Nurseries

Choosing a nursery for your child to attend requires thought and planning.

You may already have had experience of choosing childcare by using a childminder or employing a nanny. Or you might be looking for a nursery place for your baby's first childcare experience. Whatever stage you're at in your childcare search, PACEY can help.

Find out more about different types of childcare in our Finding Childcare Bundle.

Find out more about what nurseries do

Day nurseries

Most day nurseries are privately run and can be stand alone businesses, part of a small chain of two or three settings or part of a much larger chain or franchise of 50 or more settings. Some employers provide nursery places for their staff close to work. Day nurseries may run from modern purpose built buildings or in converted spaces. Settings vary in size from 20 to over 180 places and will often be split into rooms for different aged children.

Due to the range of ages of children that may attend nurseries, there could be up to four different carer to child ratios in operation at any one time.

Ratios in England

Children from birth to 2 - 1:3
2 year olds - 1:4
3 and over - 1:13 where a person with Qualified Teacher Status, Early Years Professional Status or Early Years Teacher status is working directly with children, or 1:8 where they are not.

Ratios in Wales