Is this too many toddlers in a room

[Spudtacular1000]

Hi,

Looking at a nursery and it has 20x 21 months to 2.5 yo in one room which my child will be in at 21 months old.

Wanted some opinions on what the norm is in terms of room capacity and if this is ok or a room with a smaller group is better?

Nursery is Ofsted Outstanding and close to home.

They said 1:5 so I'm out!
The ratio used to be 1:4 but changed recently. More children per staff is cheaper for the business, but means less quality. I'm suspicious of their priorities. It also means more work for the staff so if you're a good member of staff and could get a job in any nursery you want, why would you want to work in that one?
And over 20 children? There more children, the less personal it becomes. Less "Billy, Bobby, Brenda!" and more "children!".

And an "Outstanding" ofsted grade is irrelevant. One person's opinion on one day when staff are trying, and have had prior notice so may have had double the staff than normal.

Yeh a fear I had was my child would get 'lost' there in terms of attention due to more children in the room.

They have since told me they maintain a 1 to 4 ratio in the 21 months to 2.5 yo room but it think that's because they have to as some of the children will be under 2.

Haha, people don’t do parties at this age.

Its a similar size to my daughters nursery room and generally it seems fine but sometimes feels a bit chaotic.

Do the children tend to wake eachother up more at nap time and do you feel like they still get attention from the staff?

I’m not sure about nap time. My daughter seems to be sleeping OK in there but I only have the nursery’s word on that. Again it is difficult to judge how much attention she is getting from staff. The ages are slightly older (2-3 years) so the staff ratio is less which is noticeable compared to the previous room which had 18 children (mostly under 2s so still the higher ratio). My daughter still seems happy in the room although I do sometimes find it chaotic when I pick her up. They do have plenty of space (outdoor and indoors) so at least it doesn’t feel crowded.

It will probably be the same then thanks! How many are in the toddler room?

I think it probably depends on the personality of your DC. I don’t think mine would have liked it as presumably with all those toddlers it will be quite loud and chaotic. Mine were more chilled, quiet toddlers so I went for somewhere smaller. You know your DC best.

So the smaller nursery now doesnt have space so it will be the larger one so trying to make myself feel better