It seems like only yesterday when you brought a tiny life into your home and before you even realise the baby is set to board an independent journey to a nursery. It is the time when being parents, you start to get your heads together to select the best one for your little one. A nursery is the first tiny step towards early education - a stepping stone - hence it becomes a crucial decision to choose the right one. Whether you are a working or stay-at-home parent, you would always want to send your child to a nursery where they learn new things with other toddlers in an amusing and engaging setting, and not only to a crèche.
It is going to be your baby’s wobbly steps to a strong future. We, therefore, bring you a list of five things you must keep in mind before you make the final call.
Staff to child ratio
Your youngster was getting your full attention at home, so make sure that they get the desired attention at nursery and are not left unattended. The major concern, therefore, should go beyond the number of toys and classrooms a nursey has, and you should be looking at the number of staff members to children ratio in a nursery class. You cannot expect 1:1 staff member to child ratio in any nursery, but a prospective nursery should have a ratio of 1:4, 1:5 or 1:3 in order to provide full attention to every child. Now that you know what the appropriate ratio should be; make a learned decision, and always look for a nursery that offers a child staff ratio closer to these. Heather Duncan, Head of Nursey Operations of Mind Champs Nursery said, “Staff to child ratio entirely depends on the age of the child. Children have differing levels of independence according to their age. For Babies (45 days - 1 year) it is 1:2, for toddlers (1-2 years) it is 1:3, in Nursery (2-3 years) it is 1:5 and in pre-schools (3-4 years) it is 1:8.
Activities as per age groups
You are sending your baby to a nursery to make them learn fun things through fun activities. Therefore, it is important to learn if the nursery has different activities for different age groups. If your baby is only a few months old then you must be looking at a nursery which provides constant care and attention to your baby. Additionally, the nursery should have sensory classes to stimulate your baby’s growth.
If your baby is older, they should be learning new things other than just playing and sleeping at nursery. You would want to develop the creative process of your child through various craft activities, including development of basic mathematics and science through fun practical activities. Hence, it is important that you give attentive look at the activity chart planned for each age group.
Salwa Dib, Co-Founder / Director of Little Stream Nursery said, “Children enjoy and learn more when they rotate between different subjects and activities. Therefore, we have different activity zones such as Little Engineers, Little Scientists, Little Bookworms, and Little Linguistics to have a playful yet educational setting. Outdoors; we have a bicycle track, gardening area, sand area and a mud kitchen to enhance the learning experience of the young ones.
Extra-curricular activities play a major role in building character. So we offer; Music and Movement, Arts and Crafts, Capoeira Martial Arts, Science Experiments and Cooking classes to help young children explore their interests and skills.
Language
Nurseries are going to be your child’s first institution to learn the art of expression through words. You may want your child to speak in its mother tongue or being an expat, you may want your child to pick up Arabic language at a young age while they communicate in English in general. In such a case, you should focus on nurseries who have lessons in your mother tongue or Arabic or both.
Helen Black, the Principal of our The Children’s Garden Barsha added, “At TCGB we teach in three languages - English, Arabic and French. The children spend their time in a language homeroom and then they go to their second language class for an hour a day. Once a week they also have access to a third language class. Our setting is tri-lingual and our children speak many languages.”
Safety
Make sure the nursery building is secure and safe. It is important that a nursery has a proper security check at the entrance and it is not easy for you as an adult to just walk in. The harder it is for you to get inside a nursery, the better it indicates higher security and safety levels for children.
Hours of operation
Nursery opening and closing hours solely depend on parents’ daily schedule. If you are a stay-at-home parent, you can skip this point and rather focus on other points as you are in a position to be flexible in time terms. Alternatively, if you are planning to drop off your child to the nursery before work, you might want a nursery which opens early in the morning and stays open late in the evening for you to pick up your child once you finish your day at work.
There are some nurseries which open at 7 am and close by 6:30 pm, now it is up to you to choose a nursery with a timing that suits best to your everyday schedule.
Also, you would like to know if a nursery is open all around the year. There are few nurseries which have usual school breaks and some operate throughout the year. Bear in mind the extra cost you may need to pay for the nursery that operates all year.
Food & Nutrition
Provision of food is also one crucial consideration, if your work schedule does not permit you to pack full meals for your youngster. If a nursery provides food, ask if the food is cooked on the premises or delivered. What are the menus like? Also, inform them in advance about your baby’s eating habits and food they are allergic to.
Hygiene Conditions
You are sending your child outside to a new place from a much protected home environment. You do not want your child to come back home with infections or illness; pay a visit to the nursery and check out the necessary hygiene conditions. There are few things you should pay attention to such as if the place looks hygienic, where do children sleep, how they keep their food and milk, how they change diapers of toddlers, at what time they feed children, how they clean them after they eat their food, if the lavatories are clean and if they have cleaning check-lists in place and finally, ask for the toy cleaning schedule.
You should observe other children; if they look motivated and excited about being at nursery. Also check, if the staff are first aid certified and have a full time nurse on the premises. Once you are fine with the hygiene standards, make a final call.
Taking next step- Affiliations with the school
The next major step after nursery is always choosing a right school for your child. But both are somewhere co-related with nurseries having affiliations with prospective schools. If your baby is nearing school age then you should know if the nursery has an affiliation with the school where you want to send your child in the future. Alternatively, you can also take a reverse course of action where you can first choose your baby’s future school and then choose an affiliated nursery.
Dr Vandana Gandhi, Founder and CEO, British Orchard Nursery said, “Every individual branch of British Orchard Nursery has tie-ups with big schools in their vicinity. We often organise coffee mornings by inviting the big schools to our nurseries for parents to speak to the representatives from the big schools to understand what each of them has to offer and to get information on the education approach the schools follow, the fees, admission procedures, etc. without parent actually having to visit the big schools. This gives parents ample amount of time and is also a support and guidance system from BON’s side.