To think nursery should pay?

[Oneshoetwoshoe]

NC for this.

Our one year old came home from nursery with only one of her two very first shoes. The nursery was expecting Ofsted the next day so had had a huge clear out. They have subsequently searched high and low and emailed all the parents.

They're a lovely nursery, our baby is happy there and we're really lucky with our baby's key workers. They have both contacted us and offered to buy her a new pair together, which is really kind. However, we emailed the nursery, concerned that they appeared to be having to do so out of their own money, when we thought it was something that the nursery should pay, as a company, rather than what would be an hour's wage for two of their employees. Especially as one is very junior and the other pregnant.

Nursery have replied, telling us to clearly label our baby's clothes and that it isn't their policy to pay for missing property, as it isn't with other nurseries or schools. I get that with schools, when the children are responsible for their own things and I would never assume so with clothes, bags or coats etc, but shoes? I also don't really see how labelling would have helped in this case.

Either way, I don't know enough- really happy to be told IABU. I'm just sad we've lost one of her very first shoes, sad that we might have to buy more unnecessarily, given our financial situation and frustrated that it doesn't feel like the nursery are valuing their staff or responsibilities.

I agree with the general principle of not sending anything to nursery that you aren’t prepared to lose, but shoes are different. Children spend a lot of time in them and you should buy decent ones, which cost money. Assuming the parent has labelled them, they should come home from nursery with both shoes.

I agree with you. I think the nursery as a business should replace them as it has obviously been thrown away by mistake. There’s no way in hell I’d allow the keyworkers to replace them out of their own pockets though.

It really shouldn't be inevitable for so many clothes to be lost. Mittens and socks - sure, they can easily get caught up in other things. Scrumpled Tshirts and trousers might occasionally get left and put in the lost bucket. Each child however has one pair of shoes and one coat; you might put them on the wrong child, but leaving a child with none and chucking out shoes just sounds utterly chaotic. Ratios at this age are 1 to 3 kids, and "rooms" for this age are 9-12 kids; there isn't a need for the environment to be chaotic and that isn't at all desirable if the goal is happy kids. What else isn't noticed or left as not mattering? DS is older, we've lost and found a lot of mittens (possible some didn't come back, but common to turn back up weeks later) and he's occasionally been put in the wrong coat that we swap back. One toy illegally taken in got briefly lost and then found. That's it; ultimately not so much as a missing T-shirt.

Collected my daughter from nursery and her shoes in the cloakroom were a size to small and very well worn, some other parent or nursery worker had accidentally or purposefully swapped them. Never got them back it was very annoying.

The nursery should not have needed to have a clear-out in advance of Ofsted coming. This raises huge red flags for me.
They should replace the shoes. Most decent independents and some big chains would do this as a matter of course.

I think shoes are different from clothes, as the advice is to buy properly fitted shoes for little feet which are expensive. Fine if they get muddy or covered in paint, as they can still be worn, but losing them forces you to buy another expensive new pair.

The nursery was responsible for the shoes, and they lost them. Why should you pay for their carelessness?

You really do need to label every single item. When something drops or gets misplaced, it’s the only way to get the item back to the right child. It’s only going to get harder as they get older.

You can use a pen, but I find custom name labels work better because you can remove them when you want to resell or donate. They also stand out more and are very quick to apply. You can order them in huge packs that will seem expensive, but you need tons of them and the pack will last a long time.

Don’t let the nursery workers replace the shoes. They are ridiculously underpaid.

Even just caring for my one child, I have lost one of her shoes at that age. It just fell off somewhere as we went about our errands one day. I always bought the best for learning to walk soft shoes that only a few brands made back then so they were very expensive. I had to just accept it and buy a new pair. Thankfully she was close enough to moving up a size I could just do it a tiny bit early.

I own a nursery: we tell parents to label all clothing and shoes. It they don’t then we will not take responsibility for loss. If they do then we’ll cover it fully

Who in their right mind would just bin a shoe? Let alone one that's clearly brand new!

If you hadn't labelled the shoes then YABU - it'll be in the nursery T&Cs that parents must label everything.

Try Stikins, they're really good on shoes.

I do really struggle to understand a reasonable scenario where someone would just carelessly bin a fucking shoe mid week. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Like how much stuff are they binning hurriedly and why?! Where was the shoe? Aren’t they in a cubby? Didn’t they realise at home time that your child had only one shoe?

My only guess is its fallen onto the floor, someone has bunged it in "lost property" and someone else has emptied the "lost property" box in the drive to reduce clutter.

That's the only logical explanation.

Course they should replace them

They lost them

Clothes you can send in older stuff

You aren’t going to buy two pairs of shoes at this age as they do grow out of them