Does anyone enjoy working in a nursery?

[linzi60]

I’ve worked in day nurseries for 7 years. 5 in a previous setting and 2 in current setting and i don’t enjoy any part of my working day. I thought it was maybe my last setting that was the issue and found another setting but i feel exactly the same way. Hours are long, behaviour from some of the children is mentally exhausting with no support from management. Constant staff meetings and mandatory training outside of work hours, rota doesn’t go up until Friday evening so never know my shifts until last minute to plan things, lazy staff, parents we have to tip toe around, not enough qualified staff, the list could go on! Any one else’s nursery like this?

School nurseries might be worth a try?

The children bit is enjoyable. All the crap that goes with it less so.

This. It’s the same working in a school.

I am lucky in that I work in a small setting and the majority of my colleagues are great but I'm done. It's utterly exhausting, unappreciated work for a wage that is barely above minimum, we get every illness going, frequently from children whose parents will sneakily send them in when they are unwell and now with higher ratios of children to adults it is less about childcare and more simply crowd control.

I've noticed the ones locally now do a full week in 4 days due to the long hours and to give the staff an extra day off, thought this sounded a good plan.

oh the joys...

miss them days...not.

I don’t want to derail your thread, but as a parent I’d like to know what we could do as parents could do to make your work better?

My child has recently moved up a nursery class and his new key carer seems so miserable and checked out. All of the other carers in the room are the same. He comes out with filthy hands and really is not receiving the same level of care as before. I’m finding it concerning. His previous room was a completely different vibe.

I give thanks very often. I send cakes in. I gift at Xmas and recently when my child left one class to go up a year. I don’t know to lift spirits.

I had a real eye opener during the year when I met one of his carers in M&S - she was working there in the evening after an 8-5 shift at the nursery. And I thought of another carer - she told me had 3 kids. One my child’s age. Who minds her kids? I’d be upset minding another person’s kids, while paying someone to mind mine.

It is really hard for you. You make the world go round and I couldn’t do life without you. I wish I knew a way to make it better so you enjoyed it. Thanks for all you do for us parents.

I am interested in this thread as I have always dreamed of working in a nursery

I worked in a day nursery 2018-2024.

I left because of general bitchiness with the staff, long hours, high staff turnover, and management squeezing more and more children in. Charging a fortune for nursery lunch, then buying in the cheapest pasta sauces full of sugar and rubbish. All about profit. Like a PP said, it was like herding sheep. Ratios are too high. 1:8 is too much. The nursery had a couple of staff who were a bit rough with the children and favouritism was rife.
The manager would ring round the rooms and announce when there was a parent visit so all the staff could get into position and interact with the children, just so it looked good. I reported it once but nothing was done because she was popular with the other staff. Some staff would be shouting at a child all day for example, picking on certain kids who may be going through a snacthing or biting phase, bitching about them and then be all sweet and loving in front if Mum when she collected "she's had a lovely day, busy playing. Ah bless her" 🙄

Honestly all nurseries should have cameras, I think the general public would be shocked at what happens in some of them.

Speaking as someone whose friend works three jobs to make ends meet, the secret is far better pay.

A living wage goes a long way to improve morale and reduce physical and mental exhaustion, stress, and misery.

@Anonentity

The fact that you even care is huge!

I've worked in childcare for 19 years and for me the biggest downside is the shit pay.
We have a massive responsibility, work really hard every day, but it's often not appreciated and so many people think we 'just play'.

Parents can cause issues but that's usually a small part of it- just being grateful and appreciative goes a long way. (And remembering that your child is not the only child we have to care for, we have a room full of them!)

My workplace was taken over by a chain about 4 years ago and it's gone downhill. Lots of people in offices dictating the rules and policies, expecting not only the staff but the children across over 100 nurseries to be clones of each other. I'd question whether some of these people have ever met a child, with some of these crap they come up with!

I've been a childminder for the last 10 years and would never go back to nurseries!
Better money, loads of autonomy, less illness, variety in my days, choose my hours and I only work with nice parents/children.

Nope, most soul destroying toxic place I’ve ever worked in.

I disagree. School nursery is shorter hours and training will be part of the day or paid. You’re more well supported being in a school. A teacher leads it and hopefully that means behaviour is better and there is more structure. Parents being late can be dealt with by the school not just nursery staff expected to wait until they turn up. Behaviour is more likely to be tackled by the teacher, I imagine in private nurseries it’s hard to tackle behaviour as parents are paying and they want to keep the customers.

agree 100%

I live next door to a nursery, and I highly doubt it from what I hear!
They are louder than you can imagine.

yes.
the noise alone will kill your eardrums.
and the neighbour's eardrums.

The Nursery back garden and ours, run next to each other, full length, separated by only a fence.
In fact, our whole property is only a few feet from theirs.
We are late risers, and we dont bother with alarm clocks in a morning in the summer, because by 8.30 the kids are all playing out, 5 ft from our bedroom window......
Im not even joking.
I do enjoy the sound of little ones playing, only one "game" had to be mentioned to managers, and it was the pan game. They had a box of pans, lids and metal spoons that were banged and crashed around for hours, day after day, so we had to call and ask that game to be retired!

This is spot on

ABSOLUTELY.
100%.
SPOT.
ON.

management had favourite staff. cosy little chats in the office. 2 members of management had a relatives working there...obviously their eyes and ears.
all staff had fave kids, that's just human nature...but management's favourite staff's favourite children...treated like royalty. parents never charged extra for picking them up late.
feedback given to parents..hmm...bending the truth...the child could have been screaming all day...'oh, he was a little tearful at the start but he soon settled and was busy playing happily for the rest of the day...'
1 parent sent in milk powder for her child...a member of staff ticked on the child's feedback sheet...'drank all'. mother complained when she found the milk powder still in the child's bag.
or ticking 'ate all', 'ate some' or 'ate a little' when the child had refused to eat anything all day.
once i was on 'afternoon tea' duty buttering crumpets...a few had mould on them - i showed this to one member of staff who was in the nearest room...i said 'this is what these children are fed'. i was not a management favourite, i kept my mouth shut.
hygiene - the pest problem we had in the kitchen, not just in the kitchen actually.
confidentiality - 'so and so's dad is having an affair, mum was in the office crying her eyes out, she's going to take the child and leave the country'. it was gossiped about and laughed at. common knowledge. staff friending parents on social media.
parents having 'show arounds' were booked well in advance so everyone was on their best behaviour and the place was spotless. same for ofsted.
squeezing in more children even though so desperately short staffed; they would take on anyone. revolving door of agency staff - no consistency. i covered at several other branches because of staff shortage.

It was all about PROFIT. not kids. not staff.

I feel for you. I’m a teacher but did supply in nurseries 15 years ago, and always found it horrific, slow and boring. Being on supply also meant I was constantly being watched and always got given the crap things to do, e.g outdoors, rubbish break times. I was never given any guidance and my hours would be something like 8am until
6pm with a thirty minute break at 11am. I absolutely hated it and would avoid doing nursery supply if I could.

I feel like parent power has gotten worse over the last 15 years, and certainly in the 16 years since I qualified it’s often treated like a customer facing role. E.g. the customer (parent) is always right and you have to put up with abuse, and accusations even if they aren’t true at all. It’s one of the many reasons I am considering quitting teaching soon. My colleagues and I are a week and a half into our summer break and still discussing being absolutely exhausted! It’s not physical exhaustion that is the issue but the absolutely life beating mental exhaustion that comes with being treated like crap by other adult human beings and having to take it!!

There has also been an increase in (awareness of) SEND, but very little investment in it, meaning the pressure is on with next to no support. I could list several things about it that I know of, but it would all be very outing!

Sending hugs, but also a stark warning to others reading this thread that unless things improve there could be issues with education in the next 10 years!!

yes, relief staff also treated like rubbish...all the c* jobs...so and so has pooed and smeared it all over theselves and the walls and carpet...guess who cleans it up?
5.55pm...nearly home time...so and so has wet themselves...guess who has to change them? taking out the bins which had flies circling around them.
10 hrs and a 40 min lunch...NO BREAKS.
my heart goes out to the poor staff who have no other choice..i didnt either, given my circumstances. i REALLY feel for them.
looking back to many years ago, cleaning toilets in a fast food outlet was better.
schools are going downhill...so many staff quitting, having to deal with entitled parents and feral kids who can barely spell their own name. no adequate provision for SEND kids, few staff there are so overworked...even though the schools still take these kids for the funding.

Yep :( it’s horrific :(

🙁😖

I work in a fairly nice nursery. It has it's share of bad moments and sometimes the behavioural issues can be difficult to manage. The majority of the staff have been there a long time and the team runs smoothly most of the time. We have a mix of older and younger staff members.

We all have bad days but I think we all do our best for the children and care about their welfare. It can be a bit rough around the edges - things are worn and some things need replacing really but the staff are led by an early years teacher so resources get used well.

My main dislikes are the long hours and the fact we're not seen as professionals and paid accordingly. Most of us more experienced staff can identify SEN children within the first week or so and put plans into place to support them, get EHCP's written etc - all of which needs a professional approach and a lot of training. I work a compressed week now which helps me plan personal appointments and other things I need to get done which has helped.