should i MOVE dd to a FANTASTIC PRE SCHOOL even though she's happy at nursery?

[noonar]

well, a place at a v highly respected pre school, has finally come up for sept. i know that they will almost certainly offer a higher quality of provision than her current nursery,(esp in terms of creativity and staff calibre) but dd - 3 next month- is happy where she is.

what would you do?

bump. i have to fill in the form. the deadline is today.

I had exactly the same dilemma - but for a different reason. DS was in nursery, great, he was happy, but it was English-medium, and we wanted him to go to Welsh-medium school. He was offered an early start (January), as he's an October baby, and we had to decided whether to move him, or whether to have him start at the pre-school in the September. Eventually we moved him to start at the Welsh-medium pre-school, with a CM as wrap-around care, and we couldn't be happier with the choice we've made. However, these were the reasons we finally came around to the idea of taking him out of his nursery ...

• Lack of flexibility of the nursery.
• His 2 main key workers left the nursery.
• The staff of the nursery, although wonderful, were nursery nurses rather than nursery teachers.
• We wanted him to get into a Welsh-medium environment sooner rather than later.
• The pre-school was in the same building as the primary school he would be going to (in fact, in the room next door to the reception class)
• He was ready for pre-school - knew his numbers, his letters, was getting a bit bored at nursery.

The last 2 reasons were the most important of all of them - what worked for us may not be a good reason for you.

DS will be going into the reception class in September with all of his friends from the pre-school class - he already knows the teacher (and LSAs) of that class, as they've visited the reception class on several occasions.

As far as he is concerned, he's already at school - it's just that in September, he gets to stay all day ....

If dd is ready for a school environment, then it may be better for her to go into that environment now, rather than wait, where she may be the eldest, and not be stimulated enough.
Good luck with making the decision.

if she's happy, I would leave her!

Having experienced this predicament, I did put my dd in the pre-school - she was very upset, couldn't settle and actually, despite it's fantastic reputation, I felt the pre-school's level of inclusion was nowhere near that of the nursery. ie she was treated almost like part of a big family at nursery so had security, continuity and nurturing in my view where the pre-school seemed more interested in 'keeping up appearance' if you see what I mean.

Ultimately, I took her out of the pre-school four months later and she went back to the nursery and was very happy to do so (the change in her was clear to see)

oh, crikey. this is hard. tahnks so much for your posts, esp ejt for your v thorough reply

ok, i think another big issue for us is that i'm trying to 'improve ' on her 5 yo sister's exp of starting school, in 2 respects:

1. she didnt know anyone when she started school, as her nursery(a diff one to dd2's) was in a diff area

and

2)she didnt have much of a grounding in phonics before starting school and has been 'slowish' to learn to read. as a summer born, i think dd2 will need all the help she can get in this area (although she is v 'forward' and people are always amazed to learn that she's still 2)

the preschool would 'tick both of these boxes'. hmm....

malmaman, so sorry to hear of your exp x

In that respect we were lucky because the nursery is literally across the road from her school and so she knows many children in reception as they attended her nursery. I hope it works out for you whichever way you decide

noonar - we felt the same - nobody else at the nursery was going to be going to the Welsh-medium school, so ds would have had to have made all new friendships in an established group in September.

I don't envy you having to make the decision - it took real heart-searching to come to a decision for us.

MM, actually the nursery is really close to the school, but as it has only 16 chn, and the infants has 4 classes per year, she's unlikely to have a sense of knowing lots of people when she starts, iyswim.

would it be madness to send her to both? 2 mornings at the new place, and one where she is?

We also used this method to ease her in to pre-school - 2 mornings at pre-school - 1 full day still at nursery. In some ways it was useful as we could compare them as they ran alongside and this helped to shape the decision to remove her from pre-school sometime later.

maybe i'll pay the £50 deposit and buy myself a bit more thinking time.

dd mixed and matched - 3 mornings playgroup, 4 afternoons preschool for the term before she started Reception.

Do you know what the other children in nursery are doing? I was hoping to leave my ds at his nursery until he was 5 but it turns out that all the children in his age group are leaving in September so I'm now looking around to see if I can get him into pre-school. I don't think it would be stimulating enough for him if all the other children are at least 6 months younger, it's a big difference between 2.6 and 3 yrs. Then in January I guess another group will leave and then he'll be a year older than the next oldest child.

Definitely book the place and see how you feel in September. Do you know if any of her friends at nursery will be going to the same pre-school?

thanks liz
good point, bran- re others leaving . we have parents eve at the nursery tomorrow, so will ask.( my dd is summer born, and they only take 2-5 yos, so she's unlikely to be the oldest at only just 3.)

another factor is that we may be moving house. maybe i should keep change to a minimum.