Our children attended the baby room of this nursery between 2016 to 2017. We did a lot of research before choosing HDN. We were based in Crouch End at the time and considered all nurseries within a walkable radius, reviewing all Ofsted reports and visiting each potential nursery armed with a long list of questions. Hornsey Day Nursery was the ONLY nursery which passed all our key requirements.
The nursery is independent and family-owned and managed which means the nursery's manager spends her days in the nursery setting with the children and knows all the children personally. It also meant that our special requests were accommodated, even though they sometimes meant a little extra work or deviation from standard practice. The nursery management are absolutely meticulous on process which may sound dull, but meant we always felt 100% confident that the safety of our children was assured and they would follow a fairly stable routine.
The setting is light and spacious, very well-equipped, and clean (but not smelling of chemical cleaners as in other nurseries we visited). The only small downside is the location of the baby room near a fairly busy road and the lack of direct open space (but note that they have huge and lovely open space in their toddler room!). However, the children walk to the local park twice a day (weather permitting) and we felt this was a good alternative. The staff organise a wealthy array of fun activities, often including (very) messy play, which is one of the reasons we wanted our child to go to a nursery. (We have a very big mountain of craft work at home to show for it!).
Although the nursery is run very professionally, the nursery's staff are very warm and caring. We had a consistent key worker carer for our children throughout their time there and she was like a family member to our children, knowing all their likes and dislikes and sharing interesting observations and events from their day with us every day at the end of day handover.

• Overall
• Setting
• Cleanliness
• Food
• Communication