Fennies Horley

Samantha Harding

a year ago

2 stars as this setting isn’t all bad. Some incredible individual staff who clearly adore the children and are fantastic at their vocation. If you get a great keyworker like we did then that makes a huge difference. But on the whole, I’m not satisfied with the experience we had here. My son progressed through rooms from 10months - 3 years old, and in that time the staff turnover was ridiculously high. An excellent manager went on maternity leave in 2022 and it appeared to go downhill after that; they couldn’t seem to hold on to a manager after this, with one in particularly seemingly running the setting and staff morale into the ground (you only need to check our Glassdoor to see how people feel about working here). As my son got older it started to become clear he was showing signs of needing further support and possible SEND due to his social and emotional development. I personally don’t feel this setting is equipped to support children who have, or may have, disabilities and additional needs. Despite raising my concerns and requesting a meeting with the SENCo nothing was done and we were not supported. He has now moved to a preschool with better facilities, an enhanced staff-to-child ratio and more experience with how to support SEND children and their families. Within three weeks they have done more to support my son and us as a family than Fennies managed in months. When this setting received a poor Ofsted last year they jumped on the defensive and I don’t really feel senior management took accountability for their errors. I personally and sadly feel I could not currently recommend Fennies Horley, particularly if your child is experiencing any developmental issues or challenges, or has/may possibly have SEND.

Priscilla Barwood

2 years ago

What an amazing nursery!! My son has been here since he was 5 months old and has loved every minute. He is so excited when we arrive, has a really strong relationship with all the staff in his room and his development has been fantastic. The activities provided are exceptional but the staff are just the best!!

Kitty Trout

2 years ago

We’ve been with fennies for almost 4 years and have had a wonderful experience. They have continued to support our son’s development throughout and he loves arriving every morning. The staff are brilliant and we have built lovely relationships over the years, we will be sad to say goodbye when the school year begins. Thank you for everything!

Paul Elliott-Streat

2 years ago

Our daughter was at this setting since January 2022, and left at the beginning of September 2023. We would not recommend this nursery. During her time there we had so many issues with the setting that destroyed our trust in the staff being able to provide our daughter with even the most basic level of care, such as cleaning her bottom properly after she's done a number 2. She came home on more than a handful of occasions in dirty knickers that had dried number 2 in, and for god knows how long she'd been left like that. She came home regularly with bruises (Not little ones) on her body, mainly legs, but also her back and face which we'd been given no notification about, and had to quiz her to find out what'd happened. This had been ongoing since she'd been at the setting, and started with the worst of all, her suffering a head injury which we weren't told about until we raised a formal complaint the next morning and an investigation took place. It turned out she'd suffered the head injury 15 minutes before we arrived to pick her up, and both staff members who were present when it happened didn't tell anyone and left for the day. One still works at the setting to this day and is a senior member in the middle room, the other left the setting, returned in 2023 to the oldest room and then left again. Staff were leaving, and left in droves, which speaks for itself. In the oldest room there was not one single original member of staff from when our daughter first started at the nursery. An experienced member of staff joined for few months and subsequently left, this left teenagers to look after the children, who clearly don't care about their positions of responsibility to the care of children, lying to you at pickup about things that hadn't happened with your child, which sadly happened on multiple occasions. There's a few of the original staff who're massively undervalued by the nursery, and a testament to how childcare should be! If they could clone them, this place would be incredible. We had numerous meetings with management over a period of year and a half, together with reports on numerous occasions to Ofsted, nothing improved. Their recent Ofsted report speaks volumes. In the last couple of months since I first wrote my original review, the setting had yet another management change, bringing back an old member of staff from before our daughter started, which we understand was a very bad period for the nursery. My first interaction with her was being pulled aside when collecting our daughter to discuss this review and ask if I'd consider removing it, to which I confirmed I wouldn't as I want other parents to be able to make an informed choice when making the most important decision about who to trust the safety of their child with whilst they're at work etc. Yes, the setting has had a big recruitment push recently, which appears to have improved things somewhat, but we've seen this all before here. When our daughter first joined, they were fully staffed and things seemed great. Consistency is key with places like this, and over a long period of time. As I said previously, I'm conscious people are looking for nurseries and would want to know the reality from parents, if we had a second chance we'd have chosen somewhere else, and not been so blinkered by shiny "Outstanding" Ofsted reports, and how modern the setting was at the time. We've now thankfully found our daughter a place at a new setting which friends have their children at, and are more than happy with. We would HIGHLY recommend Maidenbower Infant School Nursery. Honestly, if I were you I'd look elsewhere if you don't want to be left anxious every day that you leave your child here. The "chain" name is all this place has going for it. We've learnt that a decent setting is only as good as it's staff. If 80%+ of their staff haven't been there for years, avoid like the plague, there's reasons for this and none of them are positive!