DC at nursery put in front of a laptop watching Peppa Pig, AIBU?

Out of interest, what programmes do you allow?

PP is quite educational compared to, say, Paw Patrol.

And for what it's worth, I don't think YABU to not want your child to watch screens at nursery. If your child attended my setting, I would respect your wishes. Some parents are OK with it, some aren't. Both are fine.

I wouldn’t be happy with that. I don’t allow Peppa Pig at home so don’t expect to pay for DC to watch things like that.
The fact that nursery staff are paid minimum wage is a disgrace. I would be willing to pay more for childcare but many parents wouldn’t or indeed can’t. Staff should be getting paid to tidy and prep when the children are not in. I know that wouldn’t happen because childcare is already expensive and people don’t want to pay more.

Erm, no, I don't, because you are being quite ridiculous and comparing poisoning people to toddlers watching some cartoons

If you don't like her watching them, it's not an issue, and you're within your rights, just tell the staff you don't want her watching screens. Job done. They aren't psychics.

As I said in my other posts, parents are aware in my setting that the children watching cartoons sometimes. If a parent told me they didn't want this to happen, I would respect that.

It's not the fact that parents may not want their children to watch the screen that is my gripe, it's that people are saying nursery staff are using screens to "be lazy" and so they can "have a break" when in fact the very opposite is true.

@Breathedeeper the thing is nurseries, pre schools and child minders have had times where children watch a screen (tv, laptop, tablet or whatever depending on era) is something that has happened for decades.
It's not new.
It wouldn't be something most parents would think doesn't happen within a nursery setting.

@Breathedeeper no offence (and I said this upthread) but if you want a non communal based childcare setting and one where you can get 1 on 1 care and get to 100% dictate what your child can or can't do - hire a nanny.

This is ridiculous. Babies shouldn't be watching any tv at nursery. Not beneficial for them whatsoever under 18 months! Parking them next to some toys they can explore is much better

They play all bloody day!

It would be a senior nursery nurse job at most to do something like a day-to-day timetable for the children, in between all of the other things they are doing in the day.

A manager would probably give it a quick glance and tick it off because they have 10,000 other things to do.

(Probably including dealing with parents complaining about children having 10 minutes of screen time.)

You just seem clueless about how busy people are in childcare settings.

We used to laugh at how many accident report forms we'd have to complete if we had to do them at home!
nb I'm not suggesting parents not be informed of accidents.

Yes, precisely. Do people really think nurseries are just flowing with staff who do these jobs for us while we sit on our arses all day and let the kids have at it? It's extremely ignorant, insulting, and disrespectful to hold these views towards the people who care for your children and invest so much in their learning and development.

All the children in my care, I care so deeply about their needs and what's best for them. We spend so much time together, I am the one who cuddles them when they are upset, encourages them when they are unsure of themselves, makes sure they are clean, have full tummies, are having fun at nursery, are meeting their milestones.

It makes me feel so depressed, devalued, and disheartened when people who have no idea the amount of work and love that goes into giving their children the best start in life, start ripping apart the efforts that we put in and criticising things they know nothing about. Very demoralising.

@CharlotteBog it is too much really.
Does a record of everything really need to happen?
Many moons ago I thought about being a child minder. In my youthful naivety I thought a child minder offered an "at home" environment where the child was taken care of but really just tagged on to the adults daily life - the way a child at home with their parent would be.
But even child minders are now essentially mini nurseries and have to go through the same Ofsted scrutiny.
I decided against it.

I've said upthread that my sons are now 15 and 25 so my nursery experiences are a while ago.
All the Early Years milestones were coming in for my 15 yo.
I'm fortunate that my sons have no health or learning concerns. I was very happy with their nursery. The boys were always happy, the staff lovely and I felt as informed about their day as I needed to be. I would much rather have just had a chat about what they'd done, particularly enjoyed or what have you, than be presented with a page of "[son] demonstrated manual dexterity when pouring from the play tea set" or "[son] slept for 1 hour and 23 minutes" (I just needed to know he had had a nap).

He also attended the village pre-school one morning a week leading up to going to school. They needed to enrol him etc and create the whole lever arch file for all his early years milestones. This was already being done at his nursery and I had to sign something to say I really didn't need them doing this for him, I much preferred that the staff be available for the children.

I absolutely support young children being supported and their growth and development being monitored so early intervention can happen if needed, but I think the expectation on nursery staff is way too high.

Yes, wouldn't it be lovely if all nurseries everywhere were fully staffed so we could share the workload amongst us and get everything done in a timely manner? I would prefer that myself, funnily enough.

But, as it stands, there is a staffing crisis in the early years sector. Good, hardworking staff are being driven away due to the sheer stress of the job, coupled with the absolute atrocious pay that goes with it (I am leaving next week myself). Not to mention the shittt holiday entitlement, the ridiculously long hours, and lack of respect and appreciation. Nursery managers are struggling to recruit new staff members. Just reading this thread should tell you why. Nobody wants to work in horrendous conditions with abysmal pay.

I disagree, I think she wants more transparency as to how much screen time her toddler has.
It's likely to be a short amount now and again.

@CantSeeTheDifference yes it's amazing how many people have no clue what actually happens at a nursery (but they're first to complain when there is no photos of their child on the portal or they aren't told how many bites of food their child ate that day).

The "timetable" you keep referring to is the daily routine. So breakfast and free play 7.30-9, messy play 9-9.45, outside play 9.45-11, group time 11- 11.45 etc And yes, generally, that is made up by the manager.

However, it is the responsibility of the staff in the room to plan the daily activities that happen for messy play, group time, artwork, etc, and follow them up with pictures, observations and progress plans for the child's next milestones.

These activities are planned with EYFS in mind, we plan different activities that will allow us to observe the children's specific milestones. So, for example, if I wanted to assess the children's fine motor skills, I would need to write up a plan for, say, playdough for the children to play with at messy play. Then I need to take a photo of each child taking part in the playdough, watch each child, write up in the app what they are doing, explain what they are learning from the activity, upload the observation along with the picture.I then need to go back to the planning sheet, write up a report on how successful the activity was, what I would do differently next time.

If we didn't get time to do things like this, parents would not have the app updated, the obs done, etc, and there would be complaints.

I need to do this for every single child, every day. It takes a very long time. We're talking about children's milestones and development here, I need concentration to write up the observations properly, I need time to plan the activities. They don't just appear out of thin air.

To parents and even non-parents who have never experienced working in childcare, it may look to you like a just a fun little activity that keeps the children entertained for 20 mins and doesn't need much thought put into it. But for Early Years staff, these activities are specifically and strategically planned to allow the child to get the best experience out of them, which will be both fun and rich in learning, and gives us an indication at where the children are with their development.

This is all done by the staff in the rooms; the nursery assistants, and the room leader, not the manager, and certainly not the owner! Nope, the staff who are the lowest paid in the country.

I hope this explains things a bit better, and hopefully, people can see that good nursery staff are not lazy, workshy people who stick children in front of screens all day so they can "have a rest". We work our backsides off

I would imagine the manager/owner of said nursery. Surely a planned programme is easier to implement and would make things easier for the staff if they knew what they were doing and when rather than making it up as they go along. I don't think I have suggested anyone needs to take work home (I did say teachers do, not nursery staff).

Who do you think would organise that 'timetable' and when? Who plans the activities that are on it?

Nursery staff are generally paid minimum wage, and no one on minimum wage should ever have to take work home.

Teachers are on a professional salary - not as much as it should be - but a lot more than minimum wage.

And am I really paying nursery fees for DC to be watching Peppa Pig when that’s something I can do for free at home

She can play with toys/ read quietly at home as well presumably. Most people are paying for childcare because they need somewhere for their child to go whilst they are at work or doing other things.

I don't understand the panic about a little bit of screen time. What do you think is going to happen?

I suspect they would prefer the nursery to be staffed to allow time in the day for observation recording etc. It was a little while back (2015-2020) that my two went to nursery but their key worker had less children than that and had planned breaks each day. The woman who looked after both of mine up to 2 had 3 kids. Nursery had a max of 6 under 2s in total and they had 2 staff who worked only with under 2s. One worked 7:30-3:30, one 10-6 and They flowed someone from the older room that had lots of kids 9-3 only into baby room in the morning/late afternoon to keep up the ratios. They also had a couple of staff who only came in 9-3 and covered breaks/obs time for the various rooms.
It seems to have got significantly worse for funding/staffing in a relatively short time as know our old nursery is also struggling.

I think unfortunately in-spite of higher rates for parents the overheads are up significantly and it’s probably no longer affordable to have floating staff to cover breaks and observations. It’s a mess really and not sure even changing ratios would help that much as you’d just have more kids to write about. 15 is a lot though. Is that due to having lots of part time kids?

@VeryHappyBunny well if the OP doesn't like it she is free to move her child to a different nursery.
It sounds like she was expecting 1 to 1 childcare - that's simply not going to happen in a nursery environment.

Well, as this woman appears to be completely unaware of any tv/laptop time and feels it has been concealed from her, i.e. her child being brought out to her rather her being able to see what happens for herself, it looks as if there is no account of the day, never mind a blow by blow one.

If she already knew this was happening, it is unlikely she would have even mentioned it on here.

@VeryHappyBunny a "blow by blow account" is pretty much what the staff have to do already.
Yes they have a timetable - "nap time" will be a scheduled part of that timetable.
@CantSeeTheDifference it's so sad that so many people have no clue what actually goes in a nursery every day. Well done on your 20 years 💐