Does it matter which nursery your child goes to when preparing for the 4+?

A lot of my clients spend a lot of time worrying about the ‘right’ nursery to send their child to.

They want the best for their child. I totally understand. I want the best for my child too.

But ultimately where you send your child to nursery won’t make much difference to how your child does in their 4+ Assessment.

Unless your child is very unhappy in their current nursery, I wouldn’t move them. I had one client who was very unhappy with her son’s nursery. She had been asking them to help him with his emotional and social development but this wasn’t happening and he wasn’t flourishing. In our lessons, he was withdrawn and often wouldn’t answer my questions.

In this instance, I suggested for him to be moved to another nursery. Together we chose a nursery that we thought would suit his needs and as soon as the move was made, he was much happier.

Notice that I didn’t suggest we move him because of the 4+. I suggested we move him for his own personal wellbeing.

Another client of mine sent her child to a top Nursery in Kensington paying nearly £4000 per term and she had huge difficulties in getting the Nursery to support her with her daughter’s 4+ Assessment preparations. The Nursery didn’t put a big emphasis on phonics but her daughter needed to be able to read for several of her 4+ Assessments.

I didn’t suggest we move her.

In our lessons we work on everything that we need to work on in order to be successful in any 4+ Assessment.

So my answer is No it doesn’t matter which Nursery you send your child to when you are preparing for the 4+Assessments. As long as you see that your child is happy and is enjoying nursery that’s all that matters. If the nursery is able to support you with some aspects of the 4+ Assessment preparation - that’s even better. I find that most nurseries are very open to helping parents. It just takes a conversation and some information about what you are preparing for.