Frenchay Pre-School

Opening hours

Monday to Friday, during term time. Sessions are from 9am to 3pm. A holiday club operates during the school holidays from 8.30am to 5.30pm.

Term time / All Year

Term Time

Established

2014

Ashlyn Firkins

a year ago

I’m mindful that as parents, we often have to select external childcare providers off limited information & testimonials can be a really important part of this decision - so here I am. I’m afraid, I don’t have much, if anything positive to say about frenchay preschool. My son attended the preschool for a year - during that time, a number of things happened which felt concerning. I picked my son up one lunch time, on a pretty cold day, in dripping wet clothes (head to toe) he was visibly shaking, very cold & his lips were blue. I was informed that he had been at the water table, got the additional clothes I’d packed for him wet, & the nursery didn’t have any spare clothes to put him in - so he’d gone to lunch wet. At the time he was in age 3-4yrs clothes. It was hard to believe that they hadn’t had any age 2-3, or 4-5 clothes he could be put in (as a make do). To me, it certainly seemed like an act of teaching him a rather harsh lesson. My son also had quite a significant speech delay & some fine motor planning difficulties, this meant if given his drinks bottle at preschool, for the first six months of him being there - he wouldn’t have been able to open it. Despite, the staff knowing this & the ratios of staff to 2yrs olds being quite low, no one had noticed my son hadn’t drunk anything for a 6hr stretch on multiple occasions. Presumably they gave him the drink bottle, he couldn’t open it, and they packed it away. For context he drinks like an absolute fish at home & whether he asked or not for help to open it, it’s concerning that no staff member noticed his drinks were untouched. I do wonder if this was compounded by his key worker dropping hours (and us never being informed of this change) so my child was left floating with no one’s responsibility at the village hall. After a few months of attending, the manager raised developmental concerns about my child. She was totally on the money, but her approach & attitude left alot to be desired. It was a really poorly handled & unskilled conversation, which should have been much more sensitively approached. Over the year, my family experienced the manager as repeatedly rude & lacking in some very basic interpersonal communication skills. I didn’t actually ever know she was the senco lead in the setting till my son left & she wrote a letter of support for an autism assessment for us. More concerning was what lay inside that letter. For instance, she referenced my son as not liking headphones…… We’ve never put him in headphones as his pretty sensory seeking & with a speech delay we wanted to expose him to as much language as he can hear from others as possible, so either the nursery put him in headphones without our consent, or this is totally made up on a professionals document. Either way it’s concerning. Furthermore, there are no daily handovers so you will have no info on how your child got on during their day (unless something like hitting has occurred) - & the lack of regular handovers will occur, even if worrying developmental delays are identified & your child has little speech. The onus was very clearly on me and my husband to link in with them, as we needed. This felt hard given how unapproachable the manager made herself at collection & the lack of information we were ever given about how the nursery were supporting the additional needs they’d identified in my son. Wild! I just got told, wel keep doing our best. No idea what that meant! Our new nursery setting is worlds apart! Could not be more like chalk and cheese. Daily drop off handovers, termly reviews with the most incrediable senco & an authentically supporting, nurturing & inclusive setting. My son runs in there each morning & really enjoys his time there. So different from me peeling him from my leg in a ball of distress the year before. For me it only highlights how poor our overall experience really was at frenchay. With so many lovely local nurseries to choose from, I’d suggest going elsewhere every single time.

Liza Smith

5 years ago

My sons love going to this Preschool. Friendly caring staff.