Fennies St Augustines

Alexandra

a year ago

My 14 months old son started nursary 2 months ago and is now well and happy there. We had an absolutely fantastic key person who helped him to settle in, was very attentive and was always sharing all the details about his day. We did have a change of a key person who has moved to another group, which was disappointing as he just settled in and it is not easy to go through a change again at this age. However, our new key person is brilliant and has built a great bond with our little boy really quickly, she always shares his daily routine and is very supportive with any of our requests. Our son is happy during the drop off and pick up times which is wonderful. We love seeing daily updates on the app, pictures of our little one being busy at nursery and key person’s observations on his development and progress.

Jingwen Zhao

a year ago

Unfortunately our experience with Fennies St Augustines was very bad, so much so that we had to move our daughter to another nursery after 8 weeks. This occured over Sept-Oct 2024, with our daughter attending 2 days a week. We had high hopes for our daughter's experience at Fennies, and were obviously happy with the description and promise of the care she would receive, and were very happy with the visit we paid to the nursery earlier this year. The staff all seemed keen, and the manager happy to talk to us. However, within 2 weeks of arriving, it was clear that there was a constant turnover of staff and lack of communication (moreso, lack of any visible management) which made it very difficult for our daughter to settle in and for us to feel comfortable leaving her at Fennies. Almost every drop-off involves different and often unfamiliar staff members, and this lack of consistency and communication was unsettling for both her and us as parents. She had three key workers in under 6 weeks, which was unacceptable and did not provide the stable environment that was essential for her settling and development. We found out soon after joining Fennies that the manager had changed (due to maternity) and within a month of our daughter starting, there was a restructuring with many staff moving rooms. This provided a temporary reprieve, however better communication both in person and on the app, lasted only a week. Since then, we had continued to experience issues with both the accuracy of the app data and the lack of detailed updates from staff when picking her up. For instance, staff who were unfamiliar with her were often unable to inform us about her daily routine, nap schedule, or any notable events or meal updates from her day, and as mentioned we often dropped our daughter off to a new person, and a chaotic scene. There was another restructure within a month. An example of a day: when we dropped off her in the morning we would find none of the usual staff in the room. The staff present (whom I, and my daughter, were meeting for the first time) were unable to explain the absence of her key worker or any usual staff, and we would only later discover (by chance, rather than being informed) that her key worker had been moved to another room with immediate effect. This kind of lack of communication was deeply concerning and our daughter found it so hard to settle with the constant flux. For a few days, we tried to find the manager by hanging around the office or asking other staff where they were - but could never find them. We decided to proactively move our daughter rather than waiting for an explanation from the management. We just informed Fennies by email that we were not satisfied and would be terminating our contract in 2 weeks (when we had found alternative care). Now, a month on - no explanation ever came, while the manager did offer to meet with us this came too late to change anything. Essentially we just finished there, said goodbye to the staff, and left. The icing on the cake was on our daughter's last day we happened to bump into the manager for the first time (whom we had spoken and complained to by email) for the first time - she asked if it was our first day. We felt glad to be leaving at that point. Our daughter has now started a new nursery that is a lot better organised and has great communication, she is so very happy, and the staff are attentive and have time to talk to us - she settled there within a week. We don't need to worry about her day anymore. We feel it is now clear Fennies St Augustines is far below an acceptable standard. What troubles me is that we did try to research our nursery places, but the complete turnaround of staff and management seems to have had a massive effect. Please take that into account when looking at this nursery.

Geraldine martin

2 years ago

Our son has been going to Fennies for almost a year now. He loves it there! It is clear he has lots of fun and his development is well supported and nurtured. The staff are very friendly and accommodating. All the staff know every child. They keep us well informed on his daily progress at pick up and on the nursery app. I would recommend for any parents in the area.

Tiffany Green

2 years ago

Wonderful staff: very welcoming and understanding. They are so supportive as my son is being potty trained. Love the updates in the evening when I pick him up. It's great that they are encouraging friendships. His expressive language has improved. His recognition of letters and numbers has improved. He's excited to go every morning. He's drinking water and enjoying it. He doesn't even ask for juice anymore. The staff are friendly and engaging with the children. Love the inclusion of yoga and French and Spanish. He can count to 4 in French and Spanish. He's only been there a little over 6 months. I love that they take them outside whenever the weather allows. They speak to the children with care and understanding. The food is healthy and my little guy eats all of most of the time. Great nursery!

Lukasz Forster

2 years ago

Out of all Nurseries we looked at we decided to go with Fennies. I am truly impressed with the care and patience of the staff. Our daughter enjoys her time a lot at the nursery and is always excited to go there. We really thought she would not want us to leave and cry when we drop her off in the morning, but it turns out she loves to play with other children and enjoys all the activities at Fennies. Truly recommended.