does the staff/ child ration have to be ALL the time?

[furrycat]

DS2 is in the under 2s room and I know it's supposed to be 1 staff to 3 children. But first thing in the morning and at hometime I've noticed this often doesn't happen - today, I counted 3 staff and 11 children. One seemed to be out of the room changing a nappy but that took at least 10 mins, and she was popping in and out. Is that acceptable?

So does that mean that there were 2 staff and 10 children in the room whilst one was changing the nappy? Absolutely not acceptable. Even if the nappy changer was in the room, that still does not meet minimum ratio requirements. I'd speak the the manager ASAP. By the sounds of it, the staff are on shifts where some start early & finish early, and some start late & finish late, meaning that the start & end of the day are always with less staff. IMO a poor way of staffing a nursery which has a lot of children who are staying from start til finish.

I think in our nursery three children at a time are taken to have nappies changed, so the ratio remains the same. Don't envy them that job...

Do they mix the groups at the start and end of day only I asked this at our nursery and as they do the ratios change as they get older 2+ in 1 adult per 5 and 3+ 1 adult per 8 kids (I think this is right if not its similar) so where as the ratios were wrong if they were all under 2 this was not the case it sooooooooo confusing!!

At my dd's (soon to be ex) nursery I once walked into a room where there were seven babies with just one carer - who was also changing a nappy with her back to most of the babies in the room. Now I'm not a stickler for staff ratios but I found that unacceptable and am taking her out.

This is why our shifts are 0800 til 6pm 4 days so we always have enough staff at start and end of day.
tish you dont make sense

0 - 2 3 children per 1 adult
2yrs 4 children per 1 adult
3 yrs + 8 children per 1 adult
even if you share groups you must maintain ratios

If you have mixed ratio groups you should always go down to the lowest ratio.

1 Baby under 2

3 toddlers 2- 3 yrs =would need two staff

But even if only one child there should be two staff or at least a second nearby,under OFSTED standards.

NV we do the same shifts because of that very thing. It also means that the parents see the same staff (mostly ) st the begining & end of the day.

If staff are consistantly out of the room they need extra staff to maintain ratios.

One member of staff taking 3 babies at a time to be changed would worry me- what do the other 2 do while one is being changed?

In our nursery - which I have always thought is great - they do leave all the kids with one staff member while another goes to fetch snacks, goes to the toilet or whatever. It surprised me at first, but how else can they deal with it? There are various rooms and there are always other carers nearby - so if there was a problem they could easily call someone. Also when one staff member has more than their ratio, they tend to sit them all down and read a book or sing songs so they're not all zooming around.

btw I don't mean all the kids in the nursery - just that a group of 8 2yos might be left with one carer instead of two, for a minute or two.

I think if there are enough staff in the building yes that's acceptable. eg fetching snacks when the rest are playing quietly or sitting at the table, as you say you can yell.

But taking 3 babies out of the room to change them leaves the other carer technically over ratio AND you really, takes more than a few minutes to change three of them-especially if it's a messy one!!

does the staff/ child ration have to be ALL the time? yes.
One seemed to be out of the room changing a nappy but that took at least 10 mins, and she was popping in and out. Is that acceptable? No.

An aquaintance works as a book keeper at a private day nursery. She has full CRB checks etc. There are phones in each room. Should the member of staff need to leave the room, they call up the book keeper to cover for the 10 minutes or so. In my personal opinion, that's how it should be.

Check out the newspaper articles: in all cases I've read so far, one of the issues was lack of supervision caused by staff shortages and inadequate staff:children ratio.

I'm doing some research on this subject, could you please email me at [email protected] with your experiences of day nurseries.

I'm keen to find out what nurseries are failing in areas such as staff to child ratio, hygiene and general care. Also what nurseries are excelling in these areas.

Thanks and I look forward to hearing from you.

Nicola.