Serious Accident at nursery

[Moma1821]

Hi everyone,

Just looking for some support really.
My daughter was attacked at nursery on Tuesday by another child (as were several others) the child ran at her with an empty cable reel toy on purpose and has cut her head open badly. It had to be glued
This child had only that day been reintroduced back into the group of eight teacher child ratio due to ongoing issues where they lashed out and staff and couldn't cope with nursery life.
The footage was so distressing. I will never forget.
Im really distraught it took a lot for me to trust anyone to look after my child and she had been doing so well there. Now I just feel angry and upset and unsure what to do. I've had a meeting with the nursery and the child is excluded they have apologised profusely and given me all the assurances and explanations they can. But I just feel what the hell are you doing putting a child who is violent in a group of 8 with one nursery nurse who was fairly new. The child basically went on a rampage and my child came off the worst by far and away.
She had never been to hospital before and really had no bumps and scrapes in her 3 and half years. Now she will have a scar ok in her hair but I just feel why should she have to have this because the nursery was trying to do the nice thing with this other child.
Luckily my child seems ok in herself and tells me she is not in pain. She is due to go to school September. I really don't want to send her back to nursery but I am worried that relationships with other children who will go to her school will be lost and learning too if i don't send her back (im on maternity) and I won't get her in at another nursery now and if I did it would be too disruptive before school in September.
Im just so furious. Where ever I look online no one else seems to mention an accident at nursery as serious as this inflicted by another child just bumps and scrapes. I don't feel like I can chat with people easily about this as my daughter is always with me.
Am I overreacting, is this par for the course, should I let it go for the sake of 11 weeks?
I haven't slept well since it happened and I've really worried about it.
My baby was due to go to that nursery in September too but I feel I have lost all trust in them. I have already started to enquire at another nursery.
The last few days I've done some lovely things with my daughter as I think she deserves it after what she has been through and I keep upbeat around her but it has all felt like a nightmare and made me feel really down.

I'm not going to say you're over reacting, as obviously this was a serious incident, but unfortunately your children will come across others with challenging or aggressive behaviour at nursery and school. Mostly those children will not be excluded unless there is a very serious incident. Nurseries and schools are expected to do their best to meet the needs of all the children, often with very limited funding.

OP I’m sorry that happened to your daughter and your feelings are valid. My nephew in school was attacked and cut badly by a child with severe SEN and it was awful. Whenever my sister complained it was seen as ‘blaming’ the SEN child (it was their fault but should have been better supervised) and all support seemed to be for the perpetrator rather than the victim. The child has been excluded and it’s v unlikely to happen again- as you said the change would be unsettling for a short period. I’d ask for assurances that she will be well looked after and if you can rebuild the relationship with the nursery then try you best.

Its just so scary my daughter is so gentle and sweet and didn't deserve this and the more I talk to people the more widespread it seems to be. I think if it happened at school I'd almost have more sympathy but at a nursery I pay more than my mortgage to send her to you would hope that staffing resources would be there.

I’m so sorry for your daughter and for you, it sounds really awful.

Bless her. Does she want to go back to nursery?

I'm very sorry this happened I would be heartbroken too.

I think I would take the child being excluded as a positive and that it will unlikely happen again.

Their reasons for allowing that child back into class, we will never know and sadly your daughter has taken the brunt of it.

I think if this was me, and I knew the child had been excluded, as long as my child wanted to go back, I would allow her.

Thank you for your message.
There are sadly issues with this child linking back to their child hood and the nursery were trying to support them.
I do see they were trying to do their best for the child but it has ended up having a terrible outcome for my child and our family.
I agree with your point it does seem that in these situations the resources are directed to the child with the challenging behaviour.
I hope your nephew is OK and things have settled down there. Sounds distressing for your family.
Everyone - family friends seem to be suggesting I send her back but I do feel a little bit like I have done everything during her life to protect and the nursery have failed her and I just keep thinking what if it has been serious like her eye or something.
He had some serious rage to attack 4 or 5 children that viciously in under a minute its doesn't bear thinking about how much worse it could have been.

Unfortunately I believe that nursery settings are pretty much obliged to accommodate children with behavioural problems/SEN.

I’ve read numerous times on Mumsnet of nurseries not able to exclude children who are regular biters (and actually a bite is potentially a very serious injury).

However, I agree entirely that the nursery did not take adequate action to support the boy in question and to protect the other children with inadequate ratios . I imagine they’ll have learned from that now.

I just feel bloody lucky that DD’s nursery happened to never have any children with violent tendencies while DD was there as unfortunately it’s often the case that the parents of the other children end up removing their children while the child with violent behaviour remains.

Sorry all im new to this unsure how to respond to individual messages.
She does want to go back yes she has a best friend there who is so lovely she will go to school with them.
She has fantastic relationships with the other children and staff - they all love my daughter because she is just very sweet and sees good in everyone.
I think she probably only got caught in the cross fire because she was concerned about the other boy being attacked she is just like that.

@INeedNewShoes
I think you are right I think the nurseries hands can be tied i know my nursery had asked for support from the LA and got no where. They are trying to do their best for all but in this case it went disastrously wrong. I don't think they have experienced anything like this before and have definitely learnt from it but I wish they hadn't had to learn with my child.
Thank you for your message.

The nursery was absolutely at fault here. They should have provided better supervision. I would be livid but my anger would be directed at them.

Where was their risk assessment? They knew the child needed a 121 but took him anyway, despite knowing they could not meet his needs. They could have refused on safeguarding grounds and chose not to. It’s not discriminatory to say you can’t meet a child’s needs. Yes, measures can be put in place but only once a 121 had been secured should he have been allowed in the setting.

Has the nursery reported to Ofsted/the LEA? As hospitalization was required, I would hope so.

I would be writing a strongly worded letter and want an explanation of where they failed at the very least, OP.

Oh I'm sorry to hear this OP, for you and your little girl.

I used to be a teacher and did a while in nursery. From reading your OP, I think that the staff probably could not have reasonably predicted that reintroducing the child would have resulted in such a serious incident, although of course I don't know the details of what their behaviour was like before the reintroduction. On the other hand, it sounds like the risk could have been reduced if the child had been reintroduced with a more experienced member of staff.

If your little girl wants to return to nursery and the child has been excluded, I would send her if you have no other concerns outside of this incident. However, I think you would be perfectly entitled to ask to meet with the staff to talk about what happened and seek reassurance about how such a situation would be managed if there was such a cause for concern again.

The key thing I would want to know is how they would manage things differently in the future, given what happened here.

Gosh that is horrible. Poor her (and you!). At least the other child has been excluded and you don't have to worry about it happening again. Unfortunately it seems quite common for incidents like this to happen - here are mine (so far!)

My dd1 had another child deliberately throw sand in her eye on the first week of primary school. I was told it was an accident but an older child who was there told me they did it deliberately. We had to attend A and E the next day as her eye was all infected and she said it really hurt. (It was fine in the end). No consequences for the kid who did it.

At her current school dd1 has a child in her class who has had violent outbursts, thrown furniture and attacked the teacher. He has not been excluded (despite all those behaviours being against school code of conduct) because he has SEN and is a vulnerable child. I sympathise with this situation but cannot see a solution as he is so disruptive.

It seems that schools generally have inclusive policies and that is good - you don't want hundreds of children excluded, especially children who are violent because people have been violent to them. Yet at the same time the schools don't seem to be able to punish/control/prevent the bad behaviour.

No idea of there is any sort of solution. Specialist schools? Self defence classes?! Honestly, I've told dd1 that if someone is consistently violent to her and the teachers do nothing, she should fight back. 😢

I think you're overreacting. Many a kid has their head glued, although they do look dramatic with so much blood.

My dd had to have an operation due to an accident/negligence at nursery.
We had twice weekly visits to hospital and then she was referred to plastic surgery.

I took my dd back to nursery the day after her op. I didn't want her to be hung up and anxious about going back. Like yours, it was very close to when she was due to leave.

I was actually quite pragmatic about it all until plastic surgery was mentioned, it was only then I was really upset.

Nursery have taken the child out of the setting, I'm not sure there is much else they can do.

@Moma1821 so sorry for your little girl! I would be very upset in your position too.

I don't think looking at another nursery would help as there's nothing to prevent the same thing happening elsewhere and actually due to this happening staff at your current place will probably be more alert than others.

I think due to what happened you would be perfectly within your rights to insist this child is not allowed in the same group as your DD again and to be very firm with staff if you have concerns about any other children in DD or baby's group too (reminding them of this incident if they think you're being too pushy!)

@NiceTwin why do you think op is over reacting? What should her reaction be to this happening to her child? 'Oh whoops that's a shame? Move on'?

if your daughter wants to go back for the rest of the time before school, I’d let her, if she doesn’t then I’d not send her back. I’d follow her lead. From your post she sounds like she’s moving on & you should take a lead from her imo. You’ve lost trust in them so I’d find another nursery tbh. 8 children to one nursery nurse sounds a lot- Is that the normal ratio? My son is due to start nursery in sept and they’re 4 to one. X

Honestly, there was a child who kept biting my child at nursery and I really wasn't impressed at all (with the nursery). I took my child out when I was on Mat leave. Neither of my children knew any other children when they started reception and they had best friends from day 1 so I wouldn't worry too much about that. I feel for you as I also found it difficult to leave my children in nursery. For some reason leaving them in school felt much easier.

Im really sorry OP

You are not over reacting I totally get it.

There are 2 options really:

1- take her out of nursery and enjoy the last fee days together before she starts school

2- insist this child is never in nursery the same time as her or in banned as this is a safe guarding issue if they have previous. Or they could have 1:1 supervision.

To be honest it wouldn't be a great idea to settle into a new nursery only to leave soon anyway. Perhaps just more parents and child groups. They don't really need to know much prior to school anyway surely you could cover this at home.

The stranger/teacher in me wants to say that the nursery has done all they can and that sending her back will be the best thing for her routine, rebuilding her confidence and she doesn’t have long left anyway.

The mum in me thinks no bloody way would I send my child back there and I’d personally look at getting a childminder to do the interim care if you don’t want to have her home all the time with you.

You can tell yourself all the logical things in the world OP but if you’re going to be an anxious wreck until she leaves, maybe be kind to yourself and remove her. Happy Mum, happy child and all that.

Send her back. She is young enough to get over the trauma and if she has friends there, she will be much better off than sitting at home on her own. Socialising is so important at this age.
Poor little thing, I’m glad she has bounced back. I also feel for the other child - you can’t hate a toddler, even though what he did was awful. At such a young age, he isn’t a criminal. His behaviour is so bad for a reason, and I hope he will be helped too before he gets older and the consequences of such actions are serious.

Absolutely all of this.

As upset as you are with your daughters injury, it's not the child's fault. He clearly must have SEN or some sort of trauma to have lashed out like that.

The issue seems to be with lack of staff, lack of understanding and/or hands tied.

This is why everyone needs to campaign for better funding for SEN and LA funded 1:1s, EHCP's, early diagnosis etc. I feel very strongly that all of these children were let down.

I really hope your daughter is ok and can return to her friends at nursery soon. I completely understand why you feel so upset OP, must have been so distressing.

I’d be making a complaint. The nursery should have had a 1 to 1 for that child. They failed to protect the other children. They knew this child had a history of lashing out yet they took the risk of re-introducing him without sufficient support. I’d be livid.

i think I’d be guided by your DD as to whether she should go back to that nursery. Keep her off for a few days if you can and allow her to work through her feelings so you can judge whether a return is the right thing for her.

I’d be upset too. I’d be insisting on knowing if they’d reported it to ofstead/local authority yet, and if not why not, I’d be pretty firm about it. It sounds unacceptable that this allowed this to happen. Hopefully your DD will forget about the incident in time though.