(Letters, 8 February).
We have a family-run, private day nursery which has been operating for 20 years. We have never recruited agency staff because we have a bank of flexible employees who are able and keen to work extra or different hours to support their colleagues, if need be. Our ethos of caring for one another as a family extends to co-workers, managers, parents and children.
I would suggest that the letter writer's experiences in dire nurseries make perfect sense. No-one wants to work in these nurseries, so there is a need for agency staff, which in itself becomes a vicious circle of no permanent staff taking responsibility or pride in the care of the children, setting standards of acceptable behaviour.
Why can't we acknowledge that a variety of standards of nurseries exist? Parents should shop around, and my advice is to avoid any that have temporary staff or a high turnover of employees. If the staff aren't cared for, then the children won't be.
Even the writer acknowledges that, as harsh a critic as she is, she found three nurseries she would send her child to. Please don't tar us all with the same brush!
Lynne Townend, Solihull
