I didn't want a nursery that put the child second. I also spent a lot of time looking at what the other nursery workers were doing (in the background, whilst I was talking) - were they playing with the children, or chatting amongst themselves... I saw a mixture, including both extremes.

Good quality home made food was important to me. I did not want a nursery where snacks consituted of squash and a biscuit. At my DD's nursery morning snack is fresh fruit and water, and afternoon snack is milk and something non fruit, like crumpets or cheese or something, but healthy! I also wanted to make sure that the menus were homemade, so they have home made chicken nuggets (from breast) not shop bought ones.

It was quite important to me that my DD had her own cot that she used each time. Full timers personalise their cots, and can have things mobiles etc... They also have a little list above their names, like "my name is...and I like being cuddled to sleep with my dummy" etc.

Flexibility is also great. At my nursery, you can have a whole day, am /pm session, school day or even pay by the hour (so I can pay in advance (an extra £4.50 / hour) to have my DD stay an extra hour on Thursdays, either as a one off or regularly).

Also, clean nursery with lots of light and lots of examples of children's work. In the baby and toddler section, adults are not allowed to wear their shoes (for the crawling babies). I liked the thought that they had put into things like that!

My friend's nursery also has a mini bus and they go and collect children from school and take them back to the nursery for after school care... that was the reason why she chose that one.

Sorry to have waffled on so much, but there's my response!
HTH

Hiya Tea!

I've worked in a nursery in the past and now I'm on the other side of the fence as a Mum, so I can look at it from both angles. These are the things I based my decision on when choosing dd's nursery (in no particular order)

Outside space
Wall displays (current, themes, variety)
Equipment being clean and working (toys, games, puzzles, books, outside toys). This didn't mean all the latest flash stuff, just well cared for and respected.
I preferred different rooms/areas (i.e. I chose dd's nursery because it has a few rooms over another nursery run in a church hall; the space was just too large and chaotic for my dd.)
Following the Foundation curriculum

Friendly and caring staff
Staff taking time out to speak to parents - sometimes difficult, but important!
The right ratio of staff to children
Staff speaking to children and encouraging conversation
Group work taking place at appropriate age groups
Lots of children of different races, religions etc. (although I think we don't tick that box very well at dd's nursery!)
Opportunity for feedback, both ways.
Well organised and 'professional'

Milk and nappies and stuff didn't bother me as this nursery only caters for 2 up. But they do provide a drink and snack table.

Good luck to ya!

Hi Lippy!

I chose a small nursery - twenty places - run by a charity so it wasn't a business venture. I liked the fact it didn't have a 'baby room' in fact my eight month old dd is the only baby there and after that they're all one year and above. But apart from these factors I basically went for the people who'd be caring for my dd. There was a good age range between early twenties through to roughly mid forties and there was a greater staff ratio than the normal one adult to three kids. He has only just started going to the nursery so i guess the jury is still out but so far (he's been three times) I've been impressed. I've received a pretty detailed account of his day which I didn't expect but totally appreciated. Although environment, food, daily activities etc are very important I think the most essential factor is the people, plain and simple. When I was picking this nurserey I felt the people who worked there (and I met all of them) exuded kindness, warmth, genuine enthusiasm and professionalism. Still early days but I'm hoping my instincts continue to be proved right.

When it came to choosing where to send our DS we only saw one place. I fully intended on making my dh trundle round a selection, but this one ticked every box.

The staff were friendly - also helped that unbeknownst to me the deputy mgr had been in my year at school, and i knew her fairly well.
It catered for children of all ages (3mths to school age).

There are 8 different rooms all catering for the childrens needs in different ways.

It is bright and clean and all the children look very happy.

All the fruit/veg is delivered fresh every day and cooked on site. It varies day to day.

They ask your permission to have photos taken of your child to put in their room so that if a different member of staff is in that room they can match a face to a name (if they dont know the child already)

I love the nursery i have chosen and more importanly so does my little boy.

I'll second the flexible hours thing. I need 9 - school pick up (3.15) but end up having to pay until 5.30pm, which really pees me off.

Atmosphere of the place. Site visit and talking to staff absolutely essential. Are the children engaged and happy? I looked for one when dd was just one - the fact that the staff were happy to cater for her idiosyncracies eg rock her to sleep in her buggy, sold it for me. Kindness, responsiveness of staff - it is gut feel. The other nursery I visited had a manager who pooh-poohed my concerns as that of a first time mum and was too quick to reassure me about dd settling in. That totally turned me off.

Experience of the staff, hands down -

also healthy food on menus

and a nice garden - they had recruited a parent team to lend time to jazz up their outside space, and it made me think parents liked the place enough to want to support it

Thinking about the nursery DD (19months) attends:

++ Warm, cuddly staff.
Bright, welcoming rooms.
Outside space
Access to local garden square
Structured activities
Real attentiveness to individual children's development and personalities
Mix of ages
Comical activities like 'making sandwiches'
Daily report cards.

-- Food only moderate. Could be more meat and fish. Too many sweet and cakey things.
Would love more flexibility - to be able to pay for a certain number of hours per week and use them as needed (administrative nightmare for nursery, of course).
Staff who write newletters etc. have poor grammar and spelling

Now that I am more experienced, with dd having been in nursery for 1.5 years, I am beginning to appreciate:

Nutritious variety of food cooked on-site, which dd EATS - hurrah!
With older children eg 2-3 years and older, increasing the number of structured activities, less free play.
Some parents at my nursery strongly lobbied for staff to follow the Early Years curriculum (I suspect because their children were going to take selective private school assessments) but I am not so bothered. Nice-to-have.
Outside space, staff taking children for walks
Consistent policy on aggression
Help with potty training
More staggering of groups eg not stuff 2-3 year olds with 3-4 year olds
Communication between staff and parents eg development books, meetings
Low staff turnover, high morale amongst staff
I like the diversity at my nursery
Overall, kindness and responsiveness of staff is still very important