To not know what to do now....toddler excluded from nursery.

[Shockedshell]

My 2.5yr old grandson (he lives with me) is no longer welcome at his outstanding, award winning, inclusive nursery.
I know he is a challenging child and it's almost certain he has additional needs, though he does not have a diagnosis just yet, but their decision has upset me greatly and I can't work out how to move forward.
The nursery have told me they had reached crisis point and have run out of strategies to manage his behaviour however, the nursery's application for funding to provide some one to one support was turned down by the SEN Early Years Panel. They said he is simply displaying toddler behaviour but the nursery strongly disagrees with this.
The upshot is I need to find alternative childcare ASAP or give up work but who will want a child that has already been excluded from one nursery and I have no idea how we will cope financially without my wage. Right now I don't think I could actually put my trust in another nursery but I need to do something. How do I work out what?

Thank you all for responding.....GS is now awake so I will have no time to.read and reply for a while but I will be back later.

I can't offer practical adivce on the nursery but I can help with ways to manage the transitions and waiting.

What do you have in place to help him cope with transitions?

Visual timetables are very good for kids with additional needs. You can make one yourself and there are lots of resources where you just print out the pictures and stick them in order you choose.

much like these www.sparklebox.co.uk/special-needs/visual-timetable/home-routines.html#.WFVEtOCLTnA

Obviously this means you need to keep a strict-ish routine with your DC but if it minimises the lashing it out it could help you enormously and the knock on effect would be that you could transfer it to nursery/alt childcare and that should help minimise some of the anxiety.

I used one for my DC to help with morning routines - this one was rigid and never changes - and to plan the weeks activities so nothing would be a 'surprise' we had removable cards to stick on the timetable for dentist, doctor, bus journey, shopping trip etc.

I'll be honest it is a faff, you have to be focused with it and make sure you plan and remind DC in the morning what's happening in order. I'd snap a photo every morning of it so we could take it with us. That was very helpful.

The waiting bit. Something really simple as a timer could help you out there. A big bright one that measures in minutes. A toddler can't be expected to wait for very long but using a timer to measure a minute or two at a time to practice waiting might help.

We used a timer here a lot for things like dinner if it was going to take 20 minutes I could set if for DC so DC knew when the timer goes off its dinner time and DC could see how much 'time' was left.

Big colourful egg timers might be a better bet with a toddler though. a bit like this. www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B015SDGVMY/ref=twister_B00SK5V68W

You can double this up for things like teeth brushing and use it in small games so your DC gets used to it.

Ask the nursery to help you in applying for an EHC Plan. That way, even if they won't have him, there will be funding in place for somewhere else to provide support.

To those suggesting the nursery arent trying hard enough, if there isnt the funding available for 1;1 support what are they supposed to do? They will be quite possibly struggling with costs as it is without being expected to cough up for a 1:1 themselves.

It must be pretty bad if they have decided they can no longer cope with him.

Op it might be useful to put this on the adoption board as many of us have/are raising children with challenging behaviour.

If he's looked after then SS need to provide you with the financial support you need. Be that enhanced allowance to pay for specialist one to one care or to cover the costs of your wages if you have no option but to leave your job. Can you contact his IRO to push the issue? You are taking all the responsibility for this issue and you don't even have parental responsibility. Don't let SS leave you with the complete burden of this.

We had a nursery that were similar. She wasn't excluded but we moved her as they were useless! What about a Sen nursery? Some mainstreams are better than others. My dd has autism and she's nearly four and goes to a small mainstream in a local village hall and they are fantastic. They've done her some visuals and she loves it there. Sometimes outstanding just aren't best and they're not as inclusive as they say they are. What area are you in? We've got a preschool autism team and from there a specialist teacher. Get your social worker onto it.

Well the preschool where my kids went had £90,000 in the bank. If the OP' s grandson had come to us we'd have paid for 1:1 for him out of that whilst applying fighting for funding to support him. That's what "inclusive" means. But I've no idea how unusual that is, as it is the only preschool I've been involved with.

What I do know is that as a looked after child the OP' s grandson will have priority access to educational settings once he is 3 (and entitled to 30 hrs per week) - he may even be entitled now due to his looked after status and special/behavioural and emotional needs.

OP get on in the phone to your social worker - they can tell you what he's entitled to. And start looking for other nurseries to see where you'd like to send him.

user1480946351 - i have to disagree! I don't believe the nursery have done enough to support this little boy! Especially a nursery who are graded as outstanding and inclusive!
Of course the nursery does need to consider all of the children when making decisions, however I don't believe 4 weeks is enough time to try behaviour management strategies!
Coming from someone who works in one of these settings, being refused funding isn't enough to exclude a child based on struggling to manage his behaviour.
I used to work in a nursery who paid for all of the staff to go and do additional training on behaviour management because ONE child will have benefited from it.
Another example is If a child comes into the setting who cannot speak English, they need extra support with their learning, the nursery i worked in paid for all of the preschool children to have French lessons once a week to help the child fit in and to help the others communicate with them.
It seems difficult behaviour is often viewed as just that - challenging, difficult and easier to get rid of.
As professionals we are trained to view the setting as the problem if it cannot meet the needs of the child - therefore we tailor the setting - this nursery seems to have viewed the child as the problem and got rid of the child.
Believe me I am totally aware of how difficult it must of been for the staff! If this mother was saying this had been an ongoing issue for 6 months and the nursery really had done their best then fair enough, but I haven't heard much to show he was a danger to others and four weeks is a really short time.
My advise would be to report them to ofsted, they don't sound very deserving of their grading.

I used to be a trustee of an outstanding local preschool and we had to make the awful decision to ask one of our children to leave as we couldn't manage his behaviour without him having 1-1 supervision, which given the amount of funding we received from the council just wasn't financially viable.

He was attacking the other children on a daily basis, one little girl ended up with a broken arm after he hit her with something and we realised after that we couldn't guarantee the safety of the other children or him.

Its difficult to say if the nursery are being unreasonable until we know what behaviour he was exihibing that was deemed unacceptable.

What an awful situation to find yourself in. I would say a childminder would be a far better option - my DD1 had ADHD and couldn't cope at all with the nursery environment, it was too noisy, busy and completely over-stimulated her. Do you have any family or friends that will fill the gap until you can sort something?

I didn't think due to inclusion that they were allowed to exclude a child, especially with SEN issues. Is that not discrimination. Yes I know it must be hard for the nursery, but. They sign up for the fact that some children may have more needs than others. When they go into that line of work.

I attended a council nursery specifically for children with challenging behaviour and/or family set ups (the latter in my case). This was the early eighties. Do such nurseries no longer exist?

www.grandparentsplus.org.uk

Shell I am also a grandparent caring for a GS with SN. My GS was diagnosed by a paediatrician aged 3 and when he started school got 1to1 help which he still receives now aged 11.
We were lucky enough to have an amazing nursery. Not sure I would have managed without them.
If you GS is a LAC are you receiving fostering or kinship care allowance ?
SS won't necessarily offer it as they are so short of cash but IMO you should be getting support from them if they placed GS with you.
I didn't as we took over GS's care before they became involved so they considered it a private arrangement.
DLA is also a possibility but I don't know if you can get that without a diagnosis. CAB are a great help in filling in the forms. Do you have a GP who can hurry things along ?
There are lots of other things to think about such as attachment disorder and possible prenatal exposure to drugs or alcohol (apologies if this doesn't apply in your situation).
All I can say is it does get better. From being an almost uncontrollable toddler my GS is now performing at an average level at high school and will hopefully improve.
Grandparents plus, link above, are incredibly helpful and informative. They have a section for kinship carers. I also belong to a very good FB group to share experiences and information or just to offload.
Please PM me if you'd like details of the group or there's anything else I may be able to help with.
I am no expert but am a bit further along the road than you.

I think the nursery have let your GS and you down badly. See if there's a sen nursery in your area. Also you can apply for DLA without a diagnoses. Good luck, you're an amazing grandparent

I know a foster carer who is also approved by Social Services to do daytime only childminding for families in not a dissimilar situation to yours. I wonder if going back to your grandson's social worker and seeing if that would be a short term solution whilst getting things like an EHCP (if you're in England) in place.

I'd also get on to the paediatrician and see if they can either directly liaise with the Early years sen department (my area doesn't a specific notification to education for preschoolers with SEN) or put something formal in writing that GS's difficulties are beyond that of a typical toddler and they need to review their decision. I wouldn't be sending him back to that nursery but he is going to need extra support in a new setting.

Do also try IPSEA www.ipsea.org.uk/ and SOSSEN www.sossen.org.uk/ to get some ideas on the legalities of SEN education.

Maybe didn't make it clear enough but Grandparents Plus and also the FB group should be able to advise you on your financial rights and also the position with nurseries.
I don't know if it applies to nurseries but certainly we found children with SEN get priority with school places.
SS are incredibly overstretched so if you need things done quickly I would try to find out as much as you can yourself.
Good luck.

I don't have any practical advice, but my heart goes out to you all. Just one thing - please don't use the sparkle box link as it's run by a twice convicted paedophile.

The behaviour you have described isn't particularly unusual for children with sn of nursery age. I would be looking at school based nurseries or those attached to childrens centres as they are usually more clued up about sen and at getting funding for 1-1 support. The downside can be them being less flexible about hours.

OP if your social worker appears to be at a loss contact her manager and request a planning meeting with social worker, manager and the IRO. They will invite any other relevant professionals. Cheaper for LA to put special arrangements in place than to move him to foster care where the carer will be entitled to a higher rate because of your aGS's special needs.
Good luck

I didn't think due to inclusion that they were allowed to exclude a child, especially with SEN issues. Is that not discrimination

No, it isn't. Think of it this way; say you have a ratio of 1 adult to 8 children, but one child needs one to one care. You simply can't provide that unless you get the funding for another staff member to work solely with that child. What do you want them to do, ask 7 other children to leave the nursery so they have enough staff?

Of course there should be enough money, enough staff, enough everything so that every child can access all services, but there isn't. Please don't blame the staff only doing their best, it isn't their fault.

YY to school based or Council run nurseries. They will probably have the resources to help your GS, or know of agencies that can help, and what funding is available. My ds who is 5 used to go to a private nursery, he has dev delay and speech delay, but used to be fine at nursery, though lost and just kept himself to himself. They got funding for a 121 for him to help bring him out.

It was EY funding, his needs were not as profound as your GS, but he got it.

please don't use the sparkle box link as it's run by a twice convicted paedophile.

Try this one instead:

www.twinkl.co.uk/

Can you change your days of work?

The nursery hasn't done anything wrong in holding up their hands and saying they cannot manage his behaviour. As awful as this is for the OP, it is better that they are honest. There are other children to consider, and the parents of those children as paying customers certainly would have a right to object if the nursery staff were giving a disproportionate amount of their time to one child who really needs 1:1.