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.

That's so terrible OP, but if your DD wants to go back I think you should let her as otherwise she may start to worry more about it.
For all the people saying it's the nursery's fault, it really doesn't sound like it is. The thresholds for evidence for exclusion of children is incredibly high, they are within ratios and had tried to have him better supervised but they don't have the funding for that. Nurseries are expensive for parents but they still run on a shoestring with no spare staff. Staff are often on minimum wage or close to, and the amount of force they could use on a child even in this situation would be scrutinised intensely. They asked the LA for funding for 1:1 and got nothing. There is nothing else they could do. Trust me, nursery and school staff don't want to deal with incidents like this and they often get seriously hurt themselves but aren't allowed to refuse the child access to nursery/school.
This is the LA at fault, and it's a story being repeated over and over at nurseries and primary schools who can do nothing about it because they don't have the funding for enough staff and/or specialists.

@AnIckabog I agree the LA is at fault they should have provided support for the nursery and diagnosed the child. They said to the nursery they couldn't do any more with the child as he was so intelligent! But then the day the incident got reported magically he can have 1:1.
I do think the nursery tried to do their best for the child. Where the nursery fell down for me was this happened during an outside activity there were two more staff on hand but as the activity was going well they went off into the forest area to do what I don't know. If they had been on hand then they could have easily managed the child and the first aid for the first child attacked and no other children would have been attacked. I think the nurserys assertions the child was only ever violent with staff was not a strong enough reason to leave a member of staff on her own with eight children including this boy when it was the first day he was coping with the 1:8 ratio and the member of staff had only worked with the children for a few weeks. They also admitted they didn't always know what triggered the boy so I think they should have known he could have at any point turn high risk for an outburst of anger.

Thank you @AnneLovesGilbert and @HolyMoly22

@Nocutenamesleft that is absolutely awful. How terrifying. I do have sympathy that the system fails these types of pupils but I'm sorry a whole class or group shouldn't be put at risk for one child. It's so scary. I am now feeling lucky this child has been excluded after reading this and my daughter won't have to face him again. I don't understand how after one incident something more isn't done. Its so sad that your daughters class saw this child acting in the way they did and it appeared they were getting rewarded for it.
Thank you for your message it is appreciated.
I have been surprised by some messages I've received especially saying it is rough and tumble when this incident and the ones from your daughters class are extremely serious.

Op there will sadly be children with challenging behaviour in nursery , primary school , secondary school and adults in adult life. Often these kids and adults aren't acting this way to be malicious or deliberately aggressive it may be that they have learning difficulties or disabilities that cause then to get frustrated or overwhelmed or that they have attachment issues or trauma . That doesn't help your poor child I know but it is the harsh reality of life .
That being said supervision and support of kids with this complex behaviour is vital for the safety of everyone and I would be furious in your shoes
I would imagine this kid isn't permanently excluded (this is pretty hard to do these days especially with young kids and the child still needs access to early years education ) but will be much better supervised going forward

@AndAsIfByMagic
I totally agree it is my child that was hurt and was totally innocent. I feel having your head smashed open by a four year old is really serious.

@LethargeMarg he is permanently excluded this is a fee paying nursery so he can be removed.

I would send your child back then op. They hopefully won't be worried if the other child's no longer there and it's good for building resilience to return and get some positive experiences there which will help them move on and prepare them for school

Yes we did

In the end about 13 parents got together. We wrote letters. We did all sorts. But at the end of the day. As someone above wrote. They won't exclude children with problems.

I eventually deregistered my child because they couldn't feel safe at school. Which is so incredibly sad.

He wasn't malicious in his behaviour but I couldn't put up with it anymore. The children felt he was being rewarded for his behaviour and the school lost a lot of children. Most went to another school but what's the answer? He had 1-2-1 teaching with him yet still if they looked away for a second he did damage. There was no reasonable answer in my eyes but to exclude him and that wasn't the right answer for him either.

He also wasn't diagnosed with any SEN either....

@GeminiTwin thank you so much for your post you are completely right when someone hurts your child on purpose something primal kicks in. I don't blame the child in this case I think the system failed them. I don't think I've ever felt as sick, angry and upset all rolled into one in my life.

Excuse my grammar it is absolutely awful!

@GeminiTwin I would have been beside myself if that had happened to my baby. Its hard to leave your children and you pay for their care you don't expect them to be attacked.

@Shoebie thank you we have asked her today and she wants to go back bless her. She is far more resilient that me. Im proud of her.

@LadyWhistledownofWhistleton thank you for your message. No I agree I don't know anyone who's child went to hospital after a deliberate act of violence at nursery.
That sounds awful what happened to you DD but I'm pleased she had a positive outcome by moving settings.

@Echobelly thank you for your message I think you are right. Im not feeling any less angry about it all but I'm starting to feel more positive. My daughter hasn't let it bother her and has bounced back and I don't want her to be affected by it all.

@Moonflower12 thank you for your post. The nursery did actually say due to qualifications of staff they could have group sizes of 1:13 but chose to stick to 1:8. While I do think more staff support on the day would have avoided this the nursery were within the ratios. What is more scary is in a few months time ny daughter will go to a much higher staff to child ratio when she starts school so if children are presenting with behaviour or SEN difficulties would be even harder to manage.

Sorry your child was hurt OP, it’s very upsetting for you and her.
Unfortunately accidents can never be stopped completely. Even with 1:1 a child could still lash out unexpectedly and hurt another child. There is no way of knowing for certain what anyone will do.
They only way to 100% prevent things is never allow more than one child in a room at a time, which obviously is not practical.

@saraclara you are completely right my daughter is the important one. You make a good point about resilience. I've always wanted to protect her from the bad but maybe now I need to teach her how to deal and cope with it better because unfortunately the world is not a nice place at times.

@NightLightComfort I agree even with 1:1 you can't prevent everything. But it would drastically minimise the risk and even if one child was attacked with 1:1 hopefully another 4/5 wouldn't be. This however, can't be referred to as an accident this was a deliberate attack and sadly the child at the time was full of rage.

Do you pay for this nursery? I'm stunned by all the responses saying you should just accept this as a normal event. Key thing is how the nursery react and what they do to prevent a similar situation. I totally disagree with those saying that you should just accept that your child may be assaulted and it is just one of those things.

@Tumbleweed101 thank you she seems to be doing well. Thank you for your insight I agree about the ratios.

yeah. My daughters school class has an angry chair thrower too. They can’t exclude him, there’s nowhere else
for him to go. Soooo they let him throw chairs and damn the consequences to everyone else.

It's not ok. I know everyone's doing their best under the circumstances and all that, but nobody's winning here

What a terrible and upsetting time you have had. All I will comment on is the time out. I removed my dd from a play school and then a nursery in the May before she started school in the September at four and a month and there was no negative consequences. We did any learning she wanted at home - she could read her elder brothers flash cards at two and a half - and friends wise it made no difference. If you can keep her home, and don't want to leave her at this nursery then keep her at home.

@wonkylegs thank you for your post. I think you are completely right about being careful about my emotions around my daughter. So far I've kept very upbeat around her, we have done lots of nice things at home and out and about. We have mentioned her head but just to ask if it hurts and we have talked about nursery as we always have. Talking about nursery has also helped me gauge her reaction to see if she wants to go back and it would appear she does. I wouldn't blame yourself for your reaction to the serious incident we are all human and when faced with horrible situations its hard not to let our emotions show.