Northcote House/Grove Hall/Bright Horizons/Linden Tree: looking for updated reviews Post Reply

[RRoad8990]

Hi there,

We’re looking for updated reviews for a few local nurseries where we’d like to enrol our baby next year when she’s about 10-12 months old.

Seeking more recent reviews of Northcote House, Bright Horizons Northcote Road, Grove Hall, and Linden Tree Webb Road please.

Northcote House + BH are top of our list after viewings but Grove Hall is significantly cheaper. Any insights (both positive and negative) would be much appreciated! I’m sure there are other local parents who’d benefit too and are looking at these same nurseries as they’re the handful that take babies before age 2.

[Wandsworth21]

Hi,

Our little one has been going to Linden Tree Webb’s road since February and he absolutely loves it and is super excited most days when we get there. The staff looking after the kids know them all by name - whether they work in their room or not - which feels very welcoming. They genuinely seem to know the kids and what they have been up to all day and adapt to their personalities. They seem to provide a good mix of activities and self guided play which we think is quite important. For us it was also important that the 2 small rooms (I.e. roughly under a year and 1-2 years) communicate and do lots of things together as our son was walking quite early and so hung out with the older walking kids.
Their approach has been very child led, for example they let our son drive the transition from 2 to 1 nap when he was ready (some nurseries impose 1 nap day when they turn 1) and at his pace, so he was doing some days with 2 naps and some with 1 until he was comfortable doing only 1 nap.

They also have longer opening hours in the evening (6.30pm) which some others don’t have.

They have had quite a bit of staff turnover since we have been with them, but talking to other parents at other nurseries, it doesn’t feel more pronounced than elsewhere. The head has been there all along and seems to make it work.

If I am being critical, I would say where they are most lacking is in admin communication, e.g. we are still using formula and they usually ring us in a panic that there isn’t enough left for the day and they need a new one now (which wouldn’t be an issue if we had already transitioned to cow’s milk), or telling us with only a week’s notice that they have a staff day / closing early one of the days.

Hope that’s helpful and happy to answer any specific questions you may have.

When we were looking we got a few negative reviews on Bright Horizons from people we knew but don’t have any direct experience.

Good luck with your choice!

[Sb28]

Agree fully with the above post on Linden Tree. Our son has been going to Linden Tree Webbs Road since December last year and we love it and most importantly, he loves it. The staff are very caring and considerate. We've been happy with all the staff we've interacted with and how they've dealt with any issues. 

The only downside to Linden tree (for us) has been not as many updates / photos of the children as we'd like, especially compared to what other providers do (daily updates on an app, etc). Their approach is very much to focus the staff time and attention on the children rather than on posting updates so we get 2-3 sets of photos each month (along with a daily report summarising the key details of the day). We have now made our peace with that (especially seeing how happy our son is there)! 

We toured Northcote House and Bright Horizons before making a choice and the tradeoff is between a larger chain, also larger premises but they are more mechanical in their approach vs. a smaller, more cosy but tailored approach catering to the children. So it really comes down to your preferences