Private school nursery

[OlyaR]

My daughter is about to start the nursery at 18 months. I had a few viewings at the local private ones but was not happy at all ( staff turnover, teenage girls are looking after the babies, everything is dirty, chaos is the best word that describes it.
The other day I went to the open day at the private school which has setting for toddlers ( 18 months-3 years) To be honest it impressed me, the setting was beautiful, it's Montessori nursery so the toys and furniture are wooden, there're only 8 kids there, the staff seems to be experienced and happy to be there
The only drawback is that they don't do funded hours at all, so the prices are not much less than in private school and they work term time only( they have much more holiday than in the state school)
Does anyone have experience with this kind of nursery? It's doable if we cut back on our savings. Why don't they do funded hours?

Why don't they do funded hours?

Because the government pay piss poor rates and make you jump over hoops to receive your scraps. The nursery obviously have the demographic that won't be put off by lack of funded hours so they don't need to bother.

A third factor to pop on your radar for consideration - the hours they are open each day.

We have an excellent one near us, and actually the cost wasn't any more than FT private day nursery, but we didn't go ahead with it because it was only open during term time school hours.

The school uses a third party provider for wraparound and holiday care which was also available to the nursery children, but it would mean moving between two settings every day, and then that setting for all holidays to make it FT care which we needed.

For us that was too much upheaval for DC so we didn't go ahead with it.

IMHO if you need FT care then better to find a FT provider. If you can manage with the hours they offer, then they are an excellent option.

Can't help on funded hours. Have you asked them? It's probably because the funding is so low it's not worth them signing up to it if they can fill their spaces without needing to offer it.

Don't forget, small kids don't notice fancy facilities the way we do, and won't think they need those to be happy and fulfilled. Dirty is not acceptable, but most nurseries IME are organised chaos. It doesn't mean they are bad.

The funded hours are misnamed. They are hours that are subsidised at a rate that would be about half the real cost of the service for a school like this. All nurseries that offer the funded hours either have to cut what they offer to the bone or set up an exotic charging structure for "extras" to make up the difference.

Their reason for not participating at all will be some mixture of not wanting to take on the headache for a relatively low reward, and preferring to recruit their toddlers from families for whom money is no object who might therefore be more likely to stay on after age 4/5

It’s what you’re willing to pay if you prefer the private school one. They will have to show they are too notch because they are expecting people to pay a lot of money for that service. My son goes to a pre-school attached to a private school, but they offer 15 hours funding, and it is better than other ones IMO because it’s private and there are many who will be sending their children through the whole school, so again they have to show value for money.

DC’s private school nursery does the 15 hours from 3-5. The fees are also very cheap compared to the school fees; it’s term-time only, but there is wraparound care available. It is idyllic; tiny classes, lots of inside and outside play areas, on-site forest school, and staff ratios above average. This costs.

They don’t do funded hours as they are basically offering the service cheaper to try to entice people to try it and hope they’ll stay for the school years. People who are fully reliant on funding aren’t likely to be in this group.