Management: Parents' questions - All the answers

Preparing for a visit from a potential parent-customer is not only about making sure the nursery looks great. A nursery manager should try to anticipate the questions parents might ask beyond those that Ofsted requires of the nursery, and make sure that all staff understand the nursery's position on the issue raised. Here, based on the recently published revised edition of her Essential Nursery Management, Susan Hay suggests what these questions might be.

Q: Why choose the nursery option? How can group care ever be better than the one-to-one attention of a childminder or nanny, particularly for infants?

A: Nurseries provide a service you can depend on every day, whereas individual carers are bound to fall ill, have holidays and personal time off, and so they should. Because nursery staff work as teams, your child will know several of them quite well, and will not feel bereft or isolated if one is absent. The approach of the nursery team complements, rather than replaces the parents' roles, and the emotional confidence that children acquire at nursery is not contingent on a single relationship.