Kids Unlimited nursery review!?

[yummymummy80]

Please can anyone let me know if they have or had they child in one of KU nurseries in Manchester. Im about to leave my child in one of them but didnt like the settle in session at all and I would really value a honest reviews!

Hi,
Leaving my first child for the first time was really difficult for me. It takes a lot to trust someone else with your child. What was great was that I was able to approach the staff with my concerns and they offered me more settling in sessions. This enabled me to get to know the staff much better and see for myself that my daughter could cope happily without me! I think its so valuable to have unlimited settling in sessions, all of which were free!! This was undoubtedly in my child's (and my) best interests, not about the business!

this is to ann3

I presume you have put your concerns in writing esp. about visitors onto nursery site etc?

Have you also contacted Ofsted re your concerns re accidents etc?

IF not could I ask why not?

Did the member of staff have her own child there? Could her partner have been picking the child up?
Also would the staff necessary have the answers to why your child was having night traumas? The Kidsunlimited nursery my son goes to is really good and has a mix of young and mature staff.Many nurseries these days have 2 months notice period thats why you have to sign the contract.

I totally disagree with the above comments!!
My child has attending KidsUnlimted, East Barent since it was also known as Kiddi Kids and I am still happy with the service that is provided. The manager and her team have a good realtionship with my child, and this can been seen by the way my child is excited to go into nursery.
I have looked at the new menu in great detail, as i was unsure at first, but i am happy to say i feel it provides good balanced meals for my child whlist she is at nursery.
As for the changes, although I agree with you at first that the differences were extremely dramatic, I do feel that slowly the place is looking a lot nicer and overall it's a great environment.
I would and have recommand this nursery to other parents. :)

2 posts criticizing KU deleted by Mumsnet. I know KU have some kind of presence on here but they do seem sharp!

One of the deleted posters talked about the food, particularly the amount. I was at a KU nursery for lunch once. They had scoops of ice-cream measured out in the kitchen and brought through on a tray so no child could have extra. Never seen that before and it did look rather penny pinching of them. No extras for first course either.
The pens and pencils didn't work. There were broken toys put back in the toy trays rather than being thrown out. The 'garden' was terrible. The staff tried, but were not great.
Doubt this post will last.

My daughter attended the Science park KU and every single week cried and cried and hated me leaving her. At first I thought she just disliked me leaving and would grow out of it but it never stopped and got gradually worse. When she moved up to the next group I noticed things weren't right. Little things like her aimlessly throwing a toy across the garden and looking lost. Not having the right interaction form staff who were busy with their chores which if left undone woudl prevent them getting home on time. The markers were all out of ink and were never changed. The dolls house had very few toys in it for her or anyone to play with. The bowls that they served the breakfast in were all soaking wet and they put the food into the wet bowls. There was no way of the children identiying which beaker belonged to them and to prevent cross infection form sharing. The staff changed every week and were never the same. I once saw a little boy fall backwards and really hurt his head on the hard floor and no one went to pick him up. They never completed the form which says what she had eaten during the day or whether she had soiled her nappy etc.

Ive jut called the St marys KU in Hulme Manchester. They picked the phone up without answering and then placed it off the hook. I could hear background noise, children and staff in the background.

I hung up and rang back several times. Its engaged.

I wonder if they have the same approach to responding to a small child.

Alarm bells already ringing for me.

hi all im a parent who also works as a child minder and my child attends the hulme nursery and i never have a problem with anything they do,there staff are 100% focused and my child and others really enjoy the day to day care,infact my child sometimes doesnt want to go home. maybe the problem you had was where a child had answered the phone and gave it to a member of the team as i know that my child and others are really independant and love to help.my child does it at home all the time.believe me they are a great nursery.

I have worked for them in the past and I would not do so again...

I called the nursery back regarding the phone that had been picked up and put down without answering. I said I wondered whether the nursery had a similar approach to communicating with a child. I said it rang a huge alarm bell for me. The lady who I spoke to sounded concerned, and said it was possible a child picked up the phone by accident. She called me back after finding out what had happened, and confirmed that as every room has a telephone, a pre-schooler picked up the phone in the pre-school room without the key worker realising. She sounded genuine.

goldtinsel ..why wouldnt you work for them again?

Its also disturbing that MN would delete negative posts about KU, just because they may have "links" with them.
I thought the whole point of MN for it to be an invaluable, unbiased resource "for parents by parents". Evidently not.

Hi
Leaving my child for the first time was hard, but my child really enjoyed it. During our settling sessions my son crawled away and way happy too meet and greet the carers and staff within the baby unit. my son has know left KU St Mary's and likes to talk about his time there, looking at old photo's and picture's that he created. I would like to say a big thank-you to the manager and her hard working team of professional staff for all they did with my son, thank-you 100% :o .

A friend of mine a few back told me all about the possitive things KU provide so i decided to place my child in ku's (hulme st marys) responsibility its scary at first with your first child but ku made me and my child feel very welcome and valued my child started at 6 months in baby room now almost in pre school and im very happy with my childs development, the staffs morale, working in partnership with parents and the activities that are provided for my childs own interest :) i truely reccommend kids unlimited to other parents x

Both of my kids have been to St Mary's Hulme and I couldn't be happier! My daughter is 4 1/2 now and only at a primary school nursery because it saves money. My son is 2 1/2 and will be there for another year. It's been lovely that my two children have also had some of the same people looking after them over the years - I think it's a rarity at some nurseries. I simply couldn't compete with the range of activities they do either. You know your kids are happy when you collect them after work and they're pleased to see you but not always quite ready to come home!

I understand your concern about a conspiracy here with KU.
I promise you this is an honest post.
I am a happy mother of two at one of their nurseries in Manchester.
My daughter was well known for wanting and getting seconds. My son is beating her now with thirds! I'm chuffed they like their food. Maybe some branches work differently..

Spare room sleeper...perhaps they didn't answer the phnoe because they WERE responding to a child???

Worth a thought.

I'm a teacher and when the phone rings near our room the kids in my room will always take priority.

ERusell...I was concerned because the phone was picked up and left on the desk/table without a hello. It felt rather deliberate, but the manager rang back and explained that one of the children had picked up the phone by accident.

She rang me again today and invited me to their summer fair, which was very nice of her. She said she went home thinking how she could make me feel happy and comfortable about them again after that initial experience, and said that at the fair I would have parents there to talk to, so I'm not just getting the nursery's side of the story. I must say I do like her and I'm prepared to go to the fair with an open mind, and take DD to see how she gets a feel for the place.

I will most definitely be bringing up the negative comments discussed here such as food rationing (!) and high staff turnover when I meet her, as I want the very best care for my daughter. I will already be straining the budget to its maximum limit by paying £188 weekly, and with me as a full time student and DH as a trainee, its not going to be easy. But if its a great place for her to be, then I will make sure she goes there.

I?m not sure if you mean kidsunlimited Cambridge Science Park, but I?m the Manager from this nursery. I took up the position in January this year and have introduced a lot of changes to the nursery. I am extremely proud of my staff team and the resources that we have available for our children and would be delighted to welcome any parents into the nursery, so that you can see for yourselves all the positive changes that have been made.

With regards to our menus, kidsunlimited has recently introduced new menus, which are nutritionally balanced to meet the needs of active and developing children. Our menus have been nutritionally analysed in line with the Caroline Walker Trust Guidelines for the under 5?s and take into account the 11 key nutrients for this age group.

Ive jut called the St marys KU in Hulme Manchester. They picked the phone up without answering and then placed it off the hook. I could hear background noise, children and staff in the background.

That's strange. That also happened to me when calling a KU nursery - I called the central office and complained, but no-one ever got back to me so I left it and have gone elsewhere.

Unfortunately I had bad experience with Kids unlimited West Didsbury Manchester when my son was attending there last year. When We (me and my husband) first went to take a tour of the nursery it looked very good, organised and the workers looked they were trying to make a good impression. Things were fine at the beginning but then it started when I caught one of the workers screaming at my son, she didn't see me coming in but when she did...she was completely red faced. Then my son was having accidents once too often, thats when me and my husband had to consider taking our son out the nursery. We thought we would give them another chance. The last straw was my son having nightmares at night and this was always after the day he had been at the nursery.I want to make it clear that our son lives in a warm and loving environment at home and this started from the time he started at this nursery. I would to add that after a few weeks the attitude of the staff was very poor once they had our money the smiles came off their face. I noticed they have a lot of young girls working there, who don't care and just want to get paid and go home. In fact I have spoken to many other mums with more experience then me and they have told me to keep away from Nurseries which are a part of a chain like Kids Unlimited and Kids allowed.I guess we were naive because we were new parents in thinking this nursery would be suitable for our son.

My son now attends the NHS Christies nursery Didsbury Manchester, where we have had no problems for a year now, the staff there are fantastic..they love there job, the workers there have from 9years to 20 years experience. Our little one is so happy going there. I'm glad we found nice nursery at the end.

All I know they are incredibly inflexible and cold. Clearly making money-kind of company. And it really makes me to freak out when someone is trying to make money with children (as a one and only goal). No flexibility of swapping dates, no flexibility when it comes to holidays (even though it would be as long as 2 months holiday). And their rules are like from army. My child was about to start in Kidsunlimited but we finally decided to put him in other nursery after communicating with them enough. And I really haven't heard anything good of them when I was asking around.