About shouting at Pre School?

[mimisays]

I genuinely can't decide if I'm being a bit PFB about this, or if I'm right in feeling uneasy.

My DD started pre school in January, and although there are a few things which I'm not totally happy with, I'm generally fine with them. It is attached to the local school, but it's private and we pay for her to go there.

However today, I got there a little earlier than usual to pick her up, as I'd been at a meeting and I wouldn't have had time to go home and come back out. I sat in the reception area, and I was upset to hear a child (not DD) being shouted at. I don't mean a stern voice, it was very loud shouting. 'NO! Sit up straight NOW! Sit up straight, I will NOT tell you again!!' It made me flinch, to be honest, and another Mum said to me that it seemed quite unnecessary. The children are all between 2 & 4, so it did seem rather harsh.

In fairness, this is the first time I have heard anything like this. But I am usually there right on the dot for them coming out. DD has said a few times that the staff are 'grumpy' but I don't pay much attention to that, as she's 3 and she calls me grumpy when I won't let her have cake for breakfast!

I am prepared to give this the benefit of the doubt, but I would be very unhappy if this kind of shouting was a regular thing. How would you feel about this? Am I being silly or should I maybe have a word about it?

Thanks!

I sometimes do a loud voice in my nurseries, but it's an in control loud voice. Like headmasters have. It's often "IT'S TOO LOUD IN HERE could we use our indoor voices please" starting off very loud and getting lower to the right level for indoor voices. I have only ever properly shouted 3 times in 20 years. First was at a child attempting to stab another child in the eye with a fork. Second was another child about to hit a child over the head with a bike trailer. Third time was when we took the children to the school hall for a rainy day run round and I saw a child hammering on the fire alarm glass. It would have meant all 1000 pupils and staff being evacuated!
Sitting up straight is not a good enough reason.

I would think it very strange that they don't want to talk to you about your dd. that would be a bigger red flag for me than the shouting. I can understand that shouting does sometimes happen, even with very good practitioners. No one is perfect at their job 100% of the time.

I work in early years, one of the very lovely things about the job is telling parents about the wonderful things their children have done that day. I would say they don't genuinely care about the children as individuals if they don't want to talk about them ever.

Is there a parent committee? If so I would mention it to them. The manager must be accountable to someone and our preschool is run as a charity with a parent committee running it. YANBU, sounds very unprofessional

I work in a pre-school and we do not shout at the children even if they have been or are behaving badly. We always go down to their level and talk firmly but not with a raised cross voice.

I think the only time I have had to shout (we are based in a largish hall) was when one child was hitting another and in that case I used the childs name to get their attention to stop them whilst quickly going over and again I got down to their level to deal with the situation. Even then I didn't shout in anger just used my voice to gain their attention iyswim before someone was hurt.

YANBU
Trust your instincts about this place.
Also, remember that staff are being paid to take care of and educate children. They are not paid to shout at them (dangerous situations excepted). Having a job where I travel around primary schools means I am sometimes feckin horrified by what I hear. It wouldn't be acceptable behaviour in other professions but then people don't always believe kids' tales of being yelled at.

Sadly, I have used LEA Child Protection policies to report one incident and there have been several that I wish I had reported.