Nursery form teacher handed us a bag of poo

[ButterscotchWhip]

Right. I'll try to keep it short, but I don't think it will be.

DD has just turned 3. A couple of weeks ago she started in the nursery class of what I've now realised is quite a formal and strict girls' independent school. It is highly regarded locally, and me and DH loved it when we looked round, but I now fear I've done myself and DD up like a kipper sending her here.

She's fully potty trained but (my fault) I don't think I got her onto actual toilet training quickly enough. September has rolled around and she's just not 100% there on toilet training. I tell the staff this and they seem ok with it at first. I offer to send in her carry potty (which she loves and uses well) - they say no. The class is large, and the way they do toilet trips is to take a group to the loos and then the teacher stands nearby. It's just not enough support for DD, and she's had a lot of accidents there (for which we receive intense FIRST AID NOTIFICATION emails as they have to change her). Anyway, she's now never telling them when she needs to go, and she is running away from the loo at home saying she doesn't like the toilet (and started crying about it yesterday too).

We get an email from her form teacher this week saying she must now be in nappies during school time. DH emails back and says we certainly don't support this idea, she's on the right path but in a brand new environment, nappies will confuse her and send her learning backwards etc. He suggests that if this issue is one of a lack of resource / low levels of staffing, then that's a worry. He's not rude, just quite straight up.

The next morning at 9am, I receive a call from school saying DH must be collected and taken home for a bath as she's soiled herself AND they will not allow her back in school unless she's in pull-ups. I am not free to get her, neither is DH, but our son's carer/nanny is and happily collects her. She finds DD just needs a good wipe, not really a bath. Upon arriving at reception to receive DD, our nanny is given a binliner. It transpires this contains DD's soiled knickers, THE ENTIRE TURD, and all the wipes they have already used on DD's guilty bum (barf).

I haven't said anything in response to any staff yet as we already have a catch-up meeting, face to face, with the form teacher tomorrow. But presuming that they have a rubbish bin in school, I think the sh*t-bag might have been a thinly veiled message of hostility, no?

I am boggling from all this. Would genuinely love to hear what other MNers would do now!

I've worked in nursery/reception for many of my 15 years in primary school. I don't take pants off a child. I put an open bag on the floor and give instructions such as 'pants off' or 'pants in the bag' 'wipe now', etc. Everything goes in the bag as nothing is flushed except for toilet roll. I do not handle children's pants. It's entirely likely that poo has gone home in a bag with children I work with. It's done gently and with kindness and reassurance, but they are doing the cleaning up themselves.

The only time I have done the undressing and wiping is if the child has SEN and unable to undress or wipe themselves. Or with a very bad case of diarrhoea.

It's simply not my job. It is however, my job to teach. And teaching a child to do it themselves is vital for their education and development.

"Good/strong/popular indies with all bells and whistles" have these passive-aggressive tendencies, based on my experience. Not sure what I could advise except for going to a meeting with the head in a good fighting form,and a resulting plan that works for your family.

This!

It's not really fair on the school to send an untrained child in to school in pants. Everywhere she sits when she has had an accident gets contaminated with her poo, it's a biohazard. At least with a nappy the poo is contained. An occasional accident is to be expected but this constant cleaning up after your daughter must be taking up a lot of the staff's time and will be embarrassing for your daughter.

It sounds like a really hostile setting @ButterscotchWhip

DD is 5 and just started reception, she had a poo accident the other day and there was no drama! I wouldn’t be happy with this at any age.

Leaving your child with a dirty bum until she was collected is horrific. That alone would be enough for me to move her. She's 3. She needs a caring, nurturing environment and anywhere that could do that to a child isn't. Just awful.

It should apply to all settings offering the EYFS (Early Years Foundation Stage) provision
As much as they should be following it by law, from a moral standpoint they should be being truly inclusive to each child’s individual needs.

"Exactly this. Lots of these naice girls' prep schools essentially want nice, easy, compliant little girls, and that's all they are equipped to handle. Any deviation from the tracks and they are not interested."

This has been the experience of friends of ours too, where their July born three year old was deemed too boisterous and not compliant enough. It felt really awful to me that he was being judged and found lacking, having just turned three.

In my school, children start Nursery following their 3rd birthday. They have to be toilet trained. If it’s obvious they're not, we tell parents to keep them at home for 2 weeks to properly toilet train them. That seems to really focus the mind of parents who haven’t taught their child to use a toilet by the time they are 3.
We don't allow children in nappies / pull ups unless they have a disability / SEN.
Any child who has an accident is changed in school - we have an excellent bathroom set up with a shower if needs be - but all soiled clothing, which would include pants full of poo, is bagged up and sent home. TAs aren't paid enough to scrape poo off pants! What you also have to bear in mind is that it needs 2 staff to change a child for obvious reasons. We only have 3 staff in Nursery, so when a child needs changing we have to find other staff to backfill them.

Christ if that's the best they could do, sounds barbaric and child abuse. No wonder she is having more frequent accidents she is probably being shamed in front of the class for it! I've seen better care at my local state schools preschool and private nursery than this! I've never ever had a poo sent home and if they did I would bring it back in the next day and demand answers...

My son went to a bog standard nursery/pre school attached to the local infant school. They expected the children to be fully toilet trained at 3 too. Is it unusual? He was 3 late in October, started just after Christmas and never had an accident.

This is damaging for your little girl’s development and confidence. No wonder she has regressed with her toilet training.

Please check the qualifications of the staff and of the assistants, as well as the staff ratios. If they are all in order, then it is a leadership problem. So look at the policy for toiletting, if there is one. When you are armed with the facts, speak to the Head of the nursery about this incident and get a feel from her for whether this is normal practise in the nursery class. All staff should be trained to deal with toilet accidents with empathy and understanding every single time it happens without exception so that the child is quickly feeling comfortable and clean again without any negativity whatsoever. Ask for an explanation of how this happened and see if you feel there is a way forward for you to keep your Dd there or not.

I agree it must feel like a rebuke for you as parents to have a bag of poo sent home to you. Totally unnecessary. It sounds like lack of knowledge about three year olds and their development to me and could even be said to be vindictive if the staff are properly qualified and experienced.
Whatever decision you come to, you need an apology for the way this accident has been dealt with.

My eldest’s nursery was brilliant BUT they also sent poo home, inside pants, inside a nappy sack. From then onwards we used Primark pants and asked that they throw them away if it happens again. I don’t want to scrape poo out of a pair of pants and nor would I expect a nursery to so this solved the problem and avoided little surprises in the backpack!!

This nursery sounds awful in their approach and I’m sure you’d find much more nurturing settings elsewhere.

its not the right setting for her.

DS went to a preschool aged 3 and wasn’t potty trained. After every session the owner told me I had to get DD potty trained, then told me to stop using nappies.
I got so fed up that I sent him in with out a nappy and a couple of cages of clothes - He wet all his clothes and some of theirs- was told never to do that again!
He also had nappy rash for the first time ever as they weren’t cleaning him properly.

He stayed there for one term and I moved him to the school nursery and they were so kind and never made a fuss.

Ds wasn’t allowed to start at the private prep’s nursery (the set up you have here - some posters are missing this is an independent school) until he was fully toilet trained; accordingly he started in January rather than September. He wasn’t allowed to wear pull ups.

You make it sound as though the only reason a 3yo wouldn't be toilet trained is because the parents can't be bothered. As a pp pointed out, many children who are very able in other areas are uneven in their development, plus at 3 many who actually do have disabilities/SEN won't have been diagnosed/identified yet. What should the parents of the outliers do? Send their children to their bedrooms for an extra year or three, or more?

This exactly

I have 3 kids. Ds was potty trained at 2.3.
dd2 potty trained herself one summer at age 18 months

but dd1, we started at 2, and she half got it and no matter what we did she just had so many accidents, mostly wee but poo too.
She started reception (didn't do proper pre-school) and still had a couple of accidents per week.
We worked together with the TA. She sent dd1 to the loo before they went out to play, before lunch, and before she went home, that helped hugely. dd1's trigger for going to the loo was just really, really poor.

dd1 was a gentle compliant child. She is also very clever stright 8's in her GCSEs.

Children are all different, and I take issue with the PP who said:
If it’s obvious they're not, we tell parents to keep them at home for 2 weeks to properly toilet train them. That seems to really focus the mind of parents who haven’t taught their child to use a toilet by the time they are 3

just like anything in life, some kids need more support than others.

So my experience of nursery is old - ds1 is 14 now. But he went at 3 and had to be toilet trained. If he wasn’t he wouldn’t have been able to go at all. They simply wouldn’t have let him in.

This ,which potentially cause a much bigger and longer problem ! Absolutely dreadful practice from the school!

@ButterscotchWhip

I’ve worked at an all girls private prep in the nursery. If they have 2-3 year olds, I expect they’d have a nappy bin/more resources to change.

If they don’t, yes I can easily see how a bag of poo may have come home.

There may have been an element of quickness/stress which led to the poo being bagged. It’s : find wipes, find bag, find clean clothes when 1 adult isn’t always free and ratios need to be adhered to.
The expectation would be that with 3/4 years = potty trained, but if not - I think definitely a meeting to discuss a plan going forward and most positive outcome for your DD. They will want the best for your DD and will have an open door policy.

I’ve since moved to a different setting, and it’s highlighted to me the stress of working in my previous setting. Everything had to be perfect, all the time. And the girls had to be well behaved, sit for long periods etc etc.

Flushable wipes block pipes and cause fat bergs. 🤢They should know this.

They can’t deny children access because of not being toilet trained. They don’t seem to know much about child development if they’re saying to use pull ups. Usually nurseries are the ones to encourage toilet training! I’d be worried what else they don’t know.

That used to be legal - the law that says that a blanket standard of continence could not be applied is about 18 years old or so (came in, or at least was on the horizon, when I chaired DC’s pre-school committee, and they are now young adults). Some settings were extremely slow to adapt and, like the OP’s pre-school, some are ‘desirable’ enough to be able to weed out those they don’t want and for others to be afraid to rock the boat. However, it is no longer legal to insist that all children must be toilet trained to start in a pre-school or school setting.

In some cases, this has had less than positive results, as without a deadline for toilet training, it becomes easier to ‘wait just a bit longer’. But on balance (remembering my exceptionally academically able 2.5 year old with chronic toddler diarrhoea peering sadly through the bars of the pre-school gate at his friends who had started there) it’s a hood thing.

This sounds like the nursery to a really posh private school which must be costing. Do you really want to get your child worked up over this at the age of 3 and leave her there? If your son has a nanny why can't your daughter stay with her until she is fully toilet trained? She is only little, and I mean little, once. I would be horrified and take my child away immediately and put her somewhere a bit more tolerant and fun. Poor little girl.

Having worked in a nursery (albeit briefly) I can confirm it’s much, much easier to change a soiled pull up than it is to deal with poo filled knickers.

I’m very surprised that it wasn’t a condition of your daughter being accepted that she was confidently using the loo. I think it is the norm for pre-school classes at independent schools.