Hi everyone. I’m posting because I could really do with a outsider opinion and I’m sure I’ll start driving my poor family mad if I keep asking theirs!
We have had to take my 3.5 year old son out of the nursery/preschool he was extremely settled and happy in. It was (i thought) and amazing nursery with fantastic facilities including a large outdoor space with lots to do. He loved it. The nursery is now temporarily closed and police are involved after a safeguarding allegation was made. Arrests have been made and he won’t be going back.
We are now looking for a new nursery for him so he can keep up with his preschool education and for my little girl when I go back to work.
It’s been very stressful because i needed a place with early start times for when I return to work and lots of places have very long waiting list, but we found 3 to visit. One I absolutely loved and my son loved, amazing rooms and absolutely lovely owner. This would be my first choice but on thinking more I realised during rush hour I would struggle to get to work on time from there.
Another seemed great on paper, has amazing facilities and is close to my work. But I got a bad feeling about it. Lots of talk about what they do ‘when’ children hit and i was there at pick up and saw two separate mums being told that they’d had to tell their children to use ‘kind hands’ again today. They have lots of activities, p.e lessons etc but it just didn’t feel right.
The last one is a private nursery but is attached to the school we think they will go to. It’s very small, quite a.nice homely feel and family owned with a very low turnover of staff. The biggest downside is the outside area is tiny, but from what the owner said they use it well. It doesn’t have amazing facilities and I didn’t feel ‘wow’ when I walked in. However, the owner was absolutely lovely. I felt really comfortable there. They help with transition to the main school really well, my son could do a few hours in the main school nursery whilst he’s there if we like. They also bring all the children together for snack time, so my son and my daughter could have snack together when she starts, which is quite sweet. I had a good feeling about it. But I want to give them the best and I’m worried it’s not enough with the outdoor area being so small (not enough room to ride bikes from what I could tell, but lots of water and sand play and planting flowers) and the facilities just not being ‘wow’. It was hard to properly see what it’s like up and running because we had to go when it was closed and there were no children.
I’d really appreciate any opinions on how that sounds. Sorry if it was very long, it’s been a really stressful time and I just want to make the right decision for my children