How is the review score calculated?

A nursery or group’s review score is the number you see in the red circle on the search result pages as well as individual profiles (the actual score is calculated to 3 decimal places, and then rounded to 1 decimal place on the website).

Review scores determine the ranking position in which nurseries are displayed in search results (there are several sort options available).  They also determine which nurseries and groups win the annual Top 20 Daynurseries.co.uk Awards.

The maximum review score is 10.  The score calculation takes all reviews published in the last 24 months into account and is made up of:

• The average rating from all reviews (maximum of 5 points)

Plus

• The number of published positive reviews vs a target (maximum of 5 points)

How the points for the average rating are calculated

5 points are available for the average rating from reviews published in the last 24 months.

There are 12 individual ratings on each review:

• Overall Experience

• Learning

• Care

• Staff

• Management

• Safeguarding

• Facilities/Outside Space

• Resources/Equipment/ICT

• Activities

• Food & Drink

• Cleanliness

• Value for Money

The reviewer can select from 5 options, each of which has a star/points value:

• Excellent = 5 stars/points

• Good = 4 stars/points

• Satisfactory = 3 stars/points

• Poor = 2 stars/points

• Very Poor = 1 star/points

The average rating is calculated by adding up the total number of points earned from all ratings and dividing this by the total number of completed ratings (blank or ‘don’t know’ ratings are not included).

How the points for the number of published positive reviews are calculated

5 points are available for meeting a target number of positive reviews published in the last 24 months. A positive review is defined as any review with an Overall Experience rating of Good (4) or Excellent (5) out of a maximum rating of 5.

The 5 points are split as follows:

1. 4 points are awarded for publishing 10 positive reviews in a rolling 24 month period.  This applies to all nurseries, regardless of their size.  Points are awarded incrementally, as each new review publishes, until the target is met:

   

2. An additional 1 point is awarded for meeting the nursery’s individual target, which is calculated as 20% of the registered number of available places.  Eg if a nursery has 50 registered places, its target will be 20% of this, ie 10 positive reviews.

   If this target is partially reached then a portion of that 1 point is given eg if the nursery has 7 published positive reviews, it will receive 0.7 points.

These points are then added together to give an overall review score.

A full breakdown of a nursery’s review score is published in the Review Score Breakdown section of its Profile Page:

Points to note:

When a review becomes older than 24 months, it will stop counting towards the score calculation and this can result in a change in the score (the impact will depend on the ratings in the review and whether the target continues to be met).  We recommend regularly requesting reviews to mitigate the impact of ageing reviews on the score.

We will only publish one review per person at any time.  When a review is submitted by someone who has previously submitted a review, only the latest review will be published and count towards the review score.  Any previous reviews will be removed from publication and archived in your Control Panel.

The score takes time to grow.  A maximum score is only possible when the nursery has achieved full points for both parts of the score calculation.  Although a new listing might receive all 5-star ratings as it starts to publish reviews, it will not achieve a maximum review score until it has met its target number of published positive reviews in the score’s 24 month timeframe.

For this reason, a group’s review score may be negatively impacted when new nurseries are added to the group as they may take some time to publish a sufficient number of reviews to meet their target and maximise their score.

Once a nursery meets its target number of reviews it will earn the maximum points available and any subsequent reviews from then on will only count towards the average rating part of the calculation.  This can sometimes lead to smaller increases in the review score.  Although we’re not able to award additional points for exceeding the target, it’s important to remember that, alongside the review score, we also display the number of reviews published over all time.  Care seekers have told us that this number is important to them to help them choose a nursery – the higher the number, the more it is an indication of the robustness and trustworthiness of your reviews, and the less it looks like the reviewers have been cherry picked.  Also, the higher the number, the higher you will appear in the search results, if ranked by number of reviews.

Changes to the registered number of places shown on the nursery’s profile page can impact the review score as this number determines the nursery’s target number of reviews.  Increasing the number of places will increase the nursery’s target.  Please note, the registered number of places displayed on the profile page must correspond to the number listed on your regulatory authority’s website.

Nurseries which do not have a review in the last 24 months are not awarded a review score.

How group review scores are calculated

The group review score is derived from the average of all the review scores of its members with a review score.

75%+ members of the group must have a review score before a group review score can be achieved.