How do nurseries choose their children?

[tallulabell74]

Hoping someone can shed some light. I'm phoning around local nurseries to try and get my DD in, (in about 4-5mths time) and have been told that they don't have a waiting list as such, but a panel meeting to decide which kids to accept/decline. I would be paying for her to go when I return to work, so what is this, and does anyone know on what grounds they can refuse to take your child?

Where do you live? I have never heard of this in the UK.

The only nursery age establishments that might possibly do selection are the nursery/kindergartens of selective private schools but that would be for age 3/4 at the earliest.

It may be a case of what places there are and how they can fill them most efficiently. e.g. a full time child is better than part time, unless they have 2 part time applications that together make up a week. Also a case of what ages/ratio's/spaces in the age groups, whether some children can be moved up.

I'm guessing, I don't imagine it's in any way a "beauty contest" but down to practicalities.

Do you mean day nurseries or nurseries of schools?

that is odd i have never heard of that before, most nurseries work on a first come first serve basis, e.g i work at a uni nursery we offer out to staff and students, each parent requires a different amount of days, so say we have a full time request at the top of the list but only three days available we would still offer it to them, then if they don't want it we go to the next person on the list, (full time places hardly ever come up)

our local preschool nurseries (ie attahed to infant schools) do this

basically they want kids who will meet the admissions criteria for reception te next year

Thanks for your replies, Im a bit clueless about this. I mean day nurseries. We had contacted 4 in our area (glasgow) and one of these was attached to a state primary school. The receptionist I spoke to explained that all the nurseries in the area had these panel meetings twice a year to decide on admissions. Their next meeting is in september and I go back to work in Oct - Im a bit ?? about what to do, if I put in my application now and wait it out, what if my DD doesn't get in? I don't know if I'd be better putting her on a waiting list somewhere else but I really wanted to keep her close to our family.

Sounds very weird, never come across this myself. How old is your DD?

I know nurseries in Germany often do this though where they have mixed age groups who stay together through nursery - they select children to maintain an age and gender balance in the group, so might be looking for a girl under 2, or a 3-4 year old boy for example.

She'll be 15ths when starts. Hopefully it is just about practicalities, Im going to hand my application form in this week and wait it out! Thanks.