The elite British college for the world’s best nannies

I had a Norland nanny look after my three-year old son for a few months after my wife died.

It was an interesting experience, and very different from anything else since.

The contract that the Norland Agency (you can only get these nannies through the college's own agency) issue to the clients, and also the ethical conduct they sign regulate in detail, how Norlanders interact with their clients (and it's very much one sided in favour of the client).

In terms of the day to day, they develop, with the parents, a strict schedule for meals, education and social events that they stick to religiously. When I woke up in the mornings, fifteen minutes before my nanny was supposed to start (she did not live with us) to have my coffee, she was invariably always parked outside in her car waiting for the clock to strike 7:00am, before walking in exactly on time each morning. Snack-time, dinner, and bed time similarly occurred pretty much on the minute every day too.

My son had a meal schedule that was planned and approved by me a week in advance. Every day she planned a fun/educational activity. She tailored a teaching programme for my son, based on his performance from an evaluation she did, that she also followed each day.

Before going home every day, she wrote a journal of everything that had happened during the day, and what the goals and the targets were for the next day.

I've tried to retain and adapt what she put in place, and I strongly believe it is the framework and the structure to their approach that make them so special. My son also thrived under her care.

I couldn't recommend them more.

When the school was based in Berkshire (before they moved to Bath), we used to see the students, dressed in the uniforms, waiting on the railway station platform at Kintbury -- which, in retrospect, is a little surprising as I would have thought that Hungerford station was a little closer.

I'm happy to see that things haven't changed much since then.