Parents trying to choose a nursery for their child are faced with a bewildering list of questions.
How much does the nursery cost? What are the opening hours? Does it offer enough of an educational element? What are the staff like? How many other children are there in the classroom? Is it safe?
Until now, finding answers to these questions has not been easy, but a new website has the potential to make the decision-making considerably easier for parents in Glasgow.
The site, which is to be launched by Glasgow City Council, will, for the first time, bring all the critical information on the city's nurseries together in one place. Every kind of nursery will be featured on the site - state, private and partnership (private nurseries that provide funded places) - and all the essential data will be online, including opening hours and fees. It means parents can compare what is available in their area and whether it is suitable for their child.
In addition, the site will include links to reports on the nurseries carried out by the Care Inspectorate and Education Scotland. This information is already in the public domain, but collecting it in one place is likely to bring the reports to the attention of parents who may not even have been aware of their existence. These reports can be critical in highlighting serious failings at some nurseries (although they are thankfully a minority).
The fact that the new site combines the inspection reports with other information on nurseries has the potential to be a valuable aid for parents. It also comes at a critical time in the development of childcare in Scotland. Not only are more parents working longer hours and therefore leaving their children into nurseries for longer, free childcare is also about to be expanded. The SNP declared in its referendum White Paper that it would extend free care even further should independence be won.
Of course, the working of the website will have to be monitored closely as it gets going, not least because different parents value different qualities in nurseries. For some, it is about balancing work with childcare; for others the educational element is vital (and the Curriculum for Excellence is, after all, designed to start when children are three).
The site will also have to be monitored for the influence it has, if any, on the nursery sector. It may be that as parents react to the information, cheaper nurseries benefit - hardly surprising when the average charge for a child under two years old is £100 a week. Alternatively, it may be that nurseries with the smallest teacher-child ratio, or those with the best inspection reports, do well. In this way, the site may help to drive up standards and, if so, other councils should look at following Glasgow's lead.
What the site can never do is replace the most important test of all: a visit to the nursery by the parents. Glasgow City Council recognises this by deliberately not offering the option of applying for a nursery place through the site and that is the right approach. The best way to determine whether a nursery is right is to visit it and see it for yourself. No website could ever change that.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article