Choosing a Day Care

Choosing a Day Care / Nursery School in Oslo

THIS PAGE IS NO LONGER UPDATED, AND THE RULES MIGHT HAVE CHANGED. CHECK THE NORWEGIAN PAGES FOR UPDATED INFO.

The 1st of March is the magic deadline for applying for a day care spot in Oslo. It's not an easy task to find out which day care is the best for your child and how to set up the priority list in the application. Here are some tips and advice that will hopefully make it a little easier.

Before you apply

Read the Oslo Municipality´s pages on applying for nursery schools in Oslo, which also include an overview of the different day cares per city district ("bydel"). I would recommend contacting the person responsible for day cares in your city district to get tips on what nurseries that have vacancies, strategic choices, etc. Some "bydeler" have published an overview of the expected number of spots opening up in each day care in their "bydel", such as Grunerløkka. Check your "bydel". You can also read the advice of relation.no.

Some facts:

You may only submit one (1) application per child.
Applications must be sent to the city district (bydel) you live in, but you can apply for day cares throughout Oslo.
You can apply to up to five municipal and / or private day cares.
The private day cares are part of the coordinated admission process and the application is sent to the bydel.
Public day cares cannot give a spot to a child that is not yet one year old. However, if your child is born on August 31st, for instance, he or she can get a day care spot from August 1st. Private day cares can choose to accept whomever they want, and some accept children under 1 year.
You must enter the desired start date when applying. If you apply before 1 March, but would want to start before August, you are part of both the supplementary process and the main one.
Some children might be qualified for the priority groups (mainly if he/she or the parents/siblings have a disability or if he/she has siblings in the same day care). Read more on the Oslo Municipality´s pages (link above).
If your child is born before September 1st, it has a guaranteed day care spot for August, but not necessarily in your city district. If your child is born after September 1st, you can still apply in the main competition, but no public day care can give a spot to a child that is not yet one year old. However, if your child is born on October 31st, for instance, it can get a day care spot from October 1st. Private day cares can choose to accept whomever they want.
If you want to change something in your application, the following rules apply: If you´re part of the main intake and you applied before 1 March, you can´t change anything after 1 March, you can only send in a new application. However, if you do that the new application will replace the old one and you won´t have the guaranteed spot anymore as the new application arrived after 1 March. If you´re part of the supplementary process, you just send in a new application.
The maximum cost for a day care spot in 2013 is 2330kr. However, day cares can require extra food money, but these can not exceed the actual costs.
There are 850 day cares in Oslo, and 40% of children go to private day cares. In 2011, the nursery coverage in Oslo was around 85%. Look here for the coverage in the different city districts.

Some tips when it comes to the priority list

I have been recommended by the day care administration in my city district to put my preferred day care as number one (as opposed to the one that is most likely to get into). The reason is that the first priority remains throughout the year, even if you say yes to a day care that was lower on your list. On the second and third place, they recommended me to put some bigger day cares that are more likely to get into.

Is your child born after 1 september, you are not guaranteed a day care spot the following year. Most people I´ve talked to say that you should in any case apply through the main application process because your priority remains and because private day cares can choose to take in children under one year. Others say there's no point, and that one should rather apply 3 months before needing a spot in the supplemental process. I guess applying in the main process can´t hurt!

After applying

You´re put in the queue for all five nurseries you set up, and you get allocated a spot according to your child´s age, regardless of the position on your priority list. This means that someone who has set up day care X in the first place will not get ahead of you in the queue if their child is born after yours.
You can check the status of your application here. You need to log into Altinn - read the bottom of this page.
There are 3 rounds of admission: 18 March-18 April, 29 April to 29 May, and 3 June to 20 June. If all those with a guaranteed spot haven´t been given one after these three, there will be a fourth round.

When you get an answer, you have to reply before the deadline they have set in the letter, normally 7 days, WHETHER YOU WANT THE SPOT OR NOT. If you don´t, your application is cancelled and you have to reapply.
If there are no spots in any of the daycares you have applied for, you may receive an offer from another day care. This might be located in another city district (bydel).
If August is approaching and you still haven´t been allocated a day care spot, all you can do is wait as your application is still valid even if the desired start date has passed.
Children who get a spot through the main intake, have to make use of that spot within 15 September. In any case, you will have to pay for August too.

Check also out Oslo Municipality´s page for FAQs (in Norwegian).

What to look for when visiting a day care

Research shows that the quality of day care depends on the size of the groups and on the staff stability and their qualifications. Ask how large the children's groups are. I have found them to be between 9 and 15 children in one group. Young children thrive supposedly best in small groups. Also, find out if the staff is stable.
Number of adults per child. The law states no specific number, but Oslo used until the summer of 2012 the norm of 1 adult per 3 children under 3 years. In the spring of 2013, the government will put forward a revised day care legislation and a fierce battle on the minimum staffing norm is expected.
Pedagogy density. The norm is that there should be one teacher for every 7-9 children under 3 years. At least a third of the staff should be trained teachers.
Use of temps. Many nurseries are struggling to have adequate replacement when their staff is sick and they have limited resources to temps.
Outdoor and indoor areas - size and quality.
Opening hours. Some nurseries have very short opening hours, so it is important to be aware of this.
Hot and cold food. Most public day cares serve one hot meal per week, the rest is bread food. Day cares can ask for additional money for better meals.
Focus area. Ask what the day care focuses on and how a typical day looks like. Read the yearly plan that you can find on the webpage of the different day cares.
Ask if the nursery has its own monthly / weekly plans for parents and whether and how parents are involved.