Nursery shock report

[needmorecoffee]

anyone see this

I don't understand how people can leave a baby in nursery from 8-6. I just don't.

Edam am beginning to see more and more your argument for nannies .

Layzlou
I do not think unqualified staff should be treated the same as qualified staff. It is not fair on unqualified staff to throw them in at the deepend, and it certainly not fair on the children.

I have a slightly different perspective of the whole thing, as I live in Germany.

Here the staff in a kindergarten go through a training period of 3 - 5 years, with 1 1/2 days of school a week and the rest in Kindergarten. They do not earn as much as the trained staff (which admittedly is a pittance too). This "apprenticeship" is a big part of the education system here in Germany, if you do not go on to higher education, you learn a trade.

I am not sure when they are allowed to be in charge of the children alone, I will ask when I pick up the DCs.

The system is not brilliant, there is not enough money being spent here either.

My BIL and SIL are in the US, and both high-flyers. No statutory maternity leave or pay in their state, and anyway SIL very worried about falling behind in her career (completely legitimate concern). So, both of their children were in full time daycare, 8am-6pm, five days a week, from six weeks' old until they started school.

Mind you, they're both very nice kids. Maybe daycare in the US is a different kettle of fish?

wannabe, there is a a 6 week old baby in my nursury from 8am till 6pm 5 days a week. That makes me really sad (and even though the staff are professional enough not to say anything, I think it makes them quite sad too).

I do not think we even have inspectors here in Germany, never heard of them.

If you have a complaint, you take it to the head of the nursery, then to the "Träger", um, the intitution running it. Most nurseries are state-funded, so that would be the city council.

And the Germans are very up on controlling everything and checking things.

We are not so mad about Health & Safety though.

There are bad nurseries.
There are awful childminders.
There are dreadful nannies.
Some parents abuse their children.

But I honestly believe it is only a small percentage of childcare which is poor. We all need to be vigilant and trust our instincts.

(Or at least, that's what I tell myself )

Wannabe, thing is nannies were out of the question when ds was a baby - I earnt a good wage in a senior job but I was the breadwinner and would have had very little left over if I paid a nanny. Round here, would have been at least £20k, out of net earnings, so heading towards £30k out of your gross income. (AND nannies expect their pay rate to be quoted net of tax...)

Obviously there are bad nannies as well as bad nurseries but if we ever have no. 2, I'd prefer a nanny to a nursery. But short of knocking my MIL on the head and inheriting her house, there's no way I could afford it.

my friends son was in f/t from 4 months

she is a high flier and as she rightly said, worked her arse off to get where she is and didn't want to give it up

but personally, being a control freak I could not hand over my baby for 50 hours a week

and stuffitlama, I do go a lot on gut instinct actually if that snide remark was meant for me

my whole parenting philosopy is based on it so ner!

right - i think that is the whole bad nursery thing covered! lets draw a line under this until the next scary report/program comes out and we can all cut and paste from this thread.

also, people use family for childcare

my MIL is fabulous BUT some people may be tired and rubbish and choose to stick their grandchildren in front of Cbeebies all day

those children will be better off in nurseries imo

so any choice has the possibility of being a 'bad' choice doesn't it?

I await the undercover "Grandparents Scandal - Childcare Hell" from the BBC...

Olive I know it was snide, I withdrew it straight away, sorry if it bothered you.

I meant that we can't abolish Ofsted and rely on our gut instincts and it slipped out in a snappy way. But at the same time this report shows that parents can't think they've looked into it by reading the Ofted report, which they really in one way should be able to. They need to do their homework too, and most parents probably will for their own peace of mind.

Lazylou has got it right - untrained (or those going through training) need to be closely supervised, both for their own career development and for the safety and development of the children they're looking after. You can't say unqualified staff shouldn't work in pre-schools/nurseries - one of the conditions of training is that they have a place in a setting, sometimes this is voluntary but sometimes someone will have a paid role while they are training.

And more money is needed - the graduate thing is ridiculous. Settings are being encouraged to hire graduates (and in the future will have to), but pay rates in the sector are ludicrously low.

Someone said earlier Ofsted should do unannounced inspections. I'm really confused now because as far as all the pre-schools I know are concerned, they ONLY do unannounced ones. Literally, the door bell rings, you answer it and it's Ofsted. You might suspect you are due an inspection in the next say 6-9 months but that's it. The only exception I know is a Surestart nursery on a school site - the school got their 2-3 days notice of an inspection, so by default the nursery did too.

In the last 18 years ive worked in Nurseries, playschools, as a Nanny and i'm now a childminder. I have to say i much prefer being a nanny or childminder. Sometimes at nursery we just didnt have the time to give the children the attention i feel they deserve, we did lovely group activities but one to one was basically impossible.
I found looking for a pre-school for my son really hard. The one closest to my home i didnt view because of the reputation of the area, I chose one which had been highly recommended in a really nice area of town, it was a disaster and i pulled him out after 1 session. He now attends the one i didnt view (because of my snobbery) he loves it and the staff are fantastic.
Just goes to show.

She worries about her friends children? Now, that would really annoy me if someone worried about my children even knowing me and my children. Who does she think she is? Implying that parents are complete morons who are not able to assess if their children are happy and well looked after. I welcome critical investigations into the nursery sector, but when its always so unbalanced I loose interest and strongly question their motives

i am with you 100% fairymum

"I welcome critical investigations into the nursery sector, but when its always so unbalanced I loose interest and strongly question their motives"

If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys! Nursery Nurse salaries in my area are around £13,000 per year. Managers are not on that much more.
Nursery staff are paid low salaries (often NMW) and are typically quite young. Some nurseries are better than others in this respect - employing a variety of ages of staff and paying as well as they can, so they retain loyal staff. Staff turnover in the sector is quite high in some areas.
Increasing staff salaries however isn't practical, as who pays for it? Parents. Parents often want low cost childcare. Parents are already paying a considerable amount of their take-home pay, for childcare... for some parents, they can be working for next to nothing having deducted their childcare costs. Therefore they don't like it when childcare fees go up - recent example.

While there is regulation in place, the rules can be interpreted in various ways. One issue involves how many staff should be on duty - minimum is 2, but is that 2 for the entire nursery, or 2 per room? The Full Day Care National Standards are not clear on that point... and when I came across that exact issue when temping in nurseries, I consulted a senior inspection team manager at Ofsted, and was told that they could not enforce there being 2 members of staff in a room.

Yes there are bad nurseries, but there are also great nurseries. Parents make the choice, based on many factors - particularly visiting the nursery, spending some time getting familiar with the setup. Inspection reports are just a snapshot, and while they may be helpful, they can be misleading, as they only show what the nursery was like on a particular day (or days, if Care and Education inspection), rather than how it is the rest of the time.

Haven't been able to read the BBC article (firewall is blocking it for some reason), but I expect it's the usual thing... plus has been published just in time for the BBC pro gramme tonight (Whistleblower 8pm BBC1) which is about some journalist getting work in the childcare sector.

"If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys! Nursery Nurse salaries in my area are around £13,000 per year. Managers are not on that much more."

i find that quite rude tbh.

no, what you do get are young girls, school leavers, still living at home and able to live on that kind of money. Or mums, who value flexibility and working with children and are not driven by the money.

You could say the same for nurses, dinner ladies etc... Not everyone is money-driven, but unfortunately most of us need to earn more than that to make it viable to work at all.

maybe if mums who had careers weren't penalised if they wanted to take a couple years out to raise their kids when they are babies?
It annoys me no end that its a stark choice 'work or baby' and if you choose baby your career may suffer.
I did give up my career and now 16 years on the last one will be going to school but no way could I go back into it.
Plus, you can't find any nursery that takes aquadraplegic toddler with epilepsy. They only take kids who can play by themselves.

I speak it as I see it. Here in the South East, there are many low paid workers often in jobs which are dominated by women. If there were more men were in those jobs, do you really think the employers would pay those low wages? A nursery nurse in the South East, isn't likely to get a mortgage when they earn £13,000 and a house costs £120,000+.

You are right though, what you get is young girls, school leavers, those living at home, for whom money is not as important a factor. They are in the job for a little while, then move on to better things. High staff turnover is a problem in some nurseries.
As you also say, it is the same for other professions - but again they are female dominated. There is still a big divide, between jobs which are seen as 'womens work' and those which are for the men.

There are many great people working in the care sectors (be it in a school, nursery, hospital, care home), and they are often paid a pittance for the work they do. These dedicated individuals who do this kind of job for the love of the job, not for the money, are what keeps these services available.
However, how long can that continue? These people are being priced out of the housing market, they can't afford to buy a house (at least, not in the South East).

yes, i agree with your last post.
that hardly makes them monkeys though does it.

I've used a few nurseries over the years, tehy were a mix- one so awful that ds3 screeched before going in, I removed him after they isolated him and shouted at him for biting (he was 15 months and teething)- 2 years after my Sis took over that Nursery and ended up sacking that staff member for being abusive to kids.

OTOH I've also used an extremely good Nursery (ormirian on here has used it too I beleive), and many otheer great childcare professionals.

My sister is fastiious about things like qualifications and checks, but she does often complain that parents will come in and ask if their LO can have more 1-1 or organic meals or whatever, yet they kick up and complain if the prices rise. It's something of a catch-22 situation isn't it? We all want the best we can for our kids, but equally the vast majority of us have limited resources to pay for the additionals. Most of us get that but there will always be those who don't.

There's an awful lot of dedicated atff out there- sis is mid thirties, NNEB trained at 16, very experienced and has chosen a job she loves over salary but her DH earns well, could she have stayed in the job otherwise I wonder? Equally a lot of the youngsters are also deictaed- we all started somewhere. But the low salaries WILL take a toll, because poeple need to eat and feed themselves.

Left both ds1 and ds2 in childcare (admittedly family) from 9 weeks- that was the amternity allowance back then, and I ahd no option with ds1. With ds2 I ahd to pay the bills as DH was ill and he couldn't care for them. we all have different lives, different circumstances. DS3 is 4.5 and I'm at home now (as wella s studying) and will ahve a year off with ds4, then will work when DH is at Uni- you just muddle through.

By wannaBe on Wed 05-Mar-08 10:06:35
I don't understand how people can leave a baby in nursery from 8-6. I just don't.

Oh for goodness sake, open your mind a little. Some people have no choice, we can't all afford to give up work can we?!

There are good nurseries and bad nurseries, not all of us have the option of grand-parents so nursery is a good option.

If all Mums gave up work tomorrow, I think the UK would go bankrupt fairly quickly.

I'm not a monkey, a young girl, a school leaver nor have i left to do "better things"
Your just dam right rude. I'm 36 and love my job. I dont do it for the money, I never have. I do it cos i like to feel im giving children a good start in life and letting them experience things that not all children do at home.

Good for you kys, the carers at dds nursery have the same attitude as you and it really shows.