Fourteen-month-old children enrolled in Hafnarfjörður's nursery school
The age for admission to Hafnarfjörður's nursery schools has been lowered. The youngest children are now admitted at fourteen months, rather than fifteen.
It's fun at a Hafnarfjörður nursery school.
The entry age for children in Hafnarfjörður's nurseries has been lowered. The youngest children are now admitted at fourteen months old, rather than fifteen. This has been achieved despite the number of children in Hafnarfjörður's nurseries increasing from just over 1,650 to almost 1,860 in the last four years.
All children born in June 2025 and earlier have been offered a nursery school place from this coming August, or when the settling-in period begins at the nurseries. This is stated in a memorandum that was presented at a meeting of the Hafnarfjörður Education Committee on 15 April.
Clearer focus in nurseries
Mayor Valdimar Víðisson says it is extremely positive and good that Hafnarfjörður can now offer children a nursery place from the age of 14 months. „This achievement is only possible thanks to a dedicated staff, targeted changes and a clear focus on providing a good service to the town's families.“
The Education Committee welcomes in a resolution how well the nursery schools in Hafnarfjörður have been staffed, which ensures that children born in June 2025 or who are 14 months old can be offered a nursery school place next autumn. The changes that have been made to the nursery service in Hafnarfjörður are proving successful and thereby contribute to a better service for the town's families.
Success with a changed nursery day
In autumn 2024, the municipality of Hafnarfjörður introduced changes to the children's nursery day, offering the opportunity for a shorter stay while maintaining the same level of care and teaching. From that time, parents could reduce their nursery fees by up to 30%. However, as before, parents could still secure a full nursery day for their children if they needed to. The changes also provided greater flexibility for staff.
Fanney Dóróthe Halldórsdóttir, Director of the Education and Public Health Department, says the changes have made it easier to implement better working hours for staff and have made the town more competitive in a demanding job market.
„The staff of the nurseries are the foundation of all good nursery work, and we need to provide them with satisfactory working conditions. We see that a more flexible arrangement has strengthened both the well-being of the staff and our ability to retain and attract qualified people. Happier staff directly results in a better experience for the children,“ she says, adding that the changes are therefore a benefit both for internal operations and the service provided to parents.
It's important to have a choice
„The nurseries have taken in many more children without compromising the quality of their work. The staff are the nurseries“ most important resource, and when we provide them with better conditions, it is passed directly on to the children and their families,„ she says. “Equally important is that parents can now better tailor their children's attendance to the family's needs."
She says research shows that Icelandic children spend much longer in nurseries than children in other European countries, and experts have pointed to the importance of children getting enough time with their parents, as the bond with parents is the foundation of security and development.
„It is important to us that parents have a real choice about the length of their children's stay. We are on the right track and will continue to develop our work in line with everyone's needs.“