Preschool V's Nursery - What's The Differences?

[Guest]

Hi all,

 

I'm hoping you can offer me some help - I'm preparing for an interview in a preschool next week which I'm thrilled about, I work in a nursery at the moment and love working with the older children, so I'm trying to move into a preschool setting. I'm hoping that some of you may have worked in both types of settings and can offer me some insight into the practical differences between the two types of settings. I'm aware of the basics - namely the age range, it's sessional not full days, and tends to be more structured than nurseries... I'd be really interested in hearing any real life comparisons you can make between nurseries and pre-schools.

 

Thanks so much,

Danielle

[hali]

hiya

 

can only give you my views but from personal experience there is not much difference ..

 

preschools may take from 2 - 2 1/2 yrs where as nurseries are 3+ yrs, nurseries tend to have a qualified teacher plus a nursery nurse where as preschools have early years paratitioners and a lot of preschols until recently were sessional (2 /2 hrs) but changing now!

[Rea]

Depends what sort of nursery you are used to. A school nursery will be like Hali describes but a private nursery will have all age ranges and open longer hours. The pre-school I used to work at is really a playgroup but the name changed to pre-school when a Chair said playgroup detered some people from using it as they wanted something more educational. Its still playgroup to me! They are usually sessional and tend to be in rented accomodation i.e church halls. I prefer playgroups personally.

[Guest]

Same thing - different preferred name in my experience.

[Guest]

I too would have said they were the same thing, just different names!

If you enjoy nursery and would like to work with a little older children then maybe TA in a reception class would suit you better??

[Guest]

Thanks all for your thoughts - that's really helped!!! It's reassuring to know that there aren't any mammoth differences...

[Marion]

I'm with Rea it depend if you are talking about a day nursery or a school nursery. The nursery in our Children's Centre is different in a number of ways to the nursery part of our FSU.

[Guest Wolfie]

The nursery in our Children's Centre is different in a number of ways to the nursery part of our FSU.

 

I'm intrigued! Is this purely due to the fact that one is sessional and one is full daycare or are there other fundamental differences?

[sam2368]

And I would also add that PVI committee run preschools can be different again.

Dannii, you're more than welcome to come along fo a visit

Sam