Am I expecting too much? Observations, feedback + progress

[owitney]

We have two children, but we have DS 2.5 year old. In January we moved location as our eldest starts school. We moved nursery but with the same chain. We didn't start off well and felt we are effectively paying for babysitting and nothing else. This got better in the Spring but has progressively got worse and I don't know if its just me expecting too much.

3 days a week - 8am-5pm.

We are potty training our son who does well at home, rarely accidents, doesn't wet the bed overnight (we get him up at 11pm for a night wee). Nursery the past 3 weeks our DS has a minimum of 2 accidents, normally 3 or 4 each day. I have raised this with them a few times, that he needs to be checked if its happening and perhaps at nursery have scheduled toilet breaks if hes getting too distracted.

The observations are rare. One mid April, one end of May, one beginning of June, one end of July. So 4 in 6 months.

We do not get photos or personal daily updates. When we pick up we get a quick chat of who he played with and again, a generic what the class did. We do not get any take home (paintings or drawings) items.

We have had one parents evening since we joined which was just a how is he settling.

At the moment we are working on counting at home as DS keeps forgetting 4 and 5. We have asked nursery to encourage counting for any activities. This was 3 weeks ago and we haven't heard anything since.

Am I just expecting too much from the nursery? I am reading online and getting really mixed views. Some saying that observations and pictures take too much time, and DS is happy there, he likes the staff and other children and has no issue going to nursery, but I am feeling let down.

This is all about customer service to you (you want photos, observations and things to take home) and nothing about whether your child is actually enjoying nursery?

Nursery staff are under paid and work long hours, there will be 4 or 5 two year olds to every adult. They need to keep the children safe, occupied, feed them all, change nappies, take children to the toilet, support children with SEN, keep the room clean and tidy.
They don't have time to write daily observations or take loads of photos. If they did that would mean less adult attention for the children.

2 year olds are going to have accidents. If you are very keen for him to learn to recite numbers, you can practice that at home.

They don't have time to write daily observations or take loads of photos.

This is the top and bottom of it. You could go into a more expensive nursery with more staff.

I went into a nursery last term where they rotated every child through a painting activity just so they could take a photo of every child and Dojo it home. That's two members of staff who can't do anything else.

Nobody cared whether they were getting anything out of the activity and nobody cared if they wanted to do it or not.

Thanks caban. I should have made it clear what I am really expecting.

What I am expecting is that what we are trying to do at home, that nursery is also doing within their setting. So at the moment it is numbers and counting and potty training. I don't expect the nursery to necessarily be doing everything we do at home, but I would expect some learning over 3 full days and not regress with potty training so easily/frequently and work with us on what is going wrong. The only response we are getting is "he is getting distracted" and no plan of what we are gong to do.

Daily photos and observations are not what we are after. I never said this. Our previous nursery would do one observation every fortnight, and we were expecting similar. We would get one or two pictures a week of our child doing an activity (over the 3 days), we now get zero. We would have termly parent evening with his key worker, we have not had one yet (since joining in January), only a settling in meeting with the room leader.

For reference the nursery costs £95/day.

Genuinely, are we really asking for too much?

I think some things you're entitled to want, the no artwork is weird and even when our nursery didn't have a learning outcomes app, each child had a book that was filled in with photos and updates that parents could see when they wanted. But the focusing on counting stuff, that's definitely an 'at home' thing - they aren't really going to tailor activities around one child. They'll do numeracy stuff as part of the early years curriculum so he'll get exposure to numbers there.

It's quite common for freshly potty trained kids to take much longer to be dry at nursery, it took us a few weeks with DD1 even though she was very reliable at home, because they are in a different environment, it's busy so they get distracted, so it may just be a normal period of adjustment. I would expect them to be able to chat with you about it though.

And IME, counting happens all the time at nursery, you don't have to request it. From the baby room, there is so much counting in songs, games, etc. Nurseries follow a framework for early years education (I don't know what it's called in England, we are in Scotland) with loads of different learning elements that their activities tie into.

Is your son term time only? I got one observation a month in terms time (he did holidays but staff were shorter then, didn't get them then)

We did get a daily short update on an app, if eaten okay, and a pasted description of the day all the children had. I think I would have felt uncomfortable without that. Mine had a lot more accidents at nursery, I think you need to request a meeting to work out the issue and increase communication

Don't be scared to ask for a meeting as that's the only way you'll make progress. Numbers I wouldn't be as concerned with - toileting, do they take them all regularly and he's saying he doesn't need to go when asked? Or are they expecting him to just ask to go and never prompt him? If that's the case then I would ask them to start taking him regularly or reminding him.

Ithink it's really difficult. On the one hand I don't think you are expecting too much but on the other hand it's so difficult working in a nursery. At one time there would have been a 'spare' member of staff.

Now, so many children are not potty trained which takes up a huge amount of time.

Developmentally children are not where they used to be. Their concentration isn't there. Children used to come in to nursery knowing how to play. They knew what a puzzle was or how to play with a farm. So staff are having to start at the beginning.

Of course he is doing lots of learning over the 3 days, but in a group setting you are not able to request specific learning you want your child to do. You have 4 days a week with him to do 1:1.

Of course the nursery will be supporting and prompting with potty training, but they cannot achieve what you would be able to at home.
They don't want to be cleaning up wee or changing clothes either so it's not like they are purposefully letting your child wet himself.
Maybe it would be worth taking a week off and really cracking potty training at home before going back to nursery?

Your old nursery chose to do fortnightly observations and termly parent's evenings, this nursery does things differently. If these things are very important to you I would try to find another setting.

Children at nurseries learn through play. Schools in some other countries don't start school until 7. They learn to play co operatively, share, be polite and learn the basic skills they need for learning such as maintaining attention and focus.
However, nurseries do need to be a stimulating place for the children. They might have messy play activities, plenty of toys, outdoor play and imaginative play areas in the room. Have a look around next time you go in. Just because you don't see a picture of it might not mean they are not doing any activities.
I think for me the main thing is that the children have good relationships with the nursery workers and that they are attentive, attuned and are communicating with them building their language skills.

Our nursery sounds quite similar and it has on occasion bothered me that we don't get a huge amount of feedback, very infrequent observations unless staff need them for training and not a lot of art comes home. However, DD has a great time there, has lots of friends and likes the staff who seem to be kind and affectionate towards her so I don't let it bother me so much.
The only thing I would be a bit worried about in your shoes would be the potty training because it may well be that they don't have the time to prompt him sufficiently. But then he is still young. DD always had more accidents when she was playing and distracted or somewhere busy.

Thanks everyone. If we had hindsight we would have kept both of our children at their original nursery and put up with the 35 minute drive there (and then back again!). The nurseries are the same group but run completely differently so we went in with the same expectations and have been disappointed.

Moving him again isn't an option at the moment, this is the only day nursery in our area (within a 20 minute drive). There are 3 other pre-school nurseries which we have already started looking at for when he turns 3.

Thanks all.

As someone who works in nurseries, the toilet accidents can often happen especially on busy days. We try to remind them but when you have groups of toddlers in, it's tough and kids don't always have the language skills to ask to go. It can be pure mayhem at times so I personally wouldn't be upset about that. As others have said, learning with kids happens so naturally in all the ways described and of course, children learn from just being around each other.
I would speak to the nursery manager about your anxieties.

Just wanted to say, i don't think you're asking too much to want to have some photos of what they're doing during the day.

Every evening we get photos of all the kids doing their activities, in the garden, or on a day trip.

When ours gets his focus week, I've asked for them to include activities that centre around his interests, or focus on what we are teaching him at home.

They do lots of learning through play and practical activities too.

Though the nursery mine goes to is the 2nd most expensive in our town, so for the cost, I'd expect it!!

Thanks FatBanana. This is exactly what our expectations are. Nursery to us is a learning environment based around play and practical activities. They do not have day trips at this nursery (our previous nursery with the same chain, have gone to the local train station, go to old folks home weekly). If we wanted someone to babysit we wouldn't be paying for a nursery.

Since the post we looked around our village pre-schools and we felt both were better than our current nursery but as they are a pre-school we won't be able to attend for another 6 months, but we plan to once he turns 3. The current nursery have just hired their 3rd manager year to date, and today was the first day in the last month we have seen his key worker in his room (it has been the room leader and then temp staff). Sadly he is also still wetting himself at nursery (but not at home, and goes throughout the night without wetting himself).

Learning in the EYFS is done through play not formalised counting lessons. They pick it up in singing, stories, moving cars into a garage, filling pots for example cars might have stickers on to park in the space with the right dots. Reciting 1 to 10 has no meaning if you don't understand the concept of number. At 2 you don't achieve counting in a few weeks to tick off a list and more importantly they are working on life skills of sharing, cooperative play, independence skills etc. You seem to be focused on the early learning goals for a 5 year old.
Your child will have more accidents in a busy environment. He will not become potty trained if an adult is sitting him on a potty at regular intervals as he's not learning his bodies signals or to hold his wee.

Thanks jannier. At no point did I say I expect formal lessons. But I expect the activities they put on to have a learning element to them, even if this is beyond their age if they are capable. For example, at home we are learning 1 to 10, which he now almost understands, but being at nursery 3 days a week it would be good to reinforce this. I don't understand where you got from my posts that I expect them to be all sat down learning numbers? Toilet training a number of his accidents are when he cannot pull down his trousers, so yes, he needs to learn, but there has been no feedback on what they are doing to help this, just reiterating he is having accidents either because he was too busy playing, or because he couldn't pull his trousers down.

Our update yesterday was "today we have enjoyed singing lots of songs and acting out the different actions, copying and dancing with our friends. We have been mark making and building lots of different towers and blocks".

Day before "today we have enjoyed group time talking about our families looking at grandparents day. we have been looking at gruffalo story recreating the animals"

Last week an update was about putting items into colours and shapes, so yes, there are some elements of learning in that (once in the last two weeks), all of which is generic to the class (the updates are the same for the whole class, copy and pasted). So we have no idea what our son has actually done in those updates, there are approximately 20 children in the class and only one permanent member of staff (the room leader), so I am trying to be empathetic, but we are paying £1200 a month for 3 days a week, so I expect a certain level of service. They've been building towers with blocks, why can't they use that as a learning experience for numbers and counting? Why can the nursery not take a few children to the shop (which is 3 doors down from the nursery) on a weekly or fortnightly basis and do a shop for some vegetables for the lunch?

I will be raising this with the new manager when they have settled in though.

The updates are just a snapshot of a few minutes of the day - they can't tell you everything they have done.

Singing songs and doing actions is almost certainly a counting activity - they will have been singing counting songs eg 5 Little Ducks, 10 in the bed

Building towers with blocks is also a counting activity - counting the number of blocks, comparing sizes etc.

Mark making probably also involves some element of counting or numbers - 'of look I've drawn a 1, Isaac has made 1, 2, 3, 4 marks on his paper' etc

Your expectations are too high for a nursery. The time taken to write the daily update is already taking adult time away from the children and many nurseries would take the view that a daily written update is excessive.

You seem to want a full written plan for each activity including all outcomes - not going to happen. Nursery staff don't need to document activities in this way.

You seem to have no trust that the staff are doing their jobs, interacting appropriately with the children or have any knowledge of early years curriculum or practice.

Why can the nursery not take a few children to the shop (which is 3 doors down from the nursery) on a weekly or fortnightly basis and do a shop for some vegetables for the lunch?
A 2 year old room with 20 children needs 5 members of staff when in the building.
On trips outside they probably want a 1:2 ratio.
So to take 4 children to the shops, needs 2 members of staff.
Then the other 16 children are left with 3 members of staff, out of ratio - they need to get an extra adult in to cover.
Not many nurseries have extra staff at the moment. Most can barely recruit minimum staff numbers.
Going to the shops to buy veg is home activity - either with a parent or childminder/nanny.

Sorry but you are just making assumptions.

You are saying they are doing X, Y and Z when they are doing these activities with zero proof? You say "they are counting when building blocks", do you work at my son's nursery? At what point have I given any evidence that they are doing any counting? There has been zero indication that they are doing any of this, why is why I posted this in the first place.

You say they are providing updates which take up their time. The update is the same FOR ALL CHILDREN. Are you honestly saying, writing 3 sentences and then copying and pasting is taking up that much time? At what point have I said I expect written information for every activity my child does in the day?

This is exactly my point I am trying to make. You are saying they are doing all of these things and that I am expecting too much, but where have I said they are doing any of these things that you have mentioned that they are doing?

I would be interested in knowing what sort of updates you think the nursery should be doing. Do you believe that a generic class update is acceptable? How often do you think there should be a personal update? How often do you think there should be progress reports? How often should there be 1-1s with parents regarding their children?

It would be 100% normal and typical practice for staff in a nursery to incorporate counting, language development and literacy etc into their every day practice and routines.
It would be extremely unusual for staff not to do normal, standard things like counting during play, meal times, using counting songs and stories.
If staff aren't behaving in a typical way, and aren't following the early years curriculum, then you have bigger problems. Of course I'm going to assume this at least a normal average nursery in the absence of evidence to the contrary.
I've been in a lot of nurseries and even the fairly crap ones I've not seen staff doing an activity with building blocks where they haven't incorporated maths skills.

Read their Ofsted report - because it will definitely be mentioned if staff aren't using all learning opportunities, aren't practising maths skills during other activities, aren't appropriately using songs and story times.

As for updates - verbal update each day. Formal written observation every half term. Parent's evening once a year.

I'd actually suggest you look up the document 'Development Matters' - it might reassure you that there is education and learning intentions in activities like mark making, singing, dressing up, building, play dough, talking about families, and that it is all following a curriculum.

Nursery I work in observation wise children get 2 a month.. progress reports we do every term but that doesn't have to happen. There is no legal requirement for either anymore except a 2 year progress check so up to the setting what they do now obs/report wise.

We don't do generic updates often just a memo every few weeks or so. Parents evening a formal one once a year.

Ok so the learning your child is doing in your two examples include but not limited to.

• social and communication skills (dramatic play)
• following simple instructions
• Problem-solving skills/ persistence, and determination (building with blocks)
• Categorisation a pre-maths skill.

that is hardly once in two weeks. Your problem is not the lack of “ education” your two year old is receiving, but the lack of explanation from your service.
I work in early childhood education, not in the UK. We don’t tell our parents that we taught the children how to count, but we include counting in different aspects of the day through songs, counting our friends, etc. The learning you are expecting is happening from your child being there and being involved in the routines of the day.

Hi Bubbles. I am going to point out something which you may have missed. The update is for the whole class. The class is around 25 children, so I really doubt all the children are doing what the updates have been about. But yes you are right in that they could be doing that but I would expect them to relay that in some way. I don't see this is asking too much to be update with learning goals. We noticed he has been singing nursery rhymes lately so we have been doing more of that at home, but we only know this because he told us he's been singing them at nursery.

Interestingly since caban mentioned it, I looked up their previous Ofsted. Requires Improvement was in 2021 and they were then re-inspected 2022 and received Good. The bits that needed improving were learning!

"strengthen curriculum implementation by helping staff to capture every opportunity to give children the experiences they need to develop their skills and knowledge to the highest level."

However just to update anyone that may be interested, we have registered for the pre-school in our village which our son is able to join when he turns 3 early next year, so we plan on moving him then. My wife is really upset/angry at the nursery so I generally go to drop him off and collect him. He still regularly has toilet accidents at nursery and after asking some questions we have since discovered that they do not help him at all with toileting, expecting him to go when he needs to and clean up after himself (they do change him when he has had an accident). Today he had poop stains all over his pants which staff say is because he didn't wipe enough (we wipe him at home as we weren't at that stage until we knew he was OK in and out of the house). He hasn't wet himself outside of nursery in the last month, overnight or on days out with grandparents or ourselves. The nursery has now hired another permanent member of staff for the 2-3yo room I think so I believe there is now the room leader, a perm and then 2/3 bank staff (previously it was room leader and 4 bank staff), as we seem to get the daily updates written by someone new, and we have also had a couple of pictures this week. No observation since end of July though. Oh well.

Thank you for everyone's input, its much appreciated.

I think the main issue is that the nursery is understaffed, seeing as up until recently, there was only one permanent member of staff in the room of 20 2-3 yo, when you should have at least 4 (according to the new 1:5 ratio). Hopefully things will improve now that they have recruited another permanent member.
I work in the nursery, and to read that they don’t help your DS in the toilet at all is quite surprising, as he is too young to be expected to wipe himself properly.
Hopefully pre-school will be a much better option for him once he turns 3.
I did just want to ask, how does your DS seem? Is he happy when you collect him? Does he talk excitedly about his day spent in the nursery, mention any of his friends?
As for the updates, do you get a verbal feedback at the end of the day? As this is something we do. We no longer do generic updates, we would verbally tell parents what their child had done that day.
Also, do tell them what your child has been doing at home. If you can, upload home videos onto his observations (unsure what system your nursery uses, we use Tapestry and parents are able to upload their own observations). I personally find these really useful as I can see what the child’s interests are at home, and then I can review on how to encourage/develop on them further within my setting.
As pp’s have stated before, don’t worry so much about your DS learning numbers, letters etc. Nurseries aren’t designed to have such structured learning, but more to develop their personal and social skills and communication.

Lastly, do speak to the management. Don’t be afraid to express your concerns, worries or raise any questions that you may have.