Someone please explain to me moving DCs to council nursery?

[Hyggelove]

How does it work? Is it competitive to get into? My son is currently in a private nursery as he is 18m. However, once he turns 3, I would love for him to join our council nursery that is attached to the primary school he will eventually go to, mainly for him to be with peers who will likely also be with him at school.

As I understand it, we’ll need to apply before he turns 3 and mark this nursery as our first preference and then hope for this best. Is this how it works?

TIA x

Yes, it really depends on the area but I've done it recently and had to apply in the January and put up to 5 choices by order and then heard back a couple of months later!

In Edinburgh you can add them to the list on their second Birthday. Then if there is space the term after their third birthday they will be offered the place.

It would be worth to check the council's early year page for info.

It’s worth bearing in mind that school nurseries are only available in school term time (unless that’s changed), so if you work you’ll need alternative childcare in the school holidays. I appreciate you probably already know this, but I thought I’d highlight it just in case.

Depends on the setting in Edinburgh. Quite a few are 52 weeks now and offer a range of patterns of attendance. Such as so many full days, 5 half days and sometimes term time too meaning less children over the holidays.

Ah, fair enough. I’m a bit past the nursery stage now, our local ones were term time only at the time. Good to hear that some progress has been made!

That’s how it worked when we did it 2 years ago. Ours had a 48 week a year option too. Was a really good experience for DD1, she loved the nursery and transition into P1 was really seamless. Hoping to do the same for DD2.

Where we live you apply to the school, not the council for nursery. They give priority to those in the school year before starting school, then fill any remaining places with autumn bornes from the year below. If there's more applications then places, they rank based on distance from school.

If you go on the website of the primary school, it will probably have a nursery admissions section, which will tell you how it works for that particular school.

@Hyggelove If you say what area you’re in you may get a more accurate response 😊

Ayrshire here and we apply in the January for any kids turning 3 that March-Feb. So Jan 2024 application was for kids with 3rd birthdays March 24-Feb 25. Just something to be aware of as a know a good few who were caught out with that (especially the Jan/Feb babies who start after the Easter term) as the parents had no idea they were supposed to have applied over a year before.

We had to give 5 choices of nursery/childminder in order of preference. Then order the patterns of hours by preference. I’m not sure if all council nurseries operate the same way but with ours you can only do very set patterns of hours - 5 mornings, 5 afternoons or 2.5 days (first half of week or second half of week)