Tuesday and Thursday mornings
Book a tour
During a session, in the room your child would be in, at the time of day they would be in it. Not an evening open house with the rooms tidied and the children gone.
Tours are booked by telephone on 000-000-0000 or through the contact form. There is no online calendar on this site and we would rather say so than show you a booking widget that is not connected to anything. This is also a demonstration site for a fictional nursery, so the telephone number is a placeholder and no tour can actually be arranged.
What a tour here is
An hour, on a Tuesday or Thursday morning, while the session is running. You see the room your child would be in, at the time of day they would be in it, with the noise and the mess that are genuinely there. You meet the person who leads that room, not only the director.
We do not do evening open houses. A nursery at seven in the evening with the rooms straightened and the children gone is a showroom, and it tells you almost nothing about the thing you are buying.
What we will ask you
Your child’s date of birth, the days and hours you need, and when you need to start — because those three things determine whether we have anything at all, and there is no point walking you round a room we cannot offer you.
And whether you have applied for 3-K or pre-K, if your child was born in 2022 or 2023. That question comes before we quote you a rate, and it costs us money on purpose.
What to ask us, and everywhere else
The questions below are the ones we would ask if we were choosing a nursery, and they work on any setting rather than just this one. A director who answers them specifically has thought about them; one who answers warmly and vaguely has told you something too.
Take these with you
Twelve questions worth asking any nursery
How long has the person leading this room led it?
Turnover is the number that matters most and the one nurseries publish least. Four leaders in three years tells you something no brochure will.
When is the ratio hardest to hold?
The honest answer is the lunch handover, the start of nap and the last hour. A specific answer means somebody has thought about it.
What happens when somebody calls in sick at seven?
Every centre has that morning. The ones worth choosing have an answer that does not involve hoping.
Do you combine rooms at the end of the day?
It is the standard way to save an adult in the last hour, and it is when a tired child is least able to cope with an unfamiliar room.
Can I see the cot-washing rota?
Either there is one on a wall or there is a reassurance. Shared sleep surfaces are common in settings with part-time places.
May I visit unannounced once enrolled?
The answer should be yes without hesitation. Ask for it in writing.
What is on the menu this week, and who cooked it?
On site or delivered changes how the whole day is organised. Ask to see the board, and ask whether it is what was actually served.
How would I hear that my child bit somebody?
Same day, in writing, without the other child being named, is the answer you want. Anything vaguer is a policy of not telling you.
What is your sick-child threshold?
A number, not a judgement. If it is applied by feel it is applied differently to different families.
Is toilet learning a condition of moving up?
It should not be. A room that requires it is putting a scheduling problem onto a two-year-old.
What is your inspection history?
You can look this up yourself before you ask, which makes it the single best question on this list — you already know the answer.
Should I be paying you at all?
For a three- or four-year-old, ask whether free 3-K or pre-K would cover what you need. How a director handles that question is worth the whole tour.
Our inspection record is public. Read it before you trust this website. Every permitted centre in this city has a public inspection history — the date of each visit, the violation category where anything was found, and whether it is open or corrected — published through Child Care Connect and the City open data portal. It is free, it takes about four minutes, and it will tell you more than a tour will. Read ours, and read it for every other nursery on your list. One caveat worth carrying: corrected means an inspector confirmed a fix on a later visit, not that the habit behind it changed.
A waiting list does not move at a steady rate. A waiting list is not a queue that advances at a steady rate, and any nursery giving you a position number without a room and a date is giving you a comforting number rather than a useful one. Places come free when one specific child leaves one specific room, and they go to the family who fits that gap in age, in days and in start date. We will tell you which room you are waiting for, roughly how long that room has taken historically, and where you sit today. We do not take a deposit to hold a place on a list, because a position on a list is not a thing we are able to sell you.
Tuesday and Thursday mornings
Come and see a session
Telephone or use the contact form and tell us your child's date of birth, the days you need and when you would want to start. If we have nothing that fits we will say so on that call rather than walking you round a room we cannot offer you.