Kids Unlimited Fig Tree Nursery at St. Pancras - Are you happy with it?

[babyowl]

Hello,

Does anyone have any experience of the Kids Unlimited Fig Tree Nursery at St. Pancras?

Would you be willing to share your opinions (e.g. good/bad/indifferent/other points)?

Thanks.

I used it for my daughter, who is now at school and my son, who is a toddler. I was pretty happy with it - very loving carers, lots of activities, paint, play, story time - lots of outdoor time on the decking. We get daily updates, occasional development meetings with staff to talk through child's progress etc, good food. My son comes back very happy and completely loves his key worker.I have some gripes - they don't deal with real nappies, it has got a lot stricter - under new management - about pick up times (used to be a little bit of leeway with my daughter, when we could be a few minutes late and not get told off). There was one huge failure of communication between us, but I don't want to go into that online as it is sensitive. We don't use it much - just a couple of mornings a week and my daughter stopped when she was 3 - and I was not aware of them introducing phonics etc, so can't comment on the more formal educational aspects.

Thanks telsa, that's useful to know. Have heard mixed reviews of Fig Tree in the grapevine so far - mostly general secondhand statements. So it's good to hear from someone with firsthand experience.

DH would presumably be going into one of the upstairs toddler rooms, but I wasn't sure whether the room looked a little on the small side or if all nursery rooms generally look tiny once children are about scattered in them.

Thought the outdoor area at Fig Tree was nice, but staff looked a little young & reminded me of tired robots. I wasn't convinced they would really be very proactive with encouraging the children or noticing if someone had a runny nose. Also noticed a Dan Quayle spelling of potato on their today's menu.

Do most children stay on at the nursery after they turn 3yrs or do most of them end up getting sent to pre-school or something?

I never thought the upstairs room was too small - but that may be because other nurseries I have used have rather pokey basements in Bloomsbury! I always liked the light of the upstairs area. I sat in for lunch there once and there was plenty of room.

The staff are young - though our child has an older key worker, who couldn't be lovelier and genuinely cares for him. There is a quite big turnover I think....but it always seemed to me (compared to the cheaper semi-public sector I have used) that there were a good number of staff per child and that stuff was always happening - though maybe more so if the child initiated it. Mine didn't/don't sleep at lunchtime so kept/keep demanding attention, if you see what I mean.

Spellings....yes well - the daily reports are sometimes badly spelt too - but well, good spelling doesn't necessarily make for a good carer....maybe!

The meals are quite good and go down well with my children.

Our boy always comes back in a good state - well de-snotted and he is very happy. One gripe is that his key worker is not there early in the morning - but he is now going happily with anyone for that first bit.

Most children, it seems to me, leave at 3 - as the Nursery grant doesn't go very far with Fig Tree's prices, I guess. A lot go to the school nurseries round here. We transferred to a cheaper nursery at 3. They have a rather corny mortar-board graduation ceremony for them that summer.