Expectations of nursery school

[lilu38]

My Little girl started nursery school a few months ago! She has settled in really well and loves the staff! I pay a fortune (full time £1.5k a month)! When she joined it was all a bit of a whirlwind as I had split with my partner and just returned to work full time! But now my head is a bit clearer I feel a bit annoyed with a few things.

I was given no welcome pack/rules of nursery (what to do if child is Ill/ on antibiotics/ has a temp etc). I was told all these amazing things prior to joining (we offer swap days and flexible childcare) but when I've asked about these things again, apparently it's not something they do and is at the manager discretion! (Even though it's on their website)!

The communication is really poor and I called the manager today to ask if she could send me a welcome pack but she said they didn't have such a document! I said it was slightly strange not to have anything the parents can use as a reference point but she just argued back that if she had shown me round she would have told me what I could expect from the nursery and what they expect from parents (I imagine not phoning up to complain is one thing)!

They also use this app, but I get a few photos a week and then a random observation of my daughter picking up a block and moving it to a shelf! (I am very familiar with EYFS in my line of work, but they don't explain what these activities are teaching my child)! I asked the manager how many photos I can expect a week, and she said OFSTED rules had changed and they only want staff to upload one observation a month, as they want the teachers to focus more on being with the child, rather than on a tablet! The nursery is new and has around seven kids between three/four staff at anyone time! Surely you'd have time to take some nice photos and write a short paragraph a couple of times a week on each child! I'm trying to find the new OfSTED guidelines, but I was wondering if anyone who works in an EY's setting might be able to shed any light on this for me?

Also, am I expecting too much to want two or three updates a week on my app? Or a welcome pack! Other friends get daily pictures and updates and their nursery is at full capacity!

Hard to say re: updates. Ours is a tiny family-run nursery, no apps or tablets and no daily pics. Anything you want to know about their day is done verbally at handover. They have a book for each child that has some pics and records their activities that you can ask to look at if you want and it gets sent home at the end of term to have a look over. I'm happy with that, but others might prefer somewhere that uses apps and updates religiously. My friend's nursery logs absolutely everything in real time, which is way OTT to me, I don't need to know when DD has eaten a snack or fallen asleep or done a pee, but she obviously likes it so I think it's just about the right fit and being able to ask for more information when you do want it. They might just not want or have the time budget for staff time to be taken up updating apps and uploading pics and that's fair enough, I don't think it's necessarily the mark of a good nursery anyway. It's just about whether that's a priority for you.

The welcome pack thing is a bit odd for sure though. I'd expect them to have some documentation to show prospective parents or that contains policies/pricing, etc. And be approachable and open to communication.

@Starcaller many thanks for your reply! I wasn't too fussed about the app, but since they have it and made a big thing about it, I would expect them to use it! And I had a brochure with the costs in (of course) haha, but nothing like a handbook with all the procedures! It's just handy for me as a reference! Thanks for sharing your experience xxx

I work in a nursery, the guidelines were changed recently and the focus is less on paperwork and more about being involved with the children and knowing them well and their strengths and weaknesses and being able to move them on etc. we do not use online but have a Facebook page - we still take pictures of the children, we also do a welcome pack which asks for things about the children also so we can get to know them and their likes/dislikes. We also do handovers and try and update parents as often as possible but I think some nurseries are a little more stringent on this due to covid - we are a hall based nursery so can take key children outside for a handover which may not be possible in a larger nursery with several rooms for example.

Do they have their policies online?