A nursery day in Harrow, printed at the times it happens
First Steps Infant Care Ltd keeps three rooms on Boniface Walk for children from three months old until they start school. This page is laid out as one of those days, and every part of it hangs off the time it belongs to. You can read it from the moment the rooms are set out to the moment the last coat leaves the peg.
Places are booked as full days or as half days, while each room keeps to the adult-to-child ratio printed beside it further down. The arc below is the same day drawn once: it starts at 07:30, marks the six points every room passes through, and finishes at 18:00.
- 07:30ArrivalYour child is signed in at the door and the name goes straight onto the room register.
- 09:45Morning snackFruit with milk or water at the table, while the allergy cards are read before any plate goes down.
- 10:45Garden hourCoats, boots and the climbing frame, or the hall set up the same way when the rain is heavy.
- 12:15LunchA hot main and a pudding, served room by room with an adult sitting at every table.
- 13:00RestBlinds down and mats out, while children who no longer sleep look at books on the cushions.
- 16:45CollectionSigning out against the named-adult list, with the day sheet handed over at the door.
06:45
Three rooms set out, and the adult standing in each
Three quarters of an hour before the door opens, the rooms are put back the way children find them. Mats come out of the store, the water tray is filled, the paper register is clipped to the board, and the ratio card goes up beside the door. Your child belongs to one of the three rooms below, and the figure printed with that room is the one the room is worked to all day.
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Infants
3 months to 2 years
1:3 one adult to three children
Bottles, nappies and sleep follow the pattern you write on the form, while every feed and every change is noted as it happens.
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Toddlers
2 to 3 years
1:4 one adult to four children
Shelves are set low so your child reaches what they want, while the toilet and the sink stay in view of the room.
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Pre-school
3 years until school
1:8 one adult to eight children
Mornings are longer and quieter here, with sitting, listening, letters and numbers worked into the play.
Your child moves up when the next room suits them better, and you are told in advance so a settling week can be put in first. Those three figures are the ones the count below divides by. The rooms page sets out what each room keeps in its cupboards and what travels in your child's bag.
07:15
The count on the clipboard, room by room
A quarter of an hour before the first child arrives, the bookings for the session are counted against the three ratios. The sum is a division and a rounding up, while a part of an adult cannot stand in a room. You can run the same sum here with your own figures, and the working is printed line by line rather than hidden behind a total.
What comes out is a planning count for one session, while the register at the door is what the rooms are actually staffed against on the day. When a room reaches its ratio, the next place in that room is held until an adult is free to take it.
07:30
At the door, and what gets said there
The door opens at half past seven and the first children come in with the morning still dark in winter. You sign your child in on the register, hand over any medicine for the day, and say how the night went. That last part matters more than it sounds: a short night or an early waking changes what the room offers your child before lunch.
The names of the adults allowed to collect your child sit on a list at the door, written by you on the registration form. When somebody else is coming, tell the room that morning and the name is added with the password you chose. Coats go on the peg with the photograph above it, and bags go into the tray underneath, while the room lead takes bottles and creams straight to the cupboard.
Between half past seven and quarter past eight the rooms stay quiet and joined, with one adult at the door and the others sitting at the tables. Your child can arrive at any point in that window, and nothing is missed by coming in at ten past eight rather than at half past seven.
09:45
Snack, and the card that is read before the plate goes down
The week's menu is planned before the week starts, and a copy goes up beside the door of each room where you can read it at drop-off. Snack is at 09:45 and again at 15:15, lunch is at 12:15, and tea is at 16:15 for children staying to the end. Water is within reach in every room, while a drink is offered at each of those four points.
An allergy, an intolerance or a dietary requirement is written on the registration form before the first session. It is copied onto the room's list and onto a card that sits at your child's place at the table. The room lead reads that card against the plate before the plate goes down, and a second adult repeats the check when the meal is a shared dish. When something changes at home, send it by email and both the card and the list are altered the same day.
10:45
Coats on, whatever the sky is doing
The garden is used every day the weather allows, and the rooms still go out in light rain once boots and coats are on. There is a climbing frame with bark underneath, a water wall on the fence, wheeled toys along the path, and a digging bed the pre-school room plants in spring. Younger children go out in the same hour with more adults around them, while the infants use the covered end nearest their own door.
When the ground is icy or the rain sets in, the hall is opened and the same hour happens indoors with the frame, the tunnel and the wheeled toys. Sun cream goes on before the afternoon session in warm weather, and a named hat stays on the peg through the summer. Boots and waterproofs live in the tray under the peg, while wet clothes go home in a bag at collection.
12:15
Lunch at the table, then the blinds come down
Lunch is served room by room at quarter past twelve, with a hot main and a pudding on the table. Adults sit at the tables and eat with the children, so serving, pouring and wiping happen inside the meal rather than around it. Your child is offered what is on the menu and offered it again, while nothing is taken away as a bargain or given as a reward.
At one in the afternoon the blinds come down in the infant and toddler rooms, and the mats are laid out with the sheets from the bag you packed. Children who no longer sleep take cushions and books at the quiet end, while the pre-school room keeps a low light and a story instead. Your child wakes when they wake, and the sleep goes on the sheet with the time it started and the time it ended.
15:15
The second snack, the carpet and the story
Afternoon snack is handed round at quarter past three, often at the garden table while the rooms are still outside. Small groups run through the middle of the afternoon with one thing on each table: paint, sand, dough, counting trays, or a story with actions. The groups change as your child's attention does, and an adult stays with each table rather than moving between them.
At quarter to four the room comes together on the carpet for singing, a story and the news of the day. Tea is on the table at quarter past four for children staying on, while the room is tidied by the children themselves before the first parents arrive. By half past four the pegs are being cleared and the day sheets are being finished.
16:45
The sheet that is put in your hand at the door
Your child is signed out by an adult on the named list, and the room lead checks that name before the coat comes off the peg. With the coat you are handed the written record for the day, which is the room's own account of it rather than a form filled in at the end.
The sheet gives what your child ate at each meal and how much was left, the times of nappy changes or trips to the toilet, how long they slept and where, and a line on the activity they joined. When something has been difficult, that is written down as well, and the room lead talks it through with you at the door instead of leaving it on paper. Anything you say at collection is carried into the handover the next morning.
18:00
After the last coat: spreading funded hours, and booking a place
A nursery is booked in sessions, while a funded entitlement arrives written as hours a week. The two have to be laid against each other before you can see what your week looks like. The ruler below draws one day to scale from 07:30 to 18:00, with the two sessions marked on it and three shapes of a fifteen hour week underneath.
- Five hours on each of three days fills the morning session and stops as lunch is cleared.
- Three hours on each of five days gives a morning in the room on every day of the week.
- Six hours on each of two days, with three hours on a third day, reaches the same fifteen.
The calculator below runs that division on your own numbers. Put in the hours a week your entitlement letter gives, the number of days your child attends, and the length of the session booked on those days.
A first visit is arranged by email at nursery@firststepsinfant.life. You come in with your child during an ordinary session, so you both watch the room working rather than a room tidied for visitors. You are shown the register, the menu board and the peg your child would use, while the settling fortnight is planned at the same visit.