Perfect nursery

[Rolypolyup]

Following on from a few threads about nurseries. What do people look for when visiting a nursery? What makes people say "This is the one!" What is an instant "Nope!"
I work in a nursery and generally do the show round with parents.
We get praised for our calm room and most of our children from our relaxed approach. We have a simple layout with long standing staff but we have basic facilities and resources. Just curious.

I think it's just the general vibe I get from the staff and the environment. I want a decent outside space as well.

I absolutely don't care about whether they update an app every day with the number of nappy changes.

That's good to know. We have a great team.

Doesn't smell bad

The staff are wonderful smiley express loving children's tv presenter type personalities? Get down to the child's level and greet them lovingly

No children are crying and not being attended to. I cried myself when I looked round a nursery with my son and there was a little baby crying and no one was cuddling her and they explained 'it's her first day' - all the more reason to cuddle her!!

I walked into our nursery the day we went to look around, and saw staff on the floor cuddling and rocking the babies in the baby room, the toddlers were all doing an activity quietly on a table, the place was clean and the staff were interacting with the kids. That's what was most important to me, that my kids would be loved and cuddled if they needed comfort. And that's exactly what we got!

I often arrive and staff can't see me so I get to see what they are really like...and my youngest gives them all hugs and slobbery kisses when he arrives and leaves entirely of his own accord, so that reassures me.

No fancy app, long-standing older staff, older building, but the kids are well looked after.

Staff interacting well with children.
Rooms with lots of space and an outdoor area- I don’t want my DC inside a small/ cold feeling room all day. I looked around one which was awful, just big empty rooms with no homely feeling.
Activities being done with the older children.
Being shown the whole nursery as 2 I visited were only willing to show the room DC would be going into.

My DCs nursery use an app but it wouldn’t bother me if they didn’t.

Yes, about a month after my youngest DD started at nursery I arrived to pick her up (I think they'd called me to say she had a fever) and she was asleep on a staff member who was sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall, playing one handed with another child, with my DD fast asleep, head on her shoulder. She was probably about 9 months old.

I knew I liked the nursery anyway because my eldest went there, but that's an example of the kind of thing that reassures me and is nice to see.

The environment to an extent - cleanliness, decor, space, toys and facilities. But the overwhelming differentiating factor for us was the staff so when we were showed round we observed interaction between the staff and children and also how the staff in each of the rooms were with us. 2 nurseries out of 4 that we viewed really impressed us with both staff and the environment, the other 2 had elements of those but not as good at it all. Should also add that ofsted report and location were the first things we looked at before deciding which ones to visit.