Toni worked for us from May 2016 to Sept 2020

Toni initially started working for us for a few mornings a week when our daughter was approx. 4 months old. When I returned to work after maternity leave, Toni would look after our daughter full time over 3 days. I never forget the first day Toni arrived at our house with a HUGE bag of things for our daughter to do! That has not changed throughout the time Toni has been with us, she is always bringing our daughter age relevant activities and really stretches her motor skills and thinking skills. Toni adapts to our daughter’s favourites whether it be Spirit or Lego friends, Toni ensures that our daughter enjoys her activities and learns while she plays.

Toni is incredibly creative and does lots of crafting activities and even gave our daughter some of her own bits to keep in a box for which our daughter is super proud of. Toni is also very compassionate and would make some lovely keepsakes for birthday and Christmas from which our daughter has made. Toni also embraced our family life and would help our daughter not to be frightened of pets and how to handle them etc and would often plan trips to the pet stores and parks.

Toni also worked alongside Nursery sharing a diary to share her development, likes and dislikes and Toni and I would review her developmental stages with the government guidelines annually. Toni regularly refers to the professional bodies (Childcare.co.uk) who she is qualified with to ensure she is up to date both with the learning aspect but any other factors - such as how to react to childcare after COVID 19. Toni is extremely professional, following all the necessary guidelines whilst being pragmatic.

Toni is completely trustworthy, having access to our house at all times. Toni has always been really flexible with us, if we got stuck in traffic for example, which was invaluable to us when we both had long commutes.

Toni has also been pivotal in our daughter’s emotional development, our daughter has turned into a lovely well mannered, caring child which I know Toni has had a large influence in. Toni has always been very attuned to our daughter’s moods and brings the best out in her. Our daughter has always loved to go to Toni’s and talks about her often.

As Toni would have our daughter often from 7am to 7pm, Toni also developed our daughter’s need for a routine and learning practical skills such as getting dressed/cleaning teeth etc and always made it fun for her and we have to credit Toni for cracking the toilet training as well!

When our daughter started pre school, Toni has always provided lots of learning materials to develop her reading/writing and vocabulary. All of our daughter’s achievements were logged in a diary by Toni which was shared with our daughter’s school. Toni makes the learning fun such that she doesn’t realise sometimes it is school work! Toni provides varied activities from day to day, week to week, I am always surprised with what our daughter comes home with each day!

We cannot rate Toni high enough, she has been part of our family for the last four years and we hope to continue to use Toni on an ad-hoc basis even now our daughter is at school. I would have no hesitation in recommending Toni and am happy to provide a verbal reference also.

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