child injured at childminder, she is denying it not sure how to proceed

[yummytummy]

hello, i really hope someone can calm me down and give me some help and advice.

basically, i have an early start at work and have a childminder who has kids from 7-8am and drops youngest at nursery and eldest at breakfast club at school.

yesterday when i picked youngest (2) from nursery she had a large bruise under her left eye which was very large and swollen and looked like a black eye. nursery queried this with me as they noticed it in morning and i said it must have been at the childminder as when i dropped her there she was fine.

my older child (6) said that she was hit in the face with a bottle or the bottle fell on her or something like that while the childminder was out of the room. childminder claims nothing happened in her care and she saw no bruise when she dropped her at nursery at 8am. the nursery has recorded seeing a bruise at 8.20.

there have been a few issues with this childminder anyway but at the end of the day i am not happy to leave kids with her anymore. but unfortunately there is no-one else available in the area and work wont let me change my hours so i feel really really stuck.

i don't know if i should report her to ofsted as she has basically said its her word against mine and she is flatly refusing to accept responsibility. nursery have always notified me of everything straightaway so i know it didnt happen there. even if it happened and she didnt see it or whatever its the lying denial and trying to shift blame onto nursery or onto me i dont like.

aargh i am so upset although dd seems fine and played and ate well etc yesterday.

i know its long and rambly but please someone help and advise if possible.

Hmmm,
The nursery also didn't notice for 20 mins....
If it happened shortly before they left for nursery it wouldn't have come up in that time.
Did the nursery explain how they didn't notice for 20 minutes?Bit OTT to refer to OFSTED. All sorts of knocks and scrapes happen.
Oh, and it's not breach of contract so if you want to take them out the notice period will still stand

If the bruise wasn't visible until 8.20am, then I guess the options are either that it happened at the CMs while she was out of the room and didn't come up til later, or that it happened at the nursery.

If both CM and nursery are denying responsibility and you have no proof either way then I'm not sure if Ofsted can do anything.

Whatever the truth is, it sounds like you don't trust the CM, which is a deal breaker really.

Accidents do happen even with the best of childminders, but I'd be concerned about her attitude, especially the 'your word against mine' comment. Any childminder worth their salt would concede it was possible something might have happened and show some concern for the child. She doesn't sound like a nice person tbh. Not sure what Ofsted could do about it though.

i guess thats it, i dont trust her and i think will never know 100% exactly what happened.

thanks for comments

can i just ask though, why would it not be a breach of contract? i honestly dont feel comfortable now leaving them there for other previous issues too.

Because a small child accidentally getting hit by a bottle at the cm's / or possibly at nursery does not constitute breach of contract.
Breach of contract involves things like her consistently refusing to have your children on their contracted days. not everyday toddler events

Take it you're thinking of not paying the notice period??

An injury occurring that might not actually have happened at the CMs isn't a breach of contract, unless your contract guarantees your child will never get hurt in or out of the CMs care.

It does happen that a child hurts himself and doesn't cry, I know I looked after a little boy who would fall down, bump his toe, bump his head and would never cry! I had to look very closely if there was any bruising. I did report to the parents when needed. Child-minders have to cook, change nappies, go to the loo, we can't be in the same room as the children ever second of the day... and some children do bruise easily. I don't think this would deserve to report anything to Ofsted personally, but might be worth sitting down calmly with the child-minder and having a grown up discussion about it.

i realise that you cant be in the room constantly, and that accidents happen, thats not the issue, its more the flat out denial or refusing to even accept it could have happened while dd was in her care.

i have tried to speak with her but she has been very defensive and not seemed to understand why i am upset.

How do you know the nursery noticed it at 8:20 if they didn't mention it to you until you picked up? Why didn't they let you know as soon as they noticed an injury? I think it's a bit rough on the CM to automatically believe them and disbelieve her. I imagine she could be quite angry and hurt about that if it really wasn't her fault, and that could be reflected in her reacting more angrily than sympathetically.

Well to be fair, it could have happened at your house before you got there.

If you've gone in talking about breach of contract and reporting to Ofsted it's not surprising she's being defensive is it?!

If it happened when she was out of the room and DD didn't cry and the bruise didn't come up until 8:20am then as far as the childminder knows, nothing happened. She's not lying, if she genuinely doesn't know. Did your older DD say what happened after the bottle hit her? Did she cry/tell the childminder?

Everyone seems to be missing that the ops older child claims to have witnessed the accident at the childminders. Is she normally truthful? Why did she not speak up at the time? Was she involved, ie were they messing around, youngest got hurt, eldest one hushed her up to stay out of trouble? Can you be sure your eldest is telling the truth? In that case it isn't just your word against the cm.
It isn't breach of contract though. And I don't think it needs reporting to ofsted. I do think you need a good chat with her to get to the bottom of it though.

I think the childminder could have shown more concern.

I think if you don't trust her I would give notice. It's not breach of contract though.