What i have seen here

[sammich]

It is quite shocking to me to come onto this site that i have sent so many of my parents on and find pretty much every one here complaining so i thought that i would also complain.

• Early years educational entitlement: first off we dont have to accept it as private nursieres and when we do its at a loss to us and yet every parent seems to think its a god given right to get there 15 hours when in fact 15 hours is a pilot and legally you could only give 12.5 and when you explain you dont have enough space at your nursery they seem to think you should automatically find some somewhere and then they would be the ones to complain when you went over ratios so tip being its free dont complain and be greatfull that any nursery is still running the scheme to begin with

Plus early years etitlement does not run on a back log you have to sign the head count form and have it back by a certain date usually two weeks after the term starts and yes you have to do a new one for each term and it is up to the nursery to send it off (ask your nursery for a list of eyee dates) and yes you are responsable to pay for the sessions if you miss two weeks of eyee because the nursery no longer gets the finding for that place and are losing money so dont be suprised at it

-Lateness: yes sometimes it cant be avoided but ring the nursery we usually are understanding if you dont do it all the time but if you do we will charge you a ridiculous ammount of money because staff finish at certain times and they dont want to have to stay extra because you are running late again and did not have the thought to ring and we LEGALLY have to call social services and say a child has been abandoned after half a hour so be on time and let us know because we dont want to traumatise any children by having to send them off to social services

-Weather conditions: Nursery workers are people too shockingly enough we have families of our own and people who care about us enough to not want us to be trecking miles to get to work in heavy snowfull and alot of ice. contary to popular belief of the children we do not live inside nursery so we have to travel there and we have to travel back while also worrying about making sure the temprature is above 15 degrees in all areas of the nursery or we have to shut LEGALLY

-The actual nursery: yes it may look like chaos but we have carefully honed ratios we abide by and we have to allow children free choice beccause of the eyfs so while it may look like a bomb has hit it if you look carefully there are many areas of learning happening plus think of what your house looks like with one or two children think of a nursery with 16 youll be amazed at how tidy we are

-Staff: we are a lovely bunch really we dont get into this job for the excellent salaries (because mainly you could get paid more for working in tescos and you dont get as much hassle ) we dont get into it to be mean to parents we dont need to be leared at by men we are not intrested in we dont want to yelled at or steal your husband/wife and yes we may be young but thats because we want to have a lot of energy to run around with your child so they can have the best experience so be nice to us and we will be nice to you

-Bringing toys ect into nursery: Dont do it seriously we have toys its a nursery trust me we have toys and games and activities what we dont want is things coming in and then the child not wanting to share and then getting upset/the toy getting broken and then the child getting upset or the toy being lost and parents and children getting upset. Children can hide a million of things and when they get lost parents look to us as if we are magical and can find it immidiatly which we cant so please dont bring it in especially not if its my child wont sleep without insertfluffyanimalnamehere and its the only one of its kind because we dont want to have to look after that we have children to look after and that is more important

-Clothes: for goodness sakes name your childs clothes and shoes and socks and anything else you want to keep because you are not the only one to have that item unless you made it yourself and if it doesnt have a name on it it could get mistaken as someone elses and no matter how hard we try we cant memorize every peice of clothing in every childs wardrobe so if someone says its theres we are going to beleive them unless it is named so name it !!

-Sickness: noone likes it when children are sick or have dodgy stomachs but we also dont like it to spread to other children so LEGALLY we say if your child has either one of these things keep them out of nursery for 48 hours after it all finishes and no were not mean we just dont want it to spread and yes they may seem fine and you may have to go back to work but viruses spread even when your child seems fine also if your child is given antibiotics you have to keep them away for 24 hours after they first have it incase of a reaction were not being mean i promise (and yes i know some nurseries dont enforce this but when they do dont be shocked)

-Nits: they are like the plague and its evil and you feel bad when you discover it or your told by a nursery worker but dont feel shame we are not telling you to be cruel were telling you so you can treat it and please do treat it and dont complain your child has got them if you send them without there hair up because there isnot anything we can do about nits except let the parents handle it so please dont shout at us because we cant do anything about it

I do know that mums need a place to vent and air out there problems but please think about the nursery workers you shout at and are rude to because they do work hard and are often nice and happy to help if you talk to us, if you dont talk to us we dont know whats going on but please dont pick a time to talk to us when we are say hands deeps in blue paint with a group of children then complain that we are not giving you my full attention

Feel free to ask me anything you want to know about nursery life ive been doing this 12 years now :)

I used to work in a nursery where the staff took turns making meals just as you describe, Mummy2Bookie. I hated it. Felt so guilty feeding the children such bland rubbish with no nutritional value.
The nursery DS is at now is fabulous. I'm dreading the day he leaves
The lady that owns it is a chef, she cooks everything fresh on the day, even the fruit bars and pastries are made that day. All the food is bought fresh from Waitrose.
Its lovely to see what he's eaten each day.

I send DS to nursery with a bag stuffed full of spare clothes! I remember my days of digging through the nursery's 'spares' box trying to find something that would fit the child who had no spare clothes in their bag!
And spares that we did send them home in quite often never came back.

I couldn't be more grateful to the staff at DS's nursery, they've been a huge help to me through some hard times in the last few months.

I just wish they had an after school club so I could still send DS once he starts school!

The experience here kind of sum up nurseries.
There are great ones that are an absolute joy for children, parents and staff and there are dreadful ones that are embarrassing to work in and don't care about children.

I am a bit shocked by this post tbh, it sounds like a bit of a rubbish nursery to me if it has all those problems. I have read through the list and the only issue which occurs at the nursery i send my son to is the clothing one, and i admt that is probably my fault i sometimes forget to name stuff but i am happy to put my hands up and take it as my fault if stuff that isnt named gets lost.

I have no idea how much the staff at my sons nursery get paid but there are only three young members of staff there. One of whom is 'full time' but has day release to college where she is studying for something in childcare. All the other members of staff are part time and have children of the own.

The food is cooked on site, all the staff have food hygiene qualifictions and take it turns somehow. There is one proper cooked from scratch meal a day and an afternoon snacky tea of crumpets/tuna sandwichs

Bought in cake mix....sorry.

Hi purepurple it is nice to see that some people do try to make a difference. So many people just follow the crowd and don't care.
I remember I told somebody once that I didn't want to make snacks in the kitchen because I didn't have any food hygiene training and so I legally could not prepare food in the kitchen, they looked at me like I had 10 heads.
I do know about food hygiene but if somebody became ill it would be my neck on the line.

TiggyD you are right. There are both crap nurseries and great nurseries. I also worked in a surestart centre in Camden and I cannot fault it. I loved working there. Both staff and children were wonderful. I was very sad to leave.

I think the entitlement thing varies where you are, in the nursery I was last at, we were making a profit on the preschool children they were keeping the nursery afloat.

Regarding people on here complaining about nurseries/staff yes I have seen it a lot but also people complaining about teachers/doctors/nurses/midwives/bankers/shop staff/cleaners... I could go on and on. The point is people will talk about/post things that have 'gone wrong' for them so you do tend to hear about the bad side of things because although people may comment about an exceptionally outstanding experience they will rarely post to say about an uneventful day which they were happy with. Now you have mentioned it though I am posting this to say that I always pick my dc up from nursery at the end of each day it is uneventful and I am happy

Some of the complaints I have seen about nurseries (and all other things) have been valid concerns which would make anyone worry (really can't remember the details but ages back there was someone where their child had been left outside and forgot about at nursery - now that would make me think about ofsted). Equally some of the things have been quite petty and make me think there are more pressing issues to worry about. Obviously no service can be 100% perfect so whatever walk of life you work in then things will have gone wrong in that industry over the years but for each of those events there will be thousands more people having uneventful days.

I have relatives who work in nursery settings and I have heard very similar stories from them about parents complaining about petty issues. I certainly couldn't keep a straight face whilst listening to some of it! I could not do that job, it is hard work and the pay is not good, so to get petty complaints on top of that would finish me off!

Children + nits, that is just a fact of life isn't it? Why would anyone shout at the nursery staff about this? Do they think the staff spend their days carefully transferring the nits form head to head to make sure everyone has an equal share

I have heard a lot about the dirty clothes complaints which I think is a bit shocking. When my ds started school the reception teacher said to me in a serious warning kind of voice 'he will get dirty here you know?' I must have looked and said 'it's ok xxxx gets dirty every day, I have a bath and a washing machine'.

cupofcoffee, you would not believe the sort of things that some parents complain about. I suppose it is true about any job that brings you into contact with the public.
What really annoys me is the parent who thinks that their child is the only child in the nursery and that I should spend all my time with that one child, and ignore the rest. Sometimes I might not know the exact number of peas their child ate at dinner time, I might not remember the exact times their child went to the toilet, or which children they have sat next to or spoken to.

little ducks: these are not flaws of my nursery (rated outstanding by ofsted) but the flaws of the parents

purepurple: i have a lot of parents like that and if they come in and act like their child was the only one in all day and therefor should spend an hour recounting every small movement they made all day

Some parents are great and i wish i could fill my nursery with all parents like that but it would never happen and i am not saying stop communicating with nursery staff if you have a issue but think in 20 minutes time or a week from now is it really going to matter that your child got a bit dirty or they lost a glove :)

sammich do you get any parents complaining about sleep? That is another one I have been told frequently comes up. People who insist their toddler/baby does not sleep during the day so they will sleep at night. Nursery staff say ok they can not put them down to insist they sleep but when the child falls asleep in the middle of the floor/the sandpit/their dinner plate they cannot force them to stay awake. I have heard that some parents have got really angry with them when the child has slept.

Bit of a random thread!! lol

And out of curiosity how are you meant to label socks? :D

cupofcoffee: the sleep issue is fantastic i have a parent whose child is on a military schedule and if you happen to say well he woke up 10 minutes early you get half a hour on well he wont sleep tonight or he wont wake up in the morning or the world will implode before saying its the cots we have that affect his sleep and we should think about purchasing the same one she has at home so her child could sleep better at nursery(we have community furniture cots)

we dont make any of the 2 year olds sleep during the day unless they fall asleep or parents ask for them to be put down but i have had a lot of experience with parents who think that half a hour in the middle of the day will have there child up all night (this is not the case a lot of the times because once a were not told there child slept and parents came in next day and said he slept perfectly and thats why they did not want her to sleep during the day and although this is not best practice or common in our setting it does still make us all chuckle)

polly: you can get labels that you iron on or you could name them using marker pens and if neither of these appeal dont fret about a pair of missing socks if they do get misplaced

I've always felt that it is a child's human right to be allowed to go to sleep if they're tired. Sleep deprivation is used as a form of torture in some countries. Sometimes you just have to say no to parents and if they say they'll leave, you just have to say goodbye.

Ooh sammich - you have made good points!

I love our nursery, DD went there and Ds now goes there and will do until he starts school.

I bawled my eyes out at DDs last day at nursery because it was the centre of her universe for so long, and the staff were all lovely. For nearly a year after leaving she still talked about it in the present tense e.g. "We've got this book at nursery!".

I'm a big supporter of nurseries for the work they do. The staff at mine genuinely love their jobs and the kids. The children benefit so much from attending.

It sometimes baffles me when I hear parents moaning about their nursery with regards to food/sleep/activities - it's not a personalised service, if you want that then hire a nanny!

I have never seen the labels that you iron on for socks? Have seen them for other clothes but no idea where you would iron them onto on a sock, same as a marker pen. Where would you actually write on the sock.

I don't fret about these things, (even though i own 2 nurseries) but the OP had said 'for goodness sakes name your childs clothes and shoes and socks' and was obviously interested in how you would go about that with socks.

I have seen sew-on lables sewn into the inside of socks, at the top. I have even done it myself for DS when he was at school. The iron on ones would be in the same place. Or you can iron them onto the sole or use a marker pen.

I remember the mum who's little girl was very upset because she kept wetting herself at nursey and soon ran out of knickers so we had to put boys pants on her.
Mum came in complaining about how her dd was traumatised because she was in boys pants and could we please put her in knickers in the future. We tell her that her dd ran out of knickers and mums response is 'borrow some from x any y' ( her dds friends)' before just walking away.
Sorry mum but it doesn't work that way. The other childen are being potty trained as well, how about bringing adequate clothing into nursery for your own dd?

Oh and the boy who would only eat chips and marmite sandwiches, so mum would bring him in that each day for lunch and tea.

I can't comment on most of your post Sammwich, as although I have 3 dc, I only used a nursery with my 2nd and then only for a short while. However, with regards to Free Early Education Entitlement, I'd just like to make a couple of points:

No, you don't have to accept FEEE place but you would lose business if you chose not to as lots of parents would vote with their feet and find a setting that does accept FEEE.

I know most settings run FEEE places at a loss, and yes it's unfair, but there's no more money in the budget for increased payments, and actually with the introduction of 'Single Formula Funding' in April, most settings will see their payments drop.

Also, you say "every parent seems to think its a god given right to get there 15 hours when in fact 15 hours is a pilot and legally you could only give 12.5"
As from September 2010, the 15 hours is statutary, not piloted and it is for all children accessing FEEE, obviously providing you can accomodate this within your setting.

Again, for those settings that can't, parents will vote with their feet and will go somewhere else. I think it's a perfectly normal response for parents to think you should find a way to give their child their full entitlement. Nursery care is very expensive and if Mrs Jones is getting it for little Isabel at the nursery down the road, then of course they want it at their nursery.

They're not necessarily going to be grateful that the nursery is running the scheme, it's their child's entitlement (for now anyway) that they get those hours free for their child.

Sorry Sammich not Sammwich

I understand that certain settings would initially lose a few spots depending on how underfunded the spots are they may see a actual increase in profits due to not having to support the grant system and parents would be hard pressed to find any free spaces if a large number of nurseries drop the funding and parents would have to pressure LA's to improve this underfunded situation which they wont so best start praying not a lot of nurseries see the light in regards to this

sorry about the 15 hours confusion i was talking about when it was still a pilot it was late when i was writing this im surprised it made any sense

It's very difficult to see how the LA's could possibly do anything to improve the underfunded situation in the light of all the cuts being made throughout the councils. Single Formula Funding will streamline things further and more and more nurseries will be running at a loss.

I can't speculate as to how it would work if settings pulled out of the scheme altogether. I only know that parents will seek to find their entitlement elsewhere.

...but of course we don't know whether the govt will continue FEEE anyway. There are no noises being made to the contrary yet, but who knows ...?

Mummy2Bookie - i posted earlier about no boy pants or socks, so often boy potty trainers get girl pants put on them instead, seriously some parents would prefer we put on a nappy instead of girl pants (even when still potty training)

Years ago parents use to provide the food for the childrens lunches 9/10 you could guess what was going to be in the childs lunch box, apart from the day the parent forgot childs lunch so went to maccy d's and bought a happy meal. The kid loved it

i think on a whole if parents cant get free sessions in the local area due to there being no nurseries accepting it or due to the fact there is no space if they want a space they would simply have to pay for it and there for make a huge noise to the LA about the funding scheme and the LA would have to spend more money on it that is the only way i see the LA spending more money on it

They have ringfenced the money for the two year old pilot for another 4 years i beleive but i am not sure how long they have ring fenced the money for the single formula funding but you can guarentee they cant do away with it the ammount of parents that would complain but we will have to wait and see ten years of labours gluttony without thinking of the results and here we are