Kindred Islington Nursery & Preschool

Unfortunately all the reviews of this nursery (at the time I’m writing this) were written when the nursery was still independently run. However since the nursery was purchased by Kindred I perceive that things have gone significantly downhill.LACK OF OUTDOOR SPACE / NO COMMITMENT TO FREQUENT OUTDOOR VISITSThe nursery has no adequate outdoor space. When we signed up, we were told the children would be taken to the park on a daily basis, to compensate for this. However when Kindred took over, staff numbers reduced and they announced that they could no longer commit to taking the children out every day because there were not enough staff to safely do so. We asked whether this was a temporary issue, and were told this would go on indefinitely. They have since committed to ensuring all children are on rota, to ensure they get equal outdoor time, but there has been no commitment made in terms of how often this will be.The building does not have a lot of natural light on the basement level, and can get extremely hot in the summer - I recall on some particularly hot days last year, the kids in the reception class stripped to their nappies due to the heat, making outdoor trips all-the-more vital.LACK OF STAFFINGThe nursery has always had some absolutely amazing employees, but since it has been procured, there has been a mass exodus of staff, and the nursery has been understaffed and struggling to recruit.During these changes our daughter (who had been really happy at the nursery up until this point) began to get very clingy and unsettled. She started crying when she was dropped at the nursery, and despite previously being amazingly easy at bedtimes, began to have sleep problems, and cling to me when putting her to bed.Her ‘key person’ changed three times in quite a short space of time. We were not even notified of the third change and the new key person was asked to fill out a very important document for a speech and language assessment, despite having only been with our daughter for a short space of time. There was a lack of transparency from the nursery about this and over the information they had submitted, which ended up derailing the entire assessment.Parents have complained about the lack of staff during drop-off and pickup, and of witnessing multiple instances of rooms being under legal ratios of staff:children, although this is something the nursery publicly deny.There have been a handful of recent instances, where I have doubted the level of attention she is receiving. My child is potty trained but needs a little help, and (without going into too much detail) we have observed that on more than one occasion, staff obviously haven’t been assisting her as needed.She also came home with her hair absolutely matted with some sort of sticky balls from shrubbery (thistle balls/burrs?) When they do go outside, they tend to go out around midday and we picked her up at 6pm, meaning that she would have had matted hair for many hours without staff noticing, even though it was immediately obvious to us.MANAGEMENTThe manager has been consistently abrasive which began during onboarding when we were emailed a pack of information, that didn’t include anything about the ‘settling-in’ period, which meant the first day was only an hour long. When I expressed surprise and suggested that perhaps they may want to include this in their welcome email, she argued that they had told me verbally and she was sorry if I had a “problem understanding”.The combativeness has been a recurrent theme. She is unable to take onboard suggestions or criticism in a professional and constructive way, without deflecting blame onto parents. You are made to feel like a naughty child, or member of her staff that needs to be reprimanded. After a while the micro-aggressions become tiresome. Particularly when you are in essence her ‘customer’ paying many thousands of pounds, for what many parents feel is at this point, inadequate levels of care.

I sent both my kids here and we all loved it! The staff are brilliant - kind, loving and gently focused on helping each child develop at their own pace. I couldn’t imagine a better start.

Sent both my kids here - it’s the best foundation any child could get. They get masses of time outdoors and although there is little space on site. The staff ALL really care from the administrators, to the staff. Very low staff turnover and in more than 5 years I never once had a concern. Strong recommend. (Here’s my vain 2 yr old below)

Incredible nursery - look no further. The staff are incredible, kind, knowledgeable and passionate. I was so nervous about nursery and leaving my little one. The Grove couldn’t be better.