Asquiths Day Nursery, Richmond

We went through a 'settling in period' with our 18 month old and my wife who attended the sessions was quite unimpressed with the level of care and activites. We were told that the main staff who were supposed to be in the room were away, which I believe was true.

However, if the main staff weren't there we really shouldn't have been encouraged to have the settling in period - they should have cancelled.

It wasnt a disaster of a nursery, but it just lacked any real passion and whilst the staff seemed competent they were not engaging the children in activities or stimulating their brains in the slightest, which was an issue for us as our primary objective of putting her in nursery was to give her something that she couldn't get at home all day.

We also noticed that the place was quite unclean, with crumbs on the equipment that appeared to have been there for quite some time. Also, unusually for a room where the babies are crawling most of the time, they have a policy where outdoor shoes are allowed in the room - which isnt that hygenic, particularly when you take into consideration that on one of the days we attended they forgot to wash the kids hands before they tucked into their food.

I think we definitely caught them on a bad week, but it did not give us confidence to continue so we pulled our daughter out of the nursery and have since gone elsewhere.

In their defence they were very good about this and did not quibble about the deposit or the month notice period - they were willing to allow us to just take our daughter out with no financial penalty and they apologied for our experience - so I think their hearts are in the right place, it just needs to be shaken up a bit and I think it would be a good nursery.