Supervising nursery children?

[guhdoo]

I sometimes take my child to a toddler morning at local nursery/childrens centre. Nursery and childrens centre share small outdoor enclosed decked area for bikes and sandpit and toys. Our playroom door opens out into this area as does the nursery. Toddler group(with parents) and nursery children (with some supervising staff) usually all go out at the same time to play. Last week all groups were out in the garden and as it was hot i took my child back inside to cool off for a bit, so did my friend who has 3 children. we sat on the mat and our children were reading books our group leader was not in the room. 2 of the nursery group children walked into our room and joined us on the matt for about 15-20 mins. Nobody came looking for the children and they left when they became bored and re joined their group outside playing.
I was very worried and felt that these children shouldnt have been left
alone with parents. My friend said i was over reacting as we should have shut the play area door behind us (but they are usually left open anyway) and that it was ok as the outside main door was locked anyway and they wouldnt be able to escape. My point was that none of the parents have had checks done and they could be anyone!
also a child dosnt have to have been taken off the premises for bad things to happen to them.
I feel really bad because the staff are lovely and i was looking foward to sending my child there soon, But am i being unreasonable to make a complaint? or am i totally over reacting?

YABU.

Yabu. The chances of anything happening to dc are so vanishingly small it is not worth worrying about. Compare this to the chances that they will get killed in a car on the way to or from nursery.

YaDNbu, 15 to 20 mins and they didn't check on the children? That's just negligent. Also when you leave children at nursery you don't expect them to be left to wander off and be unsupervised with some random people (even if they are parents).

I would have wod with the manager as it is not acceptable for this to happen. Parents with unsupervised access to other people's children should be crb checked or, as you rightly say, could be anyone. Imagine the worst and never be complacent. if ofsted were to inspect this happening they would be inadequate on safeguarding. sorry to sound like im over-reacting but i advise in settings, children centres and nurseries and this sort of practice would get practitioners/ managers into a lot of trouble. Hope that helps

YANBU.

No idea why people think it's ok for nursery staff to not actually be supervising the children they are paid to supervise for 20 mins

Just re-read the OP - so the nursery children effectively left the nursery premises and went into the other premises and no one came to find them?

I think that's awful.

YABU

you left the gate open, and the children followed you. if you were worried about them, you should have taken them back.

YANBU - as a room leader at a nursery I know the amount of policies that go with working in a nursery and you should always know where the children are - tbh I don't think it's safe for the children to be in the outside area all together - m&t's and the nursery due to CRB's etc.

This is a very unusual set up, I would say. My kids go to a Children's Centre nursery where there is a Stay and Play at the same time, but there isn't a shared area.

Although the chances of something unwanted happening are very small, there isn't adequate safeguarding in place and I think you should mention it.

actually i don't think you are being unreasonable

not from the point of view of something bad happening to those children, but if they are in a nursery then the staff of that nursery should ALWAYS know where they are. they just shouldn't be able to wander off for 15-20 minutes without someone coming to find them

The whole set-up sounds slightly odd tbh

yabu to complain about it, like previous poster said you should have brought them back if you were worried or else tell them to stick to their own area?
i don't think its a huge issue, but normally the nursery staff would have come and told them to come back in their own section or there would be a staff in the stay and play area to tell them to go back. we have similar layout in ours and the staff do tell them to go back to their areas were they can be kept an eye on. i think you could mention it to them but dont go in with a big ott complaint, just make the point or tell them what happened and leave it at that

Yes rosebud I agree it sounds odd, at our local children's centre they have one outdoor bit for daycare, one for nursery and one for stay-and-play.

Yanbu OP.

The building is one large building but seperate rooms our door is about 3-4 metres from the nursery door and all rooms have garden doors to play areas and front doors to front desk area. Each room also has its own adjoining toilet room. not sure if they would count as seperate premises though.

"yabu to complain about it, like previous poster said you should have brought them back if you were worried or else tell them to stick to their own area"

really???? the children were under the supervision of nursery workers... they should never have been allowed to wander off for any length of time. it isn't up to members of the public to ensure children at a nursery are where they should be

if your child was at nursery would you be happy that staff didn't notice they were missing for 15-20 minutes at a time??? cos i'd be bloody livid!

well i suppose you are right i would not be happy with it, but i would have wondered why the parent that's complaining did not sent them back, instead just kept them there and then complained later, iyswim?

the kids weren't 'missing' tho were they?

they were in another part of the building, through an open doorway

YANBU, although I do agree that the chances of anything happening are very small indeed. But it does sound like an unusual set-up, and certainly goes against OFSTED safeguarding rules. Adults who were completely unknown to the nursery staff and children and who hadn't been CRB checked had unsupervised access to the children.

I wouldn't make a complaint as such (after all, you could, and should, have closed the door and/or taken the children back outside after they wandered in). However, I would mention it to both children's centre and nursery staff in a kind-of 'What should we do if this happens?' way, and see what their reaction is- they should tighten up the supervision and make sure everyone is aware to keep the doors closed.

I once attended a toddler group held in a church hall, that has a nursery above it.

Someone from the nursery started bring 3 or 4 of the preschoolers down to the toddler group - which was fine... or would have been if she had bothered supervising them. Which she didn't.

The last time I attended, she had left 3 toddlers to 'take this one back upstairs', then didn't come back, leaving my friend and I to look after 3 toddlers that a) we had never met and b) we were not supposed to be caring for. Neither of us were CRB checked. The nursery worker didn't know either of us. We were just mums.

I complained to the nursery, but I also found 2 of the three mums (couldn't find the other, but hoped word got back) and told them what had happened.

they were "missing" for all intents and purposes.
they were in a room that was NOT part of their nursery or outdoor area. the staff who should have been caring for them did NOT know where they were or that they were safe

they wandered off without anyone noticing, and without anyone coming to find them

that's totally unacceptable IMO.

Utterly unacceptable - the staff are paid to supervise the children and they're not! Awful! YANBU.