Child attacked at preschool - need advice on how this has been handled

[Preschoolpickle]

My 3 year old has been attending preschool since January. He has settled in very well and seems to really enjoy it. My older child went there too and it has always been excellent.

Last week he was attacked by another child. The accident report says that it was unwitnessed by staff. It took them several hours after the incident (time written on the accident report) to phone me to let me know. The accident report followed later that evening. I phoned the GP for advice on his physical injury and they advised taking him to minor injuries, fortunately no lasting damage.

The manager informed me that the child that attacked her has SEN, and is ‘very fast and very unpredictable’, and has attacked another child once before and has hurt staff. This week I have been in for a meeting to discuss it.

My main concerns are the length of time between the incident and them phoning me, and the fact that this wasn’t witnessed by staff. Given that the other child is a known risk, it feels like a supervision and safeguarding failure that they weren’t being watched. In the meeting they advised that they would keep a closer eye on the child in future and try to keep them away from my son but they couldn’t guarantee it won’t happen again. I’m still worried, and I just don’t know what to do. I’m loath to move him when he’s so settled there, but I am concerned.

I could really do with some advice. In this situation, would you move your child?

I wouldn’t move your child for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, there is likely to be a high needs child wherever you go, that will impact your dc. At the moment, this is a known quantity and the nursery are taking steps to deal with it. They will be learning what does and doesn’t work, when the critical moments are. In another placement with another dc, they may not have got as far with understanding how to manage the new child’s behaviour.

Stay on top of it- check in each day that there have been no incidents and that they are confident in their ability to supervise all the children and keep all the children safe in this scenario.

The staff sound negligent. If they can't keep your child safe you need to move him to a different nursery.

Presumably the other child doesn't have 1:1 so it's not going to be possible on a 1:8 or higher ratio to supervise every child constantly. In a nursery class there is probably more than one child needing to be kept an extra eye on.

In terms of not calling you til later, did you need to go to the nursery immediately?

What was the injury?

No 1:1. They would probably argue that I didn’t need to go and get immediately, but I did collect him as soon as I was told, and was advised by the GP it needed to be checked at minor injuries.

It was on the face, very close to the eye. It was significant and may scar.

Thank you. This has crossed my mind! There’s no guarantee this wouldn’t happen elsewhere.

I work in a SEND school - if it happened to a child in my charge then I'd want them checked out asap for something like that. Shouldn't be left til end of day. Was any first aid given?

did they use something that wasn’t a toy to cause the injury - sounds like quite a strong child to cause an injury like that. (Though I remember seeing a little girl move to push my child hard towards the sharp corner of a brick wall so do get that kids can be incredibly impulsive and strong sometimes).

can you politely ask the nursery if the Sen child will be staying at the nursery?

you never know the nursery may be working out how to show they can’t meet the needs of the SEN child / I would not be comfortable because the nursery has pretty much explicitly said they are struggling to look after the impulsive little one, which is a worry.

Your concerns are all valid, and you need to read them the riot act.

They should have contacted you immediately.

You can demand that all future attacks result in a call made to you immediately, no matter how serious. Your child should not be left to face the day without you after being bitten, hit, knocked over, hair pulled, etc. This will.put the school on notice that you are taking the monitoring and safety issues seriously and they need to too.

It is not up to the school to decide what injuries are serious enough to warrant medical attention. Any injury to the head should be a reason to contact the parents.

Also, it's pretty standard in preschool or nursery settings to wait to see if there's a mark left before writing up a report. It's a dishonest practice designed to keep parents in the dark about the true scale of the chaos.

Ask your child about the child who injured him. Ask how this child normally behaves.

The staff haven’t been able to ensure your childs safety by saying they can’t guarantee it so write a letter to the head detailing this as per their formal complaints policy. Basically remind them that you can call Ofsted / Sue.

they must be able to guarantee your child safety. The other child needs a plan and risk assessment

They told you the child had hurt another child.

They must guarantee it doesn’t happen agsin

(I work in a send school)

Thank you all.

As far as I know the other child is stayIng after September. The preschool have told me that the other child has their own individual risk assessment. I’m not really sure what that actually means if I’m honest. The manager told me that they can’t offer 1:1, apparently it’s ’bad for the child’ to have an adult on them all the time, but will watch more closely, although they couldn’t tell me it won’t happen again.

I know that I can report to ofsted and if I move him I will do that. Their ‘inclusion’ policy has meant that preschool is unsafe for my son. I’m concerned about the upheaval of moving somewhere else when he’s so settled and it feels fundamentally unfair that he’s the one potentially having to leave the preschool he loves when he’s done absolutely nothing wrong.

I just can’t decide what’s best for him. To move or not to move?

Reporting to Ofsted won't do anything, I know that always gets mentioned, but it won't help in any way. Good that the child has a risk assessment, at his age he is probably not fully diagnosed yet and doesnt have an EHCP, which would say if 1:1 needed and come with funding towards that (though a pitiful amount). I think it is best to leave him there settled and monitor the situation going forwards. Hopefully they will be trying to monitor more closely if they can.

Do expect more of this as he gets older and moves into school though, the latest SEN paper the government have put together basically means children with higher needs in schools with less funding for their support. Essentially this means it will be very difficult for those working in education to keep all children safe, whilst also helping all of them to learn, as there won't be enough money for enough adults. It's a shameful situation and not one likely to end soon.

Telling you about the other child was a breach of gdpr. That, on top of the incident itself and apparent lack of supervision of the child when their behaviour is a known risk, would make me question continuing to use the nursery. Was the incident recorded in an Accident book? Your child, and others, is not being safeguarded. Hope your dc heals well.

Everywhere there will be children with Special needs- the nursery will be aware of this and hopefully keep a closer eye.The risk assesment looks at if they can manage him as staffing/cohort is and what the risks are to children around him by his behaviour.
They cant tell you it wont happen again- might not even be the same child that injures your child next time.Does this particular child charge round hurting others all the time?

I really wouldnt move your child

You haven't said what the injury was- you said it was on his face, near the eye- was he bitten? hit with a toy? Pushed over?

They are allowed to share that a risk assessment is in place to help.ensure safety, they are not allowed to talk about the details of it.

I think moving your child after a one off incident is an overreaction. Not to downplay his injury, but this could happen anywhere.

Without focusing on the child who perpetrated it, which is a matter outside your control and is hopefully being planned for by the staff after this attack, could you gently and gradually support your child to develop strategies to eg avoid close proximity to others who are impulsive and violent, duck an approaching hand, turn his back, shout loudly and move fast if he feels threatened, etc? As a general thing? I can see that could be hard as it probably felt like the attack came from nowhere. You want him to feel relaxed and safe and not on edge all the time It’s a horrible thing to deal with but maybe something can come out of it in terms of your child’s development of resilience.

It’s really not nice that it happened and I hope it heals well. But preschool ratios are 1:13 with a qualified teacher and 1:8 with nursery staff so it’s impossible with those numbers to see everything. Every class is likely to have a child with SEN, and even with NT kids they’re still so young and can impulsively throw a toy or whatever without realising it might hurt a nearby friend. And it’s pretty standard practice to do some basic first aid like an ice pack or plaster and see how the kid goes before calling home. Nursery kids can get v upset over minor injuries then be off playing like it never happened 10 minutes later and then a phone call wouldn’t be needed and the accident form could done for pick up. In short, I’m sorry it happened but it could literally happen anywhere.

When you say attacked, was it sustained and no one intervened? Or was it a wallop and run? Do you know what happened?

Children do hit each other occasionally at nursery. Was your child injured?

I had an almost identical situation and did move my child after the nursery made it clear they wouldn't ask the violent child to leave. Unfortunately I now feel I gave them too many chances and left it longer than I should have done and if I had the time again, I'd move my DC sooner. They're now thriving at a new setting, presumably because they aren't living in fear of being attacked every bloody day. It isn't fair when your kid has done nothing wrong, but I had to get over that and just do what was best.

Sustained and unwitnessed. Child is injured quite badly.

Thank you, your experience is really helpful. I’m glad your child is thriving now.