- Irene has been looking after our daughter since she was 11 months old, she is now nearly 5. Our second daughter is also now with Irene.

- Irene is incredibly reliable, in all the time our daughter has been going to Irene, she has never been off sick, or cancelled care for any reason. She will give you plenty of time to arrange cover, or do it for you, when she is due to go on holiday. Her timekeeping is good, as you can imagine there are inevitable delays due to last minute toilet stops or nappy changes etc sometimes... But absolutely nothing problematic.

- We honestly cannot say enough good things about Irene, she is absolutely wonderful - our daughter completely adores her. Their days are full of outside adventures, learning through play, and exploration. She goes to museums, parks, forests, beaches, all sorts of places... They have down time too where they read and paint, and learn letters. Our daughter loves writing her name, she will do it all by herself with no prompting or forcing, she enjoys doing it which is a real credit to Irene - they use sticks to write letters in the mud in bushy park or in the sand etc...

- Irene is a master at handling groups of children together, she is in complete control, the children have real respect for her, she is firm with them when necessary - and has certainly taught me a lot about how to discipline both ours! She is not stern or foreboding, and the children know this - they know she is fair and respect her for this.

- We feel able to discuss anything and everything with Irene, we do have more formal reviews every now and again, but we would never save up any discussions points until these meetings - communication is free and open always.

- we chose Irene because she was not strict and stern, she was honest, genuine, fun, loving, fair, loves outside play, getting messy, exploring, encouraging - much like Mary Poppins! We wanted our daughter to be with someone who would feel like part of our family not a teacher or the like, literally an extension of the family - which she really is - she is now our second daughter's Godmother.