How to choose a nursery school: Points to see during the tour and how to decide
Your child spends much of the day in childcare, and drop-offs become part of family life. Score each place by the same criteria while the visit is fresh in your mind.
Quick checklist
- Be realistic about pick-up and drop-off times. Check extended-care hours, fees and late-pickup procedures. Make compatibility with your work schedule a must-have to exclude places that cannot fit it.
- Look at the child's expression. During the tour, I focused more on whether the children were calm and how the childcare workers were talking to them than on the facilities.
- Safety and hygiene. Ask staff about door security, supervision during naps, toy cleaning and how they contact parents if a child is hurt or unwell.
- School lunches and allergy support. Check the range of elimination diets, how to check the menu, and how to proceed with weaning food.
- Parents' burden. Check required supplies, cloth-diaper policies, parent events and committee duties: they all affect your daily workload.
Make workable drop-off and pickup times a must-have
This template makes pickup times that fit work a must-have, with a minimum score of 6. Even a lovely center is impractical if daily drop-offs do not work. Centers below that score are excluded.
Let each parent compare independently
The person in charge of transportation and the person who went to see the tour may have different impressions. When each person gives a score in the ``comparison between two people'', the answer that combines the two's answers and the item with the most divergent opinions are listed.