Hatching Dragons Nursery City of London

Following the birth of our first child, this was our first foray into the world of nurseries and the experience was disappointingly far from what we expected.
Firstly I will stress that the actual day to day care and interactions were okay. Where we primarily experienced problems was interactions with the management team who seemed much removed from the day to day operations.
(i) T&Cs – These were not covered as part of our initial on-boarding. We subsequently identified a number of contentious points including effectively a double deposit (initial dep = month fee + cur month + month in adv)
(ii) Daily updates on Online tool inconsistent or not completed at all
(iii) Food poor/non-nutritious and often replicated in lunch and evening meals (duplicating carb inputs for children)
(iv) Central Office staff slow or unresponsive to queries
The above (amongst other things) had been raised multiple times with no signs of progress to the point we were left with no other choice but to find an alternative.

Our child has been at Hatching Dragons for 6+ months and it’s been a very positive change from our previous nursery. Here the staff are all familiar faces and there is daily communication about our child’s activities and behaviours from teachers through the online app. We get photo updates of playtimes and notices of nap times. We can directly let the teachers know of any concerns or input that we have that day. Also, the nursery is very clean. This is important for young children when they are crawling and putting things into their mouths.

The most special thing about Hatching Dragons is how our child is learning to think, speak not only in English and Mandarin but also in both cultures. We LOVE that there are kids from different cultures at the nursery all learning languages together. The staff throw parties on holidays for parents and family to come and take part at the nursery. It really fosters a strong sense of community as parents and families get to know each other.

My daughter loves this nursery. Every morning she would ask me to take her to ‘the new nursery’ which is Hatching Dragons City. Comparing with her previous one she enjoyed the bilingual environment here. She is also fascinated by the daily outings when children are taken to libraries, museums and playground.
Food is organic and day nap is managed properly. The app is where I get all the updates of my daughter’s daily activities.
Staff are very responsible and they are currently working with me on potty training.

Our daughter attended the nursery for 2 months during the Covid-19 lockdown, because our nursery had closed. We were very lucky to be welcomed by Hatching Dragons without any problems for that period of time. The nursery had a warm and friendly atmosphere, and contact with the staff was problem free.

Our 1-year-old son attended Hatching Dragons for 2-months because of lockdown. We were nervous at first, but he settled in straight away and absolutely loved the place. The staff are so kind and easy to deal with, and the kids were always busy with so many activities, games, songs etc. I’m sure the additional exposure to mandarin has been beneficial to his language skills too. It was also lovely to get photo updates on the app every day. I would have liked to have known what types of food he was eating though (the app only tells you how much they ate). My only other issue was it was hard to get up and down the stairs to the buggy storage area, but otherwise, I would highly recommend this nursery.

Very good Bilingual nursery. Staff are very friendly and my son really enjoyed the time there. He loves his meals – healthy and tasty, and his day has always been busy learning through playing. Strongly recommend!

Hatching Dragons markets itself as child-led and nurturing. As well-intentioned as the caregivers are, we haven’t found this to be the case. It seems more like a handy creche. They like the kids, though, and that’s important.
However, there seems to be a double standard when it comes to illness at HD. When our child was in for their settling in period, there was another child with a streaming nose, nasty, persistent cough, and streaming eyes. This child gave our child strep because we had similar symptoms days later. We kept our child home, everyone fell ill, and we lost work.
Yet when our child attended after a course of vaccinations where a fever is normal, we were sent home despite the nursery knowing this. We were then sent home two days later when we came back because, apparently, we had to send the kid off for a PCR test – something that wasn’t communicated to us. Communication needs help.
The building is inaccessible with buggies and they don’t do cloth nappies either.

Two of my children attend Hatching Dragons City. One in fact started in the school in Westminster before moving to the City as we moved closer to that branch. And I have to say, all throughout, the care, love and attention given to my child/children have been second to none. My little boy couldn’t have wanted better carers – he started at 9 months or so and has flourished into a determined but considerate and highly communicative little boy: caring, courteous (as much as a 2-year-old can be) and capable and I put most (if not all) of that down to their care. And my little girl started at the same age. Now in preschool, she sits happily with our Chinese books that have oral pronunciation tools built-in, pointing at the characters and objects and happily communicating what I know, from the books, to be the accurate pronunciation of the object. It’s amazing and I have no doubt that the skills she’s learnt here will last a lifetime – thanks to the manager. Thanks to the team!