Child burnt at a forest preschool

[Sugarbaby1]

Hey! Can anyone help? My 3 year old son attended a forest school preschool last week ( for the first time as it was a holiday club) and ended up burning his hand roasting marshmallows in their care. I ended up having to take him to A&E (for the first time since having him) to have the burn treated. How would you go about this as a parent? Because they have said they take risks at a forest school but I am just shocked as to how this could have happened? Advice please! X

Nursery should be reporting themsleves to Ofsted and HSE. I would check they have done this.

In my experience some Forest Schools are better run than others. I'd be interested to know what qualifications the leaders have. In principle there should be a Level 3 Forest School qualified person in charge on the day, but it's not regulated and there are an awful lot of people running expensive courses with no inspection body.

As they're working with kids under 8 they should be registered with Ofsted. Was is organised by a school/nursery, or an independent organisation?

Thankyou so much for all of your advice everyone. He is doing okay but it is sore and he has to be reviewed tomorrow to check for infection. The nurse did ask a lot of questions about how it happened and was also very shocked. The forest school said that he was being “independent” and they thought he had a good grip on the stick but it slipped and burnt him. He is 3 years old so I’m shocked that he was allowed to hold it himself! They then said that they had to leave him for a few seconds to stop another child falling off a log and that’s when Ig must of slipped. I have asked for a copy of their risk assessments and will be reporting it to Ofsted. I am still so shocked and have never seen a burn like it on a child in my life!

What happens next is you can sue them for negligence!

When you say you had to take him to hospital, had they called you to come and get him or did you just discover it at pick-up? Had they administered first aid?

I once took my year twos to an activity day where one of the sessions was toasting marshmallows and playing noughts and crosses with sticks and the risk assessment was off the scale. So much so that the next year I swapped it out for a climbing wall session because it was safer.

Yes they are.

They left a 3 year old alone by a fire, close enough to be toasting marshmallows, because they thought a child falling off a log was more dangerous?!
Unless that log was crossing over a piranha infested river that's just awful!

I’d want a meeting with them and a full explanation of how it happened, what went wrong etc. Have they had to report it to anyone themselves?

Only then would I decide what to do next re. reporting it etc.

Ok they need to be shut down and the management investigated. It's really simple:

• If you could potentially have a situation where the staff member would need to leave the child for a few seconds, you don't have enough staff to have 3 year olds toasting marshmallows.
• If a three year old is toasting marshmallows NOTHING means you leave them for a few seconds.
• How likely really is it that the child sustained immediately life threatening injuries? If they did not, then obviously there was no reason for the adult to leave your child.

Your poor DC, burns hurt a lot 😕 I’d be asking about what risk assessments they did before the activity. Your DC being burnt should not have happened.

oh I see you did ask. I would still ask for a meeting to discuss it.

Child falling off log is way less dangerous than child left with fire! But they clearly need more staff if they are doing fire pits with that age children and no parents on hand to help. I’ve been to forest school play sessions where parents stay so it was fine.

I should think the nurse was shocked, I am, 3 year old being independent, toasting marshmallows, ridiculous.

That is appalling. Ofsted need to be notified. Inadequate risk assessment, inadequate activity (marshmallows?!), inadequate supervision resulting in significant injury, inadequate reporting chain.

They left him unattended by the fire!? That’s negligent and must be reported to Ofsted. Far greater risk to life from falling into a fire or clothes going up in flames than from falling off a log. Sorry but these people can’t be trusted. I’m staggered that they left a three year old without direct supervision by a fire.

I really feel for you OP. This is horrible.

Marshmallows can be quite dangerous my lot like to set them properly on fire then pull off the blackened shell to eat the gooey inside which is the approximate temperature of molten lava. A trick they learned in forest school. I do think it a good for encouraging outdoor confidence.

No no no. They have been negligent , it must be reported (& that should be required of them) and the investigation must be conducted by professionals. This is well beyond the ops job. I loved forest school for my dc, they did whittling but never anything bloody stupid like this.

I was a beaver scout leader many moons ago.
At camps we would do fire starting with flints. We were risk assessed to the nth degree - one adult to 3 children and eyes glued to the kids the whole time. These were 6 and 7 year olds - not preschoolers.

Poor boy, looks so sore.

One, I’d be absolutely livid they left my child unattended by a fire.

Two, they shouldn’t have marshmallows at 3 anyway due to them being a huge choking risk.

Three, I’d be reporting to Ofsted and he wouldn’t be going again.

This is awful OP, feel for you! Hope it clears up quickly for your DS x

This sounds like an odd set up. I’ve never heard of preschool holiday clubs. Most who run holiday clubs stipulate 5s and over. Imagine if your child had put that burning hot marshmallow in their mouth!

I signed my 6 year old up for a sports holiday club and after getting sent a sleazy message from the organiser by mistake, did some digging and found out the club was just run by a random local family - no Ofsted, no DBS, no first aiders… absolutely shocking how unregulated summer holiday clubs can be!

This is such a depressing comment. Please don’t do this.

Forest school is usually a regular preschool run during term, not a holiday club.

How many staff are supervising the children? Surely every, single, one didn't need to help the child on the log? Leaving a 3yr old with a burning marshmallow, stick and fire is negligent!

OP I’m really sorry and hope your DS makes a full recovery.

I’m far from an expert in toddler childcare. But I do a lot of risk management as part of my job, and will say this. Good risk management doesn’t mean preventing bad things from ever happening. It means accurately assessing the likelihood of bad things happening, and their plausible severity, matching your risk-taking to your risk tolerance, and accurately communicating what that risk tolerance is.

Forest schools have a greater risk tolerance than normal nurseries. That’s the point. The children play on logs and run in the rain and practice using knives and roast marshmallows on fires. Inevitably that means a greater risk of injury, and parents accept that greater risk when they send their children to forest school instead of a normal indoor nursery where children are more protected.

I don’t know whether the forest school was negligent in this case. But I do know that the mere fact that a child got burned does not prove negligence. Even in the best run forest schools, there will be a chance of this happening. That doesn’t mean it happens regularly, but there will always be a chance.

Is it a preschool or actual holiday club? I’ve only ever seen holiday clubs that take children aged 4 and over. I wouldn’t be sending him back.

Leaving a 3 year old unsupervised around a fire is awful, they should have moved him away before helping the other child.