moving to new area in next year... booking pre-school place?

[ladymixalot]

We are looking to move house some time before ds is 3 (now 18 months) and have narrowed it down to a couple of towns. If I want him to have a pre-school place from age 3ish do I need to book him in soon? Do we have to decide right now which town we're going to live in? And can you book a nursery place (or more than one?) if you don't live in the area yet?

Mmm, hard one. I looked around very early at nurseries/pre-schools and reserved a place at a few of them. The only problem with doing this is that the registration fees can add up and the other thing I found was that things can change at nurseries fairly quickly, ie staff you particularly liked moving on.

I personally would also be looking at the bigger picture, ie taking a look at the primary schools of the towns you would consider and the secondary schools these feed into, before finally deciding on a location.

Thanks car25 - we've checked out the schools already (was one of the factors that led to us choosing these two places). Ds is with a childminder 2 days a week atm and I've no idea how nurseries work or how far ahead you need to book. And obviously it's complicated by not knowing where we'll be!

Are you able to go and visit a few? You can ask them if they have a long waiting list, and if some sessions are more in demand than others, ie afternoons are usually less in demand. Also check out the registration fees as these can vary greatly.

In my area we have a good choice of pre-schools and nurseries, so if you can be flexible on sessions, then you may not need to put their name down so far in advance.

If you do put your name down early, do make sure you go and revisit them before your LO is due to start, as I said in my previous post, nurseries/pre-schools do change.

For private preschools you can enrol wherever you are . for State ones they probably expect you to have a local address. We booked ds into one at 18 months for a start a year later and had one of last places.