I want to start DS at Nursery in September, he will be 14 months at that stage. I went to view a nursery today and would like your opinions as this is the first one and I am not sure what to make of it.
It's in an old and large house, has a outside play area with little climbing frames and slides for the older children and a small grassy area for the toddlers - this would be a closed of area with a strip of grass either side of a paved path. Inside the upstairs has 2 rooms for the babies from 6 weeks - til they can start walking and a small room full of cots for sleeping. Everything looked quite run down though - old furniture and carpets. There was also a small sort of utility area where they changed the babies nappies. You can leave babies from 8am onwards. There are no set routines for the babies and you let them know when you want them fed and when you want them to sleep. At the time they have 10 babies with a max of 9 on any one day. They have 1 staff to 3 babies ratio. They then move to the toddler section which is downstairs from about 16 months or before if they can walk and they feel baby is emotionally ready for the change.
There is one large playroom. For the toddlers, there is a small toilet and 2 potties. i think it was 4 toddlers to 1 staff.
There is a big kitchen where all the babies and toddlers have their meals, meals are prepared off-site - menu looked ok - a mix of casseroles, fish fingers, chips, pasta, etc. Again this room is very run down and does not look very clean though i think it's more because it is old rather than it being dirty.
There is also an area for pre school and older children who come after school - there were about 8 of them all watching TV when we visited at around 5.30pm. I don't have a problem with this btw! There was a nice play room for the pre-school children. There were 2 toilets for pre-school and older children - one of the toilets had a broken seat.
I think it was 8 children to 1 staff in this category.
All staff looked very tired when we went - prob because it was the end of the day but I did not feel inspired by them and felt they were all very young apart from the lady who showed us around.
Am i expecting too much for a nursery to look clean and modernised and for the staff to be cheerful and bright at the end of the day? It sort of reminded me of an old people's home but for the very young!