Almost 3 year old hurting children at nursery.

[Verytiredmumofone]

My daughter started nursery a few weeks ago and the last few times i have picked her up the staff have told me she has hit a child each day. Yesterday was the worst as she scratched another girls face, leaving significant marks. They said there was no trigger just completely out of the blue. I have seen her do it at home when other family members children come to stay too so it's not the first time.
The nursery deal with it by reiterating gentle hands and discussing with her that we don't hurt our friends etc. When they ask her why, she says "because I want to."
She has great speech and is developmentally age appropriate and or advanced for her age.
I don't know how to stop the hitting. I feel like it's going to be every time she goes to nursery.
I'm 6 months pregnant so worried about new baby as well.

Anyone else's toddler go through stages like this?

I can understand that you’re worried. Do you think that the approach used by the Nursery is working?

When you’ve seen this behaviour at home, have you noticed any triggers like needing the loo, hunger, thirst or tiredness?

And it’s good that you say she’s advanced, I would still do this very simple progress checker. Let us know if it says she needs some support

How did you address this in the past when you saw this in your home?

I tried every method over the past year, nothing seems to make a difference. Sometimes I'd try a really firm, loud "no" and take her to a step and not talk to her for a few mins. I tried the gentle approach the most where I would talk about it wjth her and how "hitting/scratching hurts our friends." She would usually say thr right things jn yhr moment but it always happened again.

Did you get a chance to do the progress checker @Verytiredmumofone?