My child has been left out of every trip and outing with the nursery

[CuriousGe]

My DC has been going to nursery for a year.

The nursery takes the children on regular outings and trips to parks, garden centres and places like that. Pictures and snippets of videos from these outings are posted on the nurseries Instagram page often.

It came to my attention that my DC has never once gone on one of these outings or gone anywhere with the nursery, but the captions on the videos state that "all children at * nursery get to experience the great outdoors with them" and other similar captions portraying inclusivity.

After another of these videos popped up on my newsfeed I sent a polite message and asked whether those trips are only scheduled on certain days as my LO hasn't had any of those opportunities yet. They read it but I got no response.

I'm aware that my DC can be quite a handful but they do have special needs, as do %80-90 of the other children at this particular nursery.

AIBU to think it's unfair to include my child in any of these trips?

A mixture here, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with asking!

At the nurseries I worked in, when there was a special trip or visitor we had certain procedures we followed to make it fair.

So we sometimes had visitors ~ we had one of those companies that brings in some little animals for the children to see and hold, we had a puppet show company come in sometimes, and children’s entertainers sometimes towards special events. Now in this situation, if your child was in on that session all well and good. However if your child wasn’t in, we would invite them in for the event but a parent / guardian had to stay too. They only came for the event, not for example the whole morning. We tried very hard to spread the days out, some days were busier and we admittedly often aimed for those.

Trips were similar. A big trip, for example each year we took them somewhere Christmassy (local Christmas trails or a grotto or such) and likewise everyone was invited. We took responsibility for children booked in that day and other children were invited and had to have their parent, because we wouldn’t have the staff to match ratio otherwise. I don’t think we ever had a complaint about this, we certainly had some grandparents a couple of times who were the care givers that day. We only really did two what I call “big trips” a year (lasting half a day for example) - the Christmas one and a trip in the summer to a nature trail / a castle / farm / an outdoor adventure type place for example. These were the ones where everyone was invited. We never did a trip to a soft play I must say.

Smaller trips were more frequent and just done for the children in. I count these as trips where we went somewhere on foot, didn’t have lunch out or anything. These would be trips to a nearby woodland, the village shops, possibly to meet baby animals at a nearby farm down the road. These were on our standard permission form and we just took who was in. We tried to rotate the days for these so everyone got to go, and I think we did. I think the children who experienced much less were those who just did the afternoons because it was always much more practical and easier for us to do them in the morning, but yes, we make a big effort to change the day we did things to include everyone.

It’s definitely fair to say children missed events. Book Day was done on one day on,y, likewise Halloween. Easter stuff was done across a few days but the egg hunt was only on the day before Easter, (we were open all year round).

So I don’t think YABU - but they won’t answer on social media, go in for a chat, your child’s not been included, just ask the question, how are they planned? When is the next trip? Don’t go in all guns blazing but YANBU to expect your child to be allowed on trips like the others.

My mother was a part time SENS teacher and the only teacher who was qualified to drive the minibus (a special licence was needed). Therefore school trips could only happen for her class on the days she worked! Could it be as simple as that?

It could be that they have extra help for taking children on outings on the days your child isn't in nursery.

I can fully understand you OP as it's an awful thought when you feel that your child has been left out. Definitely speak to them in person and just politely ask.

Don't assume the worst until you've asked them, otherwise you'll just spend this time feeling cross/annoyed about something that may not exist! At our nursery, they always do fancy dress/red nose whatnot on a Friday and mine never attends on a Friday so doesn't do it. It's not the end of the world, it's not personal, it's just life - sometimes you miss out on stuff. We do other fun stuff on Fridays.

My youngest goes 3 days a week and had never been out on a trip either. The other 2 days I always see his nursery out and about, and on those other 2 days they have a lady come in and do a music group. And a gardening group. Which he also misses!

I think I picked the wrong days to send him!’

You’d think they’d change the days every half term or something

We used to do a specific risk assessment for each child and trips were staffed accordingly. And everyone went.

My son went to a special school where staff were of the opinion that, while a child might exhibit challenging behaviour, it was their job to manage it. It meant that no child was excluded from trips out, or residential visits unless it was physically impossible for them to join in a particular activity - so a wheelchair user wouldn't necessarily go on a hill walk for example, but other activities were on offer. Nobody missed out.
I hope you get some answers OP.

Even if they couldn't manage him, then that is something they need to discuss with you instead of just deciding it themselves. But I think don't jump to any conclusions just yet, speak to them and find out first. Hopefully it's not something as awful of just leaving him out.

Yeah, they need to communicate much better with parents.

@Knittedfairies

My son went to a special school where staff were of the opinion that, while a child might exhibit challenging behaviour, it was their job to manage it. It meant that no child was excluded from trips out, or residential visits unless it was physically impossible for them to join in a particular activity - so a wheelchair user wouldn't necessarily go on a hill walk for example, but other activities were on offer. Nobody missed out. I hope you get some answers OP.

It’s often not so much a case of managing the student’s behaviour but the public’s reaction to it. I’m a 5’2 woman and I do understand why people want to “help” if they’ve seen a 5’9 teenage boy punch me but it makes things a lot worse. Never mind the completely understandable reaction someone might have to being racially abused by a teenage boy who “looks neurotypical”.

Hopefully it’s just an over sight and now you’ve raised it then your child will be taken out too.

I have a friend who worked in a special needs school (senior school age so different to nursery), he used to take some children out when running errands for the school. He always took the children who literally did nothing but lay in bed or in their chair at home and go to school. The kids he took with him never were taken shopping or taken out in general so that’s why the school would do that.

Seems a little weird. So need to find out if trips

1)are thur and Friday only

2. they are mon to wed then he’s been left out and left behind, obv with a member of staff

If one then they need to spread trips over all day so all kid go

If two then why isn’t he going. If a risk then should have said to you can you come for an extra pair of eyes

My DD was never included on trips at Nursery but this was with my permission, she has a muscle condition and she needed a pushchair until well into Year 1 (in Year 2/age 6 now) so we decided it was too much for her, but it was discussed and DDs learning was not affected by not going to the Forest or the Shop etc. They adapted it, or I did the trip on a seperate day with her to involve her that way (I'm a single parent with limited AL so couldn't just take the time off).

This was a private Nursery but for NT children.

Search the Every Child Matters. Every child has a right to outdoor education.
They should not discriminate, they should be putting things in place to ensure your child is not deprived.

They left him out because they find him difficult. It is cruel.

Hello @CuriousGe

The nursery probably stick to set days for certain activities. My child attended 2 days per week so she missed Monday dance lessons and Friday sports in the field. The nursery also took the children on the bus/walks to a local farm/field on Fridays/Mondays as these days had the fewest children attending. So my daughter always missed out on these activities. It's disappointing when your child misses out but it may not be practical for the nursery to rotate.

Then the nursery should say ALL children go on trips

I really hope you get some clarification OP, i hope its not the worst case scenario.

Hi all, OP here.

To bring the thread to a resolution I've spoken to the nursery ahead of DS going back this coming week.

The nursery manager was quite amused that I'd picked up on DS never going on the trips. She was laughing on the phone and said I'm very funny, I don't quite understand the humour but there we are.

She said they tend to go out on Thursdays and Fridays and encouraged me to pay for DS to go in an extra day every week to better his chances of going on trips if it's important to us.

I can't really afford to spend another £200 a month on extra days just for the sake of him going on trips with them but didn't want to get into the financials with her.

I said that wasn't nessecary at the moment as I don't need the additional childcare, the current amount of days he does works well for me but I'm happy to swap one of them for a Thurs or Fri, rather than pay for an extra day.

She did say that this term they will try to shuffle things about a bit so that he is included in some of the trips.

Can you swap a day , as in does he go in while you work

Or can you swap your work days to a thud or fri

Does seem weird they never do trips mon to wed

Did you ask why

Not a terribly satisfactory answer from the nursery really OP...

If they can only run trips on Thursdays/Fridays for whatever reason (eg they’re only days the staff member qualified to drive the minibus works) they need to be clear about that. They also can’t be claiming they offer all children who attend the opportunity to participate in trips, because that’s not true - if a parent chose the place [partly] on the basis of that & had a record of the claim presumably the nursery could be in trouble for false advertising.

The whole you being “funny” thing & then suggesting the appropriate solution = you spending more money really isn’t great, as responses go.

Totally understand you not wanting to cause bad feeling, but would you feel able to ask for a schedule of planned outings for the coming term? If you’re able to swap your DS’s days (still can’t get my head round expectation you should pay for extra days if you want him to be included in trips) do? If there’d be space if you wanted it as an additional day there’s space to swap days.

Definitely keep track of correspondence & of your DS’ home-nursery contact book.

Hope that things are sorted more satisfactorily than this first reaction from this suggests & that your DS gets to have a lovely summer term including lots of Adventures with his wee nursery friends.

Grim response from them. Email and say you’re thinking about there response, can they confirm if there are going to be any trips on his days at all this term?

Wow, your nursery manager sounds like a smug cow. I’d be really unhappy about being fobbed off and laughed at like that, and that her response was “he can go on a trip if you give us more money”. Yuck.

Did you get any answers from yhe nursery @CuriousGe ** ?