Killer egg-boxes. Grrrrrrr!

[bubble99]

The children were making spiders out of egg-boxes (does that need the hyphen??) today. During our recent OFSTED inspection they had been making snakes out of them and the inspector muttered appreciatively and ticked her sheet. But today we were graced with a visit from one of the 'Early Years Advisory Team.' I am in a long running dispute with this lot anyway as they are paid for by my council taxes and with the exception of one or two seem to consist of a bunch of bods who wander around nurseries tellling nursery owners that they need to buy more 'essential' crap.

Today we were told that 'eggboxes shouldn't be used for junk-modelling because of a salmonella risk.' WTF??? Of course if an egg box is either covered in broken egg or chicken shit we wouldn't use it. Is no one credited with any sense at all anymore??

BTW. Some of out staff went on Birth to Three training recently and came back waving catalogues of things that we 'just have to buy.' I 'phoned up the Head of Early Years to find out what kind of state- salaried and supposedly objective trainer was giving out catalogues to course members. I was told that the Early Years Advisors are 'so busy' Yeah!! 'So busy' wandering around nurseries on fuck knows how much per annum advising about the evils of egg-boxes - that the council has to use contract trainers. Contract trainers who hand out 'consultancy services' cards and flog their own catalogues. I'm really pissed of about this.

The final insult was that the Head of Early Years then said - 'Oh. Don't worry those training costs don't come out of council tax, it's from a government grant!' So. Oh wise one, I asked, who do you think pays for that?????

I ought to send my dd over for a couple of days. She is a proper minger, as my nephew says; she'll eat anything (including dog food, worms, pond water and - today's speciality - a mouldy old apple she found under a tent). She'd send the advisors into some kind of fit, I should think.

(By the way, before you all dob me in to SS as Queen of the Shabby Mothers, I'd like to point out that I do try to stop her, we live in the country so she's outside most of the time and, when we all got that d&V bug last month, me, dh and ds were dying for 24 - 36 hrs whereas she puked once and then wanted some dinner and a go on the swings)

Egg boxes has been around a while - following toilet rolls and polystyrene!

I have to say, i feel the egg boxes is more important than toilet rolls. Egg allergies can be severe and only need the slightest contact. It would only need a tiny drop that you wouldn't necessarily notice on the box and a child could react.
I have first hand experience of this from when i ran a nursery so know how frightening it can be.

I really think its better to be safe than sorry.

But Hattie. We have no children with major life-threatening egg allergies at our nursery! If we did, of course we would be careful.

My whole point is that our whole nursery is being asked to not use something because somewhere there may well be a child who does have a major egg allergy.

You may have a child who is yet undiagnosed - the three year old who i experienced was undiagnosed .

So where does it stop then, Hattie? If we follow this theory no child will ever go near anything!

I'm not suggesting that at all. But when running a childcare centre things sometimes have to be treated very differently to the way we may do it in the home environment.

I just honestly think its a good idea to not use egg boxes! As i said, far more than the rule about not using toilet rolls - as to my knowledge that wouldn't cause any life threatening reactions.

Nuts and eggs - yes avoid. I don't think this causes any detriment to a child's development.

Hattie. I think you and I will just have to agree to disagree on this one.

Fair enough bubble, but it really isn't saying children can never go near anything. Its just looking after both the nursery and the children, avoiding the worst case scenarios that we know can happen.

And if we applied that rule we would never venture outside a sealed bubble. Parent packs with known medical/alergy info will suffice for my nursery and OFSTED. We cannot legislate for what might/could happen if a child has been undiagnosed.

'Allergy.' I know my allergies.

But, Hattie, anyone can be allergic to anything, and the diagnosis can come at any time. I would have thought that by 3 years old a raging egg allergy would have been picked up.

As long as the staff are trained to spot and promptly deal with an allergic reaction, I don't see why they can't use such everyday materials.

I believe OFSTED requested that my local pre-school stopped using egg boxes though.

I know you cannot protect against every possible undiagnosed allergy, but those which are life threatening - is it not worth trying to remove every possible incident? Egg boxes surely are not critical to a child's learnign - unless you're trying to make caterpillars

How many children were maimed/died from egg-box usage when you were growing up, Hattie??

Our OFSTED inspector did not blink at our use of egg-boxes, BTW.

But not all allergies are life threatening. The 3 yr old in question had had extremely mild reactions in the past, but because she didn't like/eat eggs, and her experiences of raw egg had been non existent the reaction i witnesses was the first and hopefully only one she suffered as she went on to get a formal diagnosis.
It was terrifying, her entire face and eyes swelled within seconds of being near raw egg and we called an ambulance, as she struggled to breath. Thankfully she survived but it haunts me to this day as it was the first and only experience i have had of such a severe allergic reaction.

But a clean egg-box? Which has not had a broken egg in it?? As far as I know hen's bottoms are devoid of egg albumen.

But be honest, how thorough an inspection of your egg boxes do you make? .

The truth is i don't know how 'fresh' an egg would need to be to still cause a reaction. But if it can be days old then you're not going to notice a dried up bit of egg white on a carton are you?

Oh early years advisors. Hmm enough said. Came across them because ds1 has SN and was in a mainstream nursery. Utterly ineffectual.

They're still using egg boxes at our nursery. One thing our manager does to get round this sort of idiotic ott rule is to get every parent to sign something saying its ok to use x. So we've had to sign to say its ok to use an antiseptic wipe if a child falls over for example (that was to cover allergies as well). I'd just add a form "I give permission for my child X to use egg boxes when junk modelling" or something. I recycle all my egg boxes via nursery so I'll be pissed off if they stop taking them!

But only a broken egg would provide the offending protein. I cook at the nursery and pass on any egg boxes which have not had broken eggs in them.

As I say. OFSTED are happy with our practice. We will continue to use them.

I'm lol at the killer egg boxes Though I must admit when ds2 came home the other week with a junk model made out of one of those loosely triangular polystyrene trays that raw chickens come in I did think "euwww...I hope they washed that really thoroughly..." (tbh, that's not something I would give my child to make things out of).

And anyway, how can you make a crocodile without an egg box? Tis impossible.

Moo, darling, our eggs are organic and from Waitrose. A finer egg-box you could not hope to meet!

Oh, a distinctly high class killer egg box

And our lot also play around in an OFSTED approved digging area in the garden which is crawling with god-knows-what in the way of germs.

Do yours have to wear sand hats? Our Ofsted inspection (at ds2's pre-school) recommended sand hats for the children. Apparently afro hair holds the sand more than caucasian hair and can cause scalp irritation. We have very few children with afro hair but an awful lot of nits - I'm sure the nits would love the sand hats.

Which isn't going to cause any life threatening reactions so i'm all for it!

And our clean egg albumen-free egg boxes would not cause life threatening reactions in our nursery, either.