anyone else a bit suspicious about this nursery whistleblower doc?

[minouminou]

she doesn't half seem to be good at getting jobs
unless the buttons and mark warner jobs were 2 out of many she applied for

Well, this is very edifying for sisterhood. Not.

blueshoes i disagree.

if a child is in daycare for the majority of it's waking hours, no amount of stable loving home is going to mitigate the fact that it is the quality of the relationships in daycare that are going to count.

Such places have an extremely high turn over of staff because conditions and wages are poor.

sophable, there is the quantity v quality of time spent with parents argument. I am aware that there will always be people who take the view that it is the quantity of time that is important such that if a child spends 12 hours awake and 8 of those hours are in daycare, that the parents' influence is diminished by 2/3rds, just to give a crude explanation of that view. The corollary is that if a child spends a long time in daycare, then it is the carer that becomes the main influence rather than the parents.

I have to disagree with that quantity argument. Based on my own experience and those of other working parents who DO use childcare. No matter how good a relationship a child has with a carer, the child almost invariably does not even a skip a beat if that carer changes, provided the parents continue to provide a stable environment. If the relationship is bad, then of course I would change it. After all, once children who never attended school start, does the parent suddenly experience a loss in importance?

I think it is clear from previous posters that working parents don't and won't live with substandard care.

I thought the programe was not evenly balanced, I too would have liked to have seen some nurseries that excel but I watched the programme feeling shocked and deeply saddenned at the awful childcare shown but also relieved and proud of my ds nursery that I trust and respect and am so grateful to. I felt fired up though and feel that us mums should unite and get these useless nurseries, chilminders etc shut down. I think our society needs to really wake up to the fact that we need to protect the vulnerable ie. the young and old and pay decent wages for quality care as it is the very least that our children and elderly deserve.

I also thought the programme was biased and at times, irrelevant. For example, I noticed that MW was noted as offering a parent listening service... and then criticised the company for only listening to the children (and not watching them!). I mean what do parents expect when they sign up to a listening service?

I think the problem with the whole programme is that it did not account for parental responsibility in any way shape or form. Surely responsible parents should ensure that their child goes to a good nursery / has good care etc. We don't just choose the nursery on the basis of a good ofsted, but we also make our own decisions because it is our responsibility as parents. That is what many of the parents have been doing on here, but it was completely overlooked by the programme.

Equally, we cannot just say that all childcare is bad... its a rash and immature generalisation, even dare I say it, an unintelligent response. The fact is some parents are good, some are bad (I know of some children who were put into care because their stay at home parents did nothing to look after them properly), equally, I know of another mum with bad pnd for a long time, her child needed to go away with granny during the day... parents are not always the best option. Furthermore, there is the issue of the child's standard of living to account for. Living in poverty so that the child does not have childcarers may not be the best option either. I know of an 8 year old who was never been to the theatre, never had a holiday, never had a birthday party, never has new clothes, or new toys or any of the things we take for granted because the mum does not want to work... Surely there must be some limits to when we should say it would be better for the mum to work (or are we really going to conclude, that the child should starve, just so the mother does not work!?!)

I also know of one granny who was secretly smacking the child behind the parent's back, because she did not agree with the way her daughter was raising the child. As we have seen on this site, grannies may seem a great option but they may also be inclined to do their own thing when the parents are not there.

Which then leaves us back with childminders and nurseries. Indeed, some are great and others are pants. But as parents we have to choose the right ones...

Which brings me back to my original assertion... As parents it is our responsibility to bring up our children the best way we can... for some mums that will mean staying at home, for other mums it will mean working and finding suitable childcare. We all do the best we can and take on the responsibility for our children - which at the end of the day is our responsibility.

I think this programme was an easy swipe. Its fashionable and trendy to have a go at nurseries etc. If the programme had tried to look at irresponsible SAHMs, there would have been uproar - yet they exist too.

Hmm, load of waffle, but I think there is a point in there somewhere!

Elkat I agree parents should take responsibility and as you say choose a "good" one but like most things in life it isn't so simple. For example a nursery near here which is highly praised by parents puts babies in Smart Price nappies while charging parents for Pampers and the child is only put into the Pamper nappies when someone arrives to collect them. Many of their staff earn below national average wages and really don't put in a great deal of effort one supply nursery nurse was reprimanded for "playing" with the child when that wasn't in the planning.... but the nursery knows how to put on a "good" show when visitors are around. Some parents would get a real shock!

I wouldn't trust Offsted on their own to make up my mind about any childminder/nursery/playschool/school. I would ask around locally, among the people with day-to-day experience. No inspection is going to be as good as talking to a child who has been to that nursery/CM for several years. The best thing we can do to out bad childcare is to stick together as Mums, talk to the people around us. In a closely community, word is going to get around pretty quickly.

In dc's circle of a total of 9 cousins, 1 has been in fulltime nursery care, 3 have had almost exclusively SAHM, 2 have had more irregular nursery care, and 2 (my own) have had a combination involving SAHM some days, SAHD, childminder and playschool. All of these children are very happy with what they've had and are very close to their parents. I honestly wouldn't be able to tell the difference from their behaviour.

We all know that not all nannies, CMs or nursery staff are good, and that even some good ones slip up from time to time. But then even some good parents slip up from time to time. If you haven't noticed it with yourself, you can always read about it on Mumsnet

I have woked in a number of nuseries and unfortunately this stuff does go on i.e young inexperienced staff shouting at kids etc ..even in some so called good nurseries.

at the end of the day, if you are not there then you don't really know what is going on, except if your child is old enough to tell you..and even then not always

I know that there is not always a choice, but best place for pre schoolers is one on one care at home.. just my opinion

I don't agree that you cannot know what's going on. I think you can know a lot from the general atmosphere and how to children relate to eachother and their carers. You cannot have a nursery where the staff don't play with the children and shout at them without parents picking up on the vibes. I think its a lot of scaremongering going on and the daftest thing I hear is this "you don't know what's going on". Of course I would know if my child was not happy and treated well. How daft!

I agree with Lupo the best way of finding a good nursery is to ask around locally. I placed my child in a nursery who always has a waiting list and never advertises, they just use word of mouth. Have just noticed a new website where you can write reviews about your nursery and read other parents reviews www.squarebee.co.uk Would have found this really valuable when I was looking around. Hope this helps

Fairymum, i have worked at nurseries where babies have been crying alot of the day, and left to do so, but are picked up and quickly occuiped and bounced around on someone's keen so they are happy and smiley when mum comes.

Yes you can pick up on vibes and atmoshere and certainly find out from preschhol age how there day has been, but at the end of the day if you have a young baby in from 8-6pm, they cant tell you what there day has been like. No memeber of staff will tell you that they left your child to cry for 20 min before picking them up either..

Yes there are good nurseries out there, but these sorts of things that were showed in the programme do go on. Do you think that all the parents at Buttons nusery knew that there kids were being treated like that and still left them there. They weren't there so they didnt know.

I am not saying all nuseries are his bad, but these things do go on. sorry if I am upsetting anyone, but if you use childcare you need to know both sides of the story. I often think it is a good idea to drop in unannounced from time to time just to guage the atmosphere and see how your child is in the day rather than just at hometime. I only post as a parent and as someone who has worked in nuseries ..

Agree Fairymum. And remember, children start to become verbal from 2. Or maybe I am so deluded the neglect ONLY happens in the Babyrooms.

I suppose that when the nursery workers happily tell me what dcs did during the day, relate their idiosyncracies that only someone who observed them all day will notice, write reams and reams in their development books which tie in very every milestone and minutiae of their development and when it happened. Why on earth would dd give and get hugs from so many of the carers when she went back to visit after her graduation.

Of course, I must have imagined it. I am in denial.

lupo on Sun 09-Mar-08 19:57:15
"I have woked in a number of nuseries and unfortunately this stuff does go on i.e young inexperienced staff shouting at kids etc ..even in some so called good nurseries.
...
I know that there is not always a choice, but best place for pre schoolers is one on one care at home.. just my opinion"

Errr, that would be because Mums are never inexperienced and never shout at kids?

forgot the emoticon:

blueshoes, thats brilliant if you have found such a good nusery, but what I am trying to say is that some of the stuff that was shown on the whistleblower does happen in nuseries, i have seen it with my own eyes...

Maybe it doesn't happen in all nurseries but it can and does happen.

Cory Mums shouting at their own kids is one thing, but someone else shouting at my child when they are supposed to be looking after him ...no thanks.

anyway, each to their own i guess

Also, does "one-on-one" care mean the parent does not have any other children at home? Not likely to be the case.

Lupo, two things (I cross-posted with you BTW): parents can open their eyes more and parents who do use nurseries can be given more credit for their observations of how good the nursery is.

I personally feel my dcs' nursery is a good one. As regards shiny happy babies at pick up time. That is 6 pm. The ones sitting on the carers' knees are the grumpy and tired ones. They don't tend to be the smiling happy ones. From the sign-in register, it is clear that parents are collecting their children throughout the day, not just at 6 pm. So really quite difficult to keep up pretences.

As for babies crying all day. Surely carers get sick of hearing crying as well? When I was concerned that dd could not settle after I left, the staff told me they would call me if she was still crying after 20 minutes, because they don't want the other babies to become upset. And I sat for hours in the babyroom, with an 8-week settling in period. And visit unannounced. And peep before I collect.

And there isn't a high turnover of children either. So I am probably not the only parent who is happy with the care there.

I will have to disagree with you Lupo. I don't disagree that there are many bad nurseries out there and I believe I have been to some of them. I must again disagree with your "parents can never know for sure" view, because

1. I don't think you can suddenly create a lovely happy atmosphere in a nursery in preparation for parents arrival. Not even in the baby rooms. As I said in my earlier post, you cannot spend the whole day ignoring their cries and then bounce them up and down on your knee for a bit when the parents pull up in the carpark.
2. Agree with Blueshoes that the ones on the carers lap are ususally the tired, grumpy or just new babies who need a bit extra that day.

3.Parents pick up throughout the day and the nature of having a baby in the nursery is that you often have to pick up a sick child in the middle of the day.

1. In the nurseries I have been to the baby rooms are always linked to the other rooms, ie. the older babies would hear if the babies were crying and the whole atmosphere would be awful. We all know one crying baby can set the other babies off and who want an environment like that?
2. If nursery staff always reported a happy baby I would be suspicious, but the staff I have come across have alwasy been quite open and honest with my if any of my children have had a wobbly day and been tearful. I think if I had a baby who cried a lot, I would find it distressing knowing they would wait longer to be picked up in any childcare setting than at home. However, my babies have not been cry-babies (sorry for the silly term used here) and have thrown themselves into the sandpit from 7 months without looking back.

Why do I keep defending nurseries? Because I hear so many pregnant women saying they want to go back to work, but don't trust anyone to look after their children. They are scared because of all the negative stories. I think if you want to be a SAHM you should do it because its what you want and not because you are too worried about childcare Unfortunately it seems even when people like me and Blueshoes post how happy we are with our nurseries, people think we don't really know waht goes on behind closed doors. Yes we can, because the doors are not that closed. Its not a dungeon you know!

Have read this discussion with interest. I am a parent with 2 children at Buttons Day Nursery which featured on the Whistleblower Documentary. I write here not only as a parent but also as someone who has experience in childcare and education.

Firstly this programme was a prime example of hack journalism. Whilst some of the footage did make uncomfortable viewing. It was also extremely biased and completely misrepresented the nursery. How can you expect a person who, by her own admission had no experience in childcare, to give a balanced view on nurseries?

What I have learnt from this experience is: do not believe everything you see on television.

Personally I have never relied on OFSTED reports to make judgements on the nursery and schools my children attend. In my opinion they only 'scratch the surface' and are more about ticking boxes. When I made made my judgement on Buttons I took the following things into consideration:

Children: Are the children happy / engaged / confident / polite?
Activities: Are they interesting / well organised?
Environment: Clean? Do the children have space? Different areas (ie messy play / quiet areas etc?)
Display: Is the children's work displayed? Are the displays changed regularly?
Food: Nutritious
Staff: Turnover / Attitude
Local recommendation / Comparison with other nurseries

As far as the wider childcare debate goes..
I think it comes down to balance. Although Buttons Nursery is open Mon-Fri 8am - 6pm. I do not know of one child who is in there full-time. I think nurseries are great for developing social skills and for providing structured play activities but my children also have Mummy days too. Not everyone has these choices but everyone does try to do the best for their children.

The Whistleblower programme has caused me to reflect and question my judgement but I still maintain that Buttons is a good nursery that was poorly represented on the television. Most parents have stood by the nursery and most importantly my children are happy.

Ozack, thanks for posting, interesting to hear from someone who actually send their kids to buttons nursery.

Just interested in whether you will be keeing them there? Must admit the workman with drills, ratios and the way the children were spoken to did make uncomfortable viewing, whether this is hack journalism or not is debatable, but what they shoed on tv - eg language to kids etc did happen..

I honestly think you know when your baby/child is happy. Perhaps not everyone does but I felt I did and moved DS twice until we found a nursery he cried for when he couldn't go and I have moved dd once because I just knew she was not happy. I also know she is happy now at what I think is an excellent nursery.

Having said all that I think babies probably prefer to stay at home but life is not that easy and like everything we have to balance financial needs/debts.

There are crao nurseries and there are crap childminders. There are also crap parents.

There are also excellent parents and nurseries and several in between!!!