Trips

[Becs14]

Hi, my son's nursery took children on a trip today to a pumpkin patch. He is 2 years old and has additional needs, suspected asd. He goes two half days and is generally happy there.
I saw on Facebook today photos of them going on a trip but obviously hadn't heard anything about it. I checked with my brother who's 2 year old daughter is also there and he said they were told last week. So they obviously didn't want him to go because he's busy or harder work, which I do understand but I feel like they could have explained this to us beforehand maybe or maybe one of us could have gone with him. When my partner asked about it at pick up they said it was for 3 year olds only but my niece is 2 and I knew another little boy that had gone who was also 2. It's a hard time at the moment anyway and things like this just add to it. Then they added a video of photos of them enjoying and having a lovely time while my little one was obviously just in the nursery. Are we overreacting? We are going to send them an email to say we are disappointed with the communication atleast.we also thought it might be for children that go full day only but they were back before my little boy was picked up.

I'd be really upset in your position, maybe there's a reasonable explanation but definitely contact them.

I'd definitely have a chat with them.

Is your niece nearly three? Or in a different room to your DS? It may have been the pre-school group who went?

No she's actually 6 weeks younger than my son. I thought it might have been children who are there all day but it wasn't as they were back before 1pm when we pick our little one up. Obviously he didn't have a clue what was going on, and had a good day there today but we still know and I just find it hard that they left him out basically. It would have been nice to have been informed that's all really

Definitely speak to them. It's completely unacceptable for them to just leave him out because he has additional needs.

I'd be very unhappy about not only the fact they excluded him but that they outright lied to you about it.

It would make me honestly question if this was the right nursery for my child.

Hopefully there'll be an innocent explanation- maybe they weren't sure they'd be back by 1?

Any update on this op?

As a nursery nurse - when planning trips we often tried to make sure our key children went so if me and another nursery nurse were going - we would look at what of our key children were in, we would then assess that if we could take 6 (under 2's) which 4 could go in the pram and who could walk confidently. If it was 1:4 again who would walk properly. We would also need to be sure they had consent for trips out - usually filled out at the settling in session. And also decide if certain children may get something out of it.

Ie

Me - 3 key children - 2 non walkers and 1 walker {however 1 non walker would be asleep}
Nursery nurse - 5 key children - 3 non walkers, 2 walkers {however 1 non walker is under the weather, 1 walker needs a visit to the next room}

Me + Nursery nurse = 3 non walkers, 1 walker - then we would take 1 other walker and 1 other non walker just from the group, maybe 1 who is there fulltime, or one who is really interested in pumpkins at the moment etc.

We don't choose to not take some we try our best even if sometimes some of our "walkers" really wouldnt be considered proper walkers.

Ratios can be tighter on trips and it may be that they felt it wasn’t safe to take your son to that particular location after risk assessing. However we would have made you aware of this before the trip.

Or they may not have taken all the children. Sometimes we can’t take a full cohort or if children swap days they may not be able to go if they haven’t got permission. They may be intending to do another trip with children they didn’t take this time.

Hopefully you will get an explanation that satisfies you despite being disappointed.

Maybe they didn’t bring every child? We have a rota for trips out