Questions to Ask Daycare
A general set for parents deciding whether a childcare setting is right for their family: licensing and staffing, what the day is made of, what it costs across a year, and what the contract commits you to.
The questions
Open any question for the note
Are you licensed, and can I see your most recent inspection report?
Why ask it
Licensing is the floor rather than a recommendation, and reports are public in most places. Findings are common; what you are looking for is the same finding appearing year after year.
What ages do you take, and which room would my child be in?
Why ask it
Anchors the rest of the conversation to a specific room and specific adults rather than to the centre as a whole. Quality varies more between rooms in one building than people expect.
What is the ratio and the group size in that room?
Why ask it
Two separate numbers, and the second one gets forgotten. Eight children with two adults and sixteen with four are the same ratio and very different rooms to spend a day in.
What is the weekly fee, and what is not included in it?
Why ask it
Registration, diapers, meals, sun cream, outings and supply fees are all commonly extra. Ask for a full year's figure so the closure weeks and one-off charges are visible.
What do I pay when we are away, or when you are closed?
Why ask it
Most settings charge for your holidays and for theirs, which is normal but changes the real price considerably. Ask whether any weeks are credited and how much notice absence needs.
What notice do I have to give to leave, and can you end the arrangement?
Why ask it
Two-way notice, usually a month, plus the grounds on which they can ask a family to leave. Read this before you pay a deposit rather than after a disagreement.
How many days a year are you closed?
Why ask it
Public holidays, training days, a Christmas week and any summer shutdown add up to a real number of days you must cover from your own leave. Ask for the calendar, not an estimate.
What are your hours, and what happens if I am late?
Why ask it
Late fees are usually per minute and steeper than people expect, and repeated lateness can breach the contract. Also check when the doors actually open, which is not always the advertised hour.
How long have your staff been here?
Why ask it
Turnover is the number that best predicts your experience, and it is almost never volunteered. Long service in the room your child would join outweighs most other selling points.
What training do your staff have beyond the legal minimum?
Why ask it
First aid currency, child development qualifications, safeguarding, and who pays for it. A setting that funds training tends to keep staff, which is the thing you actually want.
How do you decide what the children do all day?
Why ask it
Ask to see a real timetable and then ask what fills the gaps. Both a rigid schedule of adult-led activities and an entirely unplanned day tend to show up as difficult behaviour by mid-afternoon.
What do you do when a child hits, bites, or will not join in?
Why ask it
You want a described sequence rather than a philosophy, including what both sets of parents are told. Settings that say this rarely happens are describing their marketing, not their week.
What sends a child home ill, and when can they come back?
Why ask it
Temperature thresholds, vomiting, rashes, and exclusion periods. This single policy determines how many working days you will lose in a year, so get the written version.
What is your plan for a fire, a lockdown, or a power failure?
Why ask it
Ask when they last practised each one and where the children would be taken. A specific relocation point and a recent drill date show a plan that exists outside a folder.
Who is allowed to collect my child, and how do you check?
Why ask it
Named people, identification requested from anyone unfamiliar, and a written route for adding a grandparent for one afternoon. Casual answers here are a genuine gap rather than a formality.
How will I hear about my child's day?
Why ask it
An app, a paper sheet, or a conversation at the door. All of them work, but ask to see a real filled-in example, because the difference between a habit and a system shows up there.
What happens when a parent raises a concern?
Why ask it
Ask for a recent example and what changed as a result. A director who can describe one has a process; one who says it seldom happens probably has no route for it at all.
What happens when my child moves up a room or gets too old for you?
Why ask it
Ask what triggers the move, how much notice you get, whether a familiar adult moves too, and where children go afterwards. Abrupt room changes explain a great many sudden regressions.
Has a family left recently, and why?
Why ask it
Most reasons are ordinary: a move, a job change, school starting. An evasive answer is worth following up with a current parent rather than pressing the director.
What kind of child does well here, and what kind finds it hard?
Why ask it
The most revealing question you can ask a director, because it requires her to describe limits. "Every child does well here" tells you she has not thought about it, or would rather not say.
Deciding on a childcare setting
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Work out what you are actually choosing between
Centres
More oversight, cover for staff absence, longer opening hours and a set curriculum. The trade is more children, more noise, more room changes and higher turnover among the youngest rooms.
Home based care
One adult, a small mixed-age group, and years with the same person. The trade is no cover when she is ill or on holiday, less oversight, and a business that can close at short notice.
A nanny or a share
Care shaped entirely around your family and your child's own routine. The trade is that you become an employer, with the tax, contract, sickness and replacement problems that come with it.
The whole cost, not the weekly fee
- Registration and deposit, and whether the deposit is returned or applied to a final month.
- Closure days and holiday weeks you pay for and cannot use.
- Diapers, wipes, meals, sun cream, bedding and outing charges.
- The late collection charge, and how quickly it accumulates.
- Notice of rate increases, and how much the fee rose last year.
- Any subsidy or tax relief you qualify for, and whether this setting accepts it.
Questions to ask other parents rather than the director
- How many familiar faces have left the room since your child started.
- What happened the first time you raised a problem.
- Whether you hear about injuries from staff or from your child.
- How the last hour of the day feels, and whether anyone can tell you about the afternoon.
- Whether the daily update matches what your child seems to have done.
- What you would ask about if you were choosing again.
Before you sign
Read the termination and notice clauses
These are the terms that matter if the arrangement does not work. Know what leaving costs you, and on what grounds you could be asked to leave.
Get the policies you were told about
Illness, medication, collection, behaviour, complaints. Where the written policy and what you were told in conversation differ, the written one is the one you will be held to.
Visit twice, at different times
A second short visit at a busier hour is the cheapest quality check available to you. Where the two visits disagree, believe the busier one.
Take a plain feeling seriously, then check it
An uneasy feeling is worth investigating rather than obeying. Turn it into a specific question, ask it, and see whether the answer settles the matter or confirms it.