St Nicholas Day Nursery

Bennetts End House, Eastwick Road, Hemel Hempstead HP2 4JQ
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10 104 Reviews
  • St Nicholas Day Nursery, Hemel Hempstead
Occupying a converted manor house, St Nicholas Day Nursery is one of the oldest nurseries in the country. The home from home nursery was refurbished in 2020 providing a new, modern feel inside their converted grade 2 listed manor house setting. The nursery offers exceptional care, enriched by unique learning opportunities for your child. One such experience is child-friendly cooking classes, helping to equip children with valuable skills and deeper knowledge of the cooking process.

Inside, there are four rooms carefully designed with age-appropriate resources to aid the learning and development of your little one.

The homely setting is surrounded by extensive and secure grounds offering all age groups a vast area for physical activities. The garden, which was redesigned and refurbished in 2017, includes a mini woodland nature walk and growing area in order to give children the opportunity to further explore and extend their play.

The nursery place strong importance on outdoor learning and the children engage in regular forestry sessions throughout the week in order to explore and discover the outside world. Each age group also has their own garden space to explore.

St Nicholas is central to local schools and over the past 50 years have built strong links so that the children’s transition from nursery to school is as easy and smooth as possible – for both the children and parents!
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Type of Service

  • Day Nursery
  • Open all year
  • Full Day Care
  • Sessional Day Care

Group/Owner

Person in Charge

  • Frankie Bignall (Nursery Manager)

Number of Childcare Staff

  • 17

Total Places for Children

  • 75

Age Range

  • from 0 years 0 months
  • to 5 years 0 months

Funding & Fees

  • Full Day Session £86.60


    We're making childcare more accessible to families:


    * No meal, consumable or enhancement charges
    * Part & fully funded places available

  • A £100 non-refundable registration fee is required to secure a place. Exact days of attendance should be confirmed no later than 6 weeks prior to the child’s start date. Any changes are subject to availability.

Opening Times

  • Monday 07:30-18:30
    Tuesday 07:30-18:30
    Wednesday 07:30-18:30
    Thursday 07:30-18:30
    Friday 07:30-18:30

When Closed

  • Bank Holidays & Christmas

Parking

  • There is a small parking area available for parents and visitors.

St Nicholas Day Nursery Reviews (104)

10

St Nicholas Day Nursery has a Review Score of 10 (9.960) out of 10, based on 27 reviews in the last 2 years.
Over all time St Nicholas Day Nursery has 104 reviews.

Overall Experience
  • 93
  • 10
  • 1
  • 0
  • 0
Date Published
  • 104
  • 7
  • 16
  • 27
  • 77
Reviewer Connection to St Nicholas Day Nursery
  • 88
  • 13
  • 2
  • 1
Total of 104, showing 101-104
Review from Louis S (Father of Child) published on 8 February 2016 Submitted via Postal Card • Report
Overall Experience 5.0 out of 5
All the staff at St Nicholas are caring and experienced, we had the usual concerns and worries when we first sent our daughter to nursery and we needn't have worried.
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  • Learning
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  • Food / Nutrition
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  • Cleanliness
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  • Value for Money
Review from M W (Mother of Child) published on 24 November 2015 Submitted via Postal Card • Report
Overall Experience 4.0 out of 5
The nursery has always been great. My son has done very well, and has particularly settled when in pre-school. The nursery have been very supportive with understanding the change in circumstances. What has been frustrating is the accounts department where I have had to phone and report errors on invoices.
Though they have been rectified it, it would be nice to have a quality check before sending invoices out.
Reply from Claire Jones, Chief Executive Officer at St Nicholas Day Nursery
Thank you for your review. We have listened to our customers' feedback regarding our invoice process and have recently implemented new invoicing software to improve our service.
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Review from Michael F (Guardian of Child) published on 18 November 2015 Submitted via Website • Report
Overall Experience 5.0 out of 5
I have used this nursery for the past 3 years and found everything to be positive about it. The staff are all well qualified for the task and very informative as to the progress of the children in their care. Indoor and outdoor activities are well organized as are any events that are planned. Food,
hygiene and cleanliness on the whole site is excellent. I would recommend nursery to anyone be it friends or family.
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Review from Dave C (Father of Child) published on 22 September 2015 Submitted via Website • Report
Overall Experience 5.0 out of 5
We had 2 kids in St Nicholas, over the space of 8 years, and they both loved it. In addition to this, both of our kids progressed really well intellectually whilst at the nursery and both are excelling at school.
The open space and gardens first attracted us to St Nicholas and they certainly maximise
the outdoor time, letting the kids play outside at every opportunity.
The building is old but well maintained, and there's been some redevelopment over the last couple of years which has also really helped.
The teachers have always been very friendly and both kids have really liked all the teachers they had as they progressed through the nursery.
There's only been a couple of issues over the years, which you'd expect over 8 years, although there's never been anything more than minor things (such as paint on clothes, or not being changed after water play and being left in wet clothes - always with the less experienced staff). However, whenever we've raised issues such as this, they have always been addressed quickly and they've never happened again.
I would also highlight the good work of the team in the Sun Hill Day Care head office - we had a few issues over the years with childcare vouchers and invoices and they always sorted all of our problems very quickly.
All in all, we've had a fantastic experience with St Nicholas over the years, they developed the kids really well, looked after them and ensured the kids enjoyed their experiences.
I would recommend St Nicholas Nursery very highly.
  • Facilities / Outside Space
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Current Review Score: 10.0 (9.960)

Overview of Review Score

The Review Score of 10 (9.960) out of 10 for St Nicholas Day Nursery is based on a) the Average Rating and b) the number of positive Reviews.

  1. The Average Rating is 5.0 out of 5 from 27 Reviews in the last 24 months.
  2. The score for the number of positive Reviews is 5.0 out of 5 from 27 positive Reviews in the last 24 months.

Detailed Breakdown of Review Score

The maximum Review Score for a Day Nursery is 10, which is made up from the Average Rating of Reviews (maximum of 5 points) and the Number of Reviews (maximum of 5 points) in the last 24 months:

  1. 5 Points are available for the Average Rating from all Reviews in the last 24 months. The Average Rating of 4.960 for St Nicholas Day Nursery is calculated as follows: ( (312 Excellents x 5) + (11 Goods x 4) + (1 Satisfactorys x 3) ) ÷ 324 Ratings = 4.96
  2. 5 Points are available for the number of Positive Reviews in the last 24 months. A Positive Review is defined as any Review with an 'Overall Experience' of '4' or '5' (out of a max rating '5'). The 5 Points relating to the number of positive Reviews for St Nicholas Day Nursery is based on 27 positive Reviews in the last 24 months and is calculated as per below:

    The 5 points available are broken down as follows:

    1. 4 points are available for the first 10 Positive Reviews in the last 24 months; 3 points for the first Positive Review, and then 0.125 Points for each of the next four Positive Reviews and then 0.1 Points for the next five Positive Reviews. (1st = 3.000, 2nd = 0.125, 3rd = 0.125, 4th = 0.125, 5th = 0.125, 6th = 0.100, 7th = 0.100, 8th = 0.100, 9th = 0.100, 10th = 0.100) 3 + 0.125 + 0.125 + 0.125 + 0.125 + 0.1 + 0.1 + 0.1 + 0.1 + 0.1 = 4
    2. 1 point is available for the number of Positive Reviews reaching 20% of the number of registered child places in the last 24 months. If this number is partially reached, then that proportion of 1 point is given. eg a Day Nursery registered for a maximum of 50 child places has to reach 10 Positive Reviews to receive 1 point, if it has 7 reviews it will receive 0.7 points. 20% of the 75 number of registered child places is 15, which has been reached with 27 Positive reviews. Points = 1
  3. When a Review is submitted by someone who has previously submitted a Review, only the latest Review will count towards the Review Score.
  4. If a Day Nursery does not have a review in the last 24 months, then it will not have a Review Score.

Child Vacancies

Please contact us for latest vacancies.

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Awards / Recognitions (8)

Meet the Team (1)

Frankie

Frankie

Job Title: Nursery Manager Joined: 2007

Qualifications: NVQ3, DSL, Paediatric First Aid, Food Hygiene

Information on this page is displayed without responsibility for its accuracy on the part of daynurseries.co.uk. Please contact St Nicholas Day Nursery to verify any information. View our terms and conditions. St Nicholas Day Nursery has an Enhanced Service - more info.