updates from nurseries

[abrummum]

I have no idea what my son does at nursery. Is this normal???

My child goes to a nursery at a local primary school. I drop him off in the morning, and the parents just queue up and the children enter. Nothing from the teachers as they are just trying to get them thru the door.

He goes to the after school club for about 90 minutes after school. I pick him up from there, and obviously, his teachers aren't there and he just comes out and we go straight home.

He's been there since September. We've had one virtual parent-teacher conference (and the teacher seemed to not even know that he can speak fluently). On a day-to-day basis, I never have any idea what he does there. I never see any of his work, never hear about his progress. Nothing!! I'm not originally from the UK. Is it normal to have no idea what your 3-yr-old does all day??

Thanks!

As it’s nursery I wouldn’t expect to know anything other than he’s happy and settled there. Is he bringing pictures he’s done home ?
Does he say he enjoys it ?

My daughter is 3. She’s in a private nursery, usually around 8-5.15 three days a week. We get a handover at the end of the day (though to be honest it’s 99% “she’s had a lovely day and eaten all of her food”) and then once or twice a week we get photographs on tapestry of what she’s been up to.

I used to use another nursery with my son, where every day there was a whiteboard of the main things that had been done each day.

I think the level of information you’re receiving isn’t what I’d be happy with.

Seems unusual to me, do they not even have an app they record nappies, meals etc and a quick summary?

It will be the difference between private and school nurseries, you’d probably get more of a handover if he wasn’t in the after school club.
Mine have both gone to private nurseries as we need care 7.30-5 and through the holidays too. We get a hand over each day, 12 week written updates as to their progress against the early years framework, 12 weekly parent staff updates in a parents evening. Also weekly photos on a private Facebook group for the nursery.
However when they go to school you for reception you get a lot less, just what they tell you ( the kids)

Similar to PP, my daughter is 3 and at a private nursery, we get a brief handover at the end of the day and photos on the app once every week or fortnight.

@Tabbacus

Seems unusual to me, do they not even have an app they record nappies, meals etc and a quick summary?

I would only expect this from a private day nursery. From the OP I think the 3yo is at a Preschool attached to a Primary School, so the details given are usually way less.

DD is 2.5 and goes to a private nursery. At the end of the day we get a bit of a run down - nothing that detailed just something they did that day (painting etc), if she ate well, whether there were any problems, they’ll tell me specifically if she didn’t nap, that kind of thing. And then every Friday they upload a whole set of pictures from the week with a more detailed description of the various activities they did that week and how DD was.

I know some people get more, like how many nappy changes etc but I’ve never felt like that was information I needed day to day, and I trust them to tell me if there was ever a problem, which they have done (DD is quite prone to nappy rash and it can come up very quickly so they’ll always say if they notice it, and if they changed her nappy more frequently/put on the cream we provided because of it).

Totally normal for a school nursery, except maybe that you don’t see any of his work as mine used to bring home a weekly collection of masterpieces. All I used to get out of mine at the end of the day was what they ate for lunch and if she had fun (always yes).

Normal for a school nursery I believe. My 4 year old is at a private nursery and we have a daily update with one of the staff at the time we collect her and a weekly update on Tapestry.

Yes totally normal for a school nursery. Private nursery we used to get a handover from a keyworker but in school nursery they would only have a chat if there was a problem. They don't have the same ratio of staff in a school nursery usually a teacher and a TA.

I taught school nursery for many years - there were 2 staff for 30 children, there isn’t time to fill in daily records of what they had eaten/ how many times they’d been to the toilet or whatever. If there was a specific issue with a child in those areas though we would communicate with the parents in whatever way was most effective.

We did use an app that parents could log into and see photos of what the children had been up to with a little observation/ write up - usually children would have at least one if not two a week. Before the app was introduced though it was either a quick chat at drop off/ pick up if there was time, and the children bringing their pictures etc home each day. Plus termly parents evenings.

If you have any concerns about your child you can ask for a meeting or phone call. You say the teacher ‘didn’t even know he could speak fluently’ - it is very very common for children to not display the same behaviours/ abilities at school as they do at home so it is possible he is not speaking as much or as fluently whilst he is there, or not around the adults anyway.

We get detailed reports with pictures and sometimes video. The report is often a couple of paragraphs. We also get a diary log of nappies, food, sleep etc. This is a private nursery though and the best in the area. It's a bit competitive around here so I think they are trying to outdo the others rather than this being the norm

My child goes to a nursery at a local primary school. We get tapestry updates 1-4 times a week (depends if it's an interesting week!), never updates on the door as it's chaos.

We get a daily handover at a private day nursery. DS also attends a preschool which gives a lot less daily feedback which really made me feel unsettled to begin with as DS has speech and language delay. I asked for more feedback and they were more than happy to. I've felt much happier since.