Pre-school vs, Nursery

[lihaze]

What's the difference?
Apart from ofsted, where else can I get a list of local places? I dont think that the list on the ofsted site is complete.

Try childcarelink. Roughly speaking "Nursery" may well be in a daycare setting and operate all year , "Preschool" sessional and termtime but Nursery Schools are usually the latter.

Nursery is daycare usually 8am-6pm ish more for working parents although many do sessions within those hours & you get the full Nursery Grant Voucher same as PS

Pre-school often attached to a school & "feeds" to the reception (but not always)can be in a village hall etc

Both OFSTED'ed to same level.Depends on your hours & the level of structure your child needs.

Traditionally, pre-school meant open during term time only and not open during school holidays. Nurseries traditionally and still are, open all year round even during holidays.

Nursery schools were traditionally classed as pre-schools because they followed a school's term dates. However, increasingly these nursery schools are offering holiday club, with breakfast club and after school club (also known as wrap-around care).

As a result and especially around where I live, all the nursery schools are classed as daycare. They all offer breakfast, lunch and 'after school' care (in other words, between 3:20pm to 5:45pm).

I believe there will soon be no difference between pre-school and nursery. They will all be collectively known as 'daycare'. Indeed, OFSTED now classifies a setting either as sessional care or day care, with the difference that with sessional care, the setting must be closed for lunch. Day care means just that, the care is available all day, regardless of the individual hours a child attends.