AIBU regarding an incident at Nursery

[WillWisbey]

DD2 came home and said a boy had scratched her private area. He apparently had also grabbed the crotch of the friend she was playing with. We asked if she had spoken to an adult but she explained there was no adult around - which is worrying in and of itself - particularly as there are a lot of staff changing at the moment.

The nursery has by and large been superb and I don't want to affect their reputation by mentioning their name. We have been working with one member f staff for two years who we have found superb and so I phoned the nursery to talk to her. She is leaving the nursery shortly, so there is an element of internal politics. I shoudl be clear i was not phoning to complain, I just wanted to talk to a trusted member of staff.

The phone was answered by a director of the nursery who was evasive about the outgoing head of pre-school. I explained the situation. Instead of being shocked she told me I should be telling the head of nursery. In the past this has not been helpful.

After a debate about why I wanted to speak to the ex-head, I lost it and explained that I couldn't believe that an assault on my child was not the core issue and that at no point had she sounded at all worried or shocked by this.

Today DD2 has covered herself under cushions for an hour saying she is sad and stating this incident was the reason.

A few queries. Naturally we will meet with the director of the nursery after chatting through with the trusted member of staff. Similarly, by and large the nursery experience has been good and this boy we know has had issues throughout his time at nursery with a lot of children.

That said, I know the response from the nursery will be "I will inform the team leader" and then never hear anything about it again.

We are looking at withdrawing from the nursery, but equally what should we be doing? The complaints handling at the nursery is appalling and while a lot of the parents are happy with the general service, communication, incident handling and a director that is simply not empathetic and has regularly dressed down parents in public like naughty school children means there has to be some recourse - particularly over child safety.

Hi, I'm bumping this for you in the hope you get a response! This is terrible.
Have you seen the scratch? I wouldn't be happy about this behaviour either.
Do you know who the kids parents are?
How old are they?

Put all correspondence in an email is my only advice!
Hope you sort it soon xx

What is the governance structure of the institution? Does it have a committee you could complain to, or board of governors? You could also contact Ofsted.

Hi Elmo and Blue,

The complaints procedure is via the director. They appear to have reviewed a lot of CCTV that day, interviewed children and the ringleader of the boys has had his days reduced and is only in once per week and the ex-head was included in the meeting - which is always reassuring although she has less influence these days.

Like I say, the education and care for the girls over a two year period has been very good, so this seems like an exception, rather than an ongoing problem.

On balance we are of the opinion that trashing a good nursery's reputation over clearly a member of staff's mistake would be an overreaction. It appears from our children's statements that the boys were pulling the girls back to the group, but by the skirts which all of them know is wrong.

How sever should a one off lack of oversight be taken. Clearly the nursery has taken is seriously and taken action with both staff and children. Are we wrong to be satisfied with this response? Destroying the nursery's reputation seems excessive.

And yes, we know the parents from before nursery, we always keep an eye on the boy as while he is not a bad boy, he is highly unpredictable and the parents do not seem to register the behaviour as odd.

As a nursery worker myself it could be concerning behaviour, or just kids being kids I wouldn't be overly worried about that. What concerns me is the follow up, when you told them an accident form should be completed, I don't know the nursery in questions policies but usually when there are several incidents the parent of the child are informed and staff should shadow the child to prevent anything further, maybe ask them what the next steps are to put your mind at ease.