busy bee nursery ? Norwich nursery

[FreakGeek]

Hi
does anyone have experience of Busy Bee nurseries ? My DS will be 1 year and i am hoping to send him to the one at Norfolk and Norwich hospital- any views ?
thanks a mill

I don't know about the one in Norwich, but our ds is in the Busy Bees Nursery at Nottingham University. Avoid like the plague! We have had nothing but trouble with them and they are getting worse. They seem to be all about money, money, money and care very little for the wellbeing of the children. Staff turnover is very high, staff say they are very poorly paid too which means good staff move on very quickly and only those who can't get jobs elsewhere remain. Most of the staff in Nottingham can barely read or write, we have had a few times where ds has been put into dangerous situations . I also had one time where a member of staff was so aggressive towards me when I tried to make a complaint about something that I was scared to drop ds off for about 2 weeks after .

Sorry I can't be more constructive, but I really wouldn't recommend them, not if their other ones are like the Nottingham one .

I haven't heard anything about them one way or another

Sorry

(Shame you are the wrong side of Norwich - I know a lovely childminder )

Don't know anything about busy bees in Norwich but my 4 yr old has been going to Just Learning @ Broadland Business Park (the one joined to Bannatyne gym)since he was 6 months old (2 days a week) & he loves it there. The carers are great & really good with the children - well i've never had reason to complain anyway! He starts school in Sept & is really sad about leaving nursery bless him. I wouldn't hesitate in recommending them.

As an ex employee of BB, I would echo what the poster said about avoiding them.
They do have some good nurseries but they are driven by money, the pay is dire and the staff turnover is very high.
Avoid big chain nurseries, they are soul-less places.

My dd went to this nursery in Norwich for about a month. We took her away as we were moving and I no longer had to work.

As it was such a short time I can only tell you how it was for us then.

My dh knew the manager and so he trusted her from the start. She was very strict with the staff from what I remember. I never saw or heard of anything untoward.

DD was too young to let me know how she found it.

I did find the staff really young, but we'd been to see others and found the same there.

The reasons we chose it, other than the manager, were mainly because it was very clean and secure, close to work and On each occasion we dropped in the kids were all playing happily.

Going back to work soon and was starting to look into the Busy Bee nursey here in Morecambe.

Interesting info from Purepurple though.

Would you not recommend any 'big' nursey chain? I don't know why but I always thought they'd be safer??

It so depends on the people working in them.
I had 1 or 2 very good managers and 2 awful ones in the five years I worked at the BB nursery.
I have now moved to a smaller nursery, just an independent, which is so much better.
Sometimes policies in these big chains are put in place by people who spend no time at all in a nursery and have no first hand experience.

Really, it all comes down to how good the manager is. Just because a nursery is part of a chain and has policies and proceedures in place, it doesn't always follow that these policies and proceedures are adhered to. Managers have targets to met and receive bonuses for meeting them.
So, it is very profit driven.
But, you will have to make up your own mind about the nurseries that you visit. There are some good nurseries that are part of chains.
Personally, I would never work in one again.

That's helpful for me, thanks. Got a nursery just down the road, a small independant one, so will look into it.

Freakgeek, the manageer at that time was called Linda so if it's her I'd be reassured. I remember she'd brought staff with her from her previous job as they wanted to work for her if that helps.

I used to work at the university and knew a couple of Mums who sent their children there. Mixed reviews tbh, especially with the money side of things.

I live the other side of the city and the one at Broadland Business Park is often talked about at toddler groups as being very good.

Oh my god! This is not what I needed to read!

DS1 starts at the Busy Bees nursery in Norwich in September.

I thought it was lovely when I looked round, and I was impressed by the manager (have just looked on the website, and she is called Linda).

Please please can someone post here and give me some positive feedback about it. I would have loved to have chosen a nursery via a personal reccommendation, but am new to the area and limited geographically.

I feel sick every time I think about sending him to nursery anyway, without now worrying he's going somewhere really awful.

Anyone?.....

oooh this is local, hello all local Norwich people -

Ive only heard good things about this nursary - any one fancy a meet up??

Hallo everyone- I hadnt checked this for ages- thanks for all the mixed reviews. Am a bit annoyed that they have cashed my cheque a few weeks ago and not sent any acknowledgment etc. DH will ask colleague where they send their child- i read the offsted report which stated a problem with staff ratios- I think it still is Linda who is the manager.

Oh and when I'm physically back on UK soil in September, i'd be SO up for a meet-up !

FreakGeek, personally I'd try to get an acknowledgement from them. I've just spent 2 months wranggling (sp?) with Busy Bees over the final balance of my account, so I've just had a pretty thorough insight into their accounting system which is appauling!