Looking for a good Nursery in Woodside Park/West Finchley

[Baja]

Hello,
I'm about to move up to Woodside Park/West Finchley, and I'm looking to find a good nursery for my 2 3/4yr old boy.
Any recommendations?
x

My DD goes to Busy Bees in the David Lloyd Leisure Centre nest to Finchley Lido. It is 5 mins from West Finchley in the car even in the rush hour traffic. She started there full time when she was 5.5 months old and she is almost 18 months old now. It is a lovely nursery and my DD is VERY happy there. The staff are very friendly and genuinely seem to care about all the kids. I am happy to have such a great place for my daughter to enjoy herself.

Thanks for that info, I'm going to see Cupcakes and Laurel Way, and was looking into Lavendale (but when i phoned the kids were crying in the background and the woman sounded stressed, so not holding out much hope there).
I was trying to get a place i can walk to and then onto the tube, and have heard about Busy Bees, I should check it out.
Did you look at others, or was Busy Bees recommended to you?
x

I looked at a few others and I was worried as I was not keen on any of them. I entered Busy Bees and knew immeidately that I liked it.

I saw Early Learning Years in Finchley Central (which has longer hours than most other nurseries) but i didn't get a good feel for the place and i didn't like the fact that it was in a converted house.

I saw another nursery called Pentland which is also in N3 (nearish Finchley Central) - I liked it but it only opened at 8.30am which was no good for me.

I saw an asquith in Golders Green and in Hendon and I didn't care for them either although I can't really pinpoint why other than they keep all the young ones together until they are walking whereas in Busy Bees there are 2 baby rooms - pre crawlers and then prewalkers.

There is a nursery in West Finchley called Primary Steps which I didn't see becasue I think they only cater for 2 years old plus. Perhaps that is worth looking into.

Busy Bees is bright and refreshing. They have a great set of staff who are very very friendly. They are constantly getting new toys for the children, the type of toys that I have or would like at home which I also liked. They don't have a massive outside space but it is adequate. They have been really good for us so far and they made the transition back to work very easy.

my friend's son goes to busy bees and her daughter went there - very happy with it. I also know people whose children go to Laurel way and on the whole they are happy with it I think.

I went to a party at Lavendale once and though t it was a dump, plus it's up a mudslide of a dirt track!

thanks for all of that, I think i'll avoid Lavendale, the attraction was the outside space, because my boy loves to run! But i'm going to see Laurel, and Cupcakes, and hopefully Moss Hall on Monday, then Frith manor on the thur, and hopefully Primary steps. I might try to squeeze in busy bees too, but it's a difficult one for my childminder to get to to collect from, and i'm hoping to get a short day, as i'm 4days pwk, and would like my son not to be in nursery for long days every day.
we'll see, fingers crossed. x

oh yes moss hall - my friend's son went there and loved it, plus it is really near west finchley tube.

I am local to that area as you can tell!

I've heard it's the benchmark for all barnet nurseries, and consequently i doubt we'll get in.
where do you live? we're hoping to complete on a place on westbury rd.
x

We put our son down for Moss Hall nursery and they came up with a place within 3 months, which I thought was pretty good going. The building is small and a bit dark, but the staff seemed very nice and I got a good feeling about it. We never took the place up in the end as we moved. Miss Hall school is pretty good, too.

One word of warning - they seemed much more accomodating and friendly once they found out we needed a full time place. They obviously want maximum amount of hours ie. money and aren't keen on part time kids for that reason.

Thanks Love Angel, that's useful. I'm seeing too many to count on Monday.
Coming from Coconut in Stokie, my standards feel high, i'm just hoping to find an equivalent in N12.
x

Thats really weird! We live in Stokie and are moving to Finchley :-) There was a brief period when we lived in Finchley previously when our house was being renovated, that's when I appled to Moss Hall as wasn't sure how long it would all take...funny old world eh!

if you're in osbaldeston rd, then i think we're using the same solicitor for our moves! x