TV in pre-school

[WorkShirker]

My DS (3.3) enjoys pre-school, has been going 1 day a week since 1, now 5 mornings since he turned 3, but several times I have noticed they are watching TV or DVDs when I pick him up, I'm going to ask about this at the next parents' evening coming up soon, but is this normal practise? Don't think they did it in the 2 yr old room.

Do they have lots of children to get ready for picking up? This could be a way to keep them contained with a member of staff whilst the others are getting the children ready.

I don't have a tv at my pre-school but occasionally (twice this year) take my laptop in with a dvd for them to watch. This is normally following on from a conversation with them about an interest and if I have a dvd suitable will take it in for them to watch. I normally have the laptop running a slidescreen of pictures if them all to look at.

It is busy at the am/pm changeover, and they don't always do it, but as far as I can see it's just cartoons, not "educational TV". I just remember when I was looking at nurseries initially I discounted one out of hand because they were watching TV - perhaps I was being a bit PFB but I do try to limit it at home, and hoped he would benefit from interaction with other children at nursery, not just be sat in front of the electronic babysitter.

Not quite the same (and a bit belated) but I recently found out that my DD watches the Fimbles in the evening with her childminder, while waiting for me to arrive. At first I was surprised, but it makes sense to me now (relaxing at end of busy day), and from what I can gather I don't think she did it before my DD was about 2.5.