Nursery not allowing full time hours

[Pasqual]

Hello,

I'm looking to see if anyone else has been in this situation and has any advice to offer.

My 3.5 year old started his full time nursery place in August. Prior to this he attended a private nursery 1 day and week and was there 8am-5pm.

Long story short is that I have been asking for assistance from our health visitor since he was 2. He doesn't communicate verbally with us, doesn't make eye contact, doesn't play with other children (prefers to play alone) and has very high energy all the time. We are currently working with SLT.

When he started his new nursery I met with them prior and explained my concerns and asked for help. They provided me with techniques they use in the nursery and we had implemented these at home prior to him starting as he responds very well to routine.

He initially attended for an hour and a half a day we accepted this as we understood he needed time to settle in. We asked 4 weeks later about increasing his time and they stated they didn't have the capacity. I questioned this and they said they had him on a 1 to 1 ratio and they couldn't facilitate it.

I requested a meeting back in November and they agreed to keep him until after lunch time, we now pick him up at 12:30. They also admitted that he wasn't 1 to 1 but that he does require someone to keep an eye as he struggles with sharing if another child approaches him to play.

I am due to have a major operation and will not be able to drive for at least 12 weeks. Due to shifts, I do the majority of drop offs as my husband also works full time and pick ups are split between grandparents. I have asked the nursery to increase at least 2 of his days to full time (9-3) to assist and they are refusing stating he gets too tired and they don't have the staff to facilitate. My daughter's school is in the same building and when I'm out of action, we will be asking grandparents to do 6 runs to and from the school and one set doesn't drive.

He is tired at the end of the day when we pick him up but he doesn't sleep well at night. My hopes is that if he gets settled into a routine his sleep might even out.

Am I wrong for pushing this? Are they allowed to refuse this?
He is entitled to his hours, there are other children on a 1 to 1 ratio who get to stay all day.
If we tried it and it really wasn't working, I could accept that but they haven't even given him a chance to see how he gets on.

This is not correct for England.

Thanks for the helpful replies, I am still reading and have reached out to a few different places for advice.

For clarity he has not been diagnosed with an ASN, the nursery are not willing to support the assessment as they don't think there is a need just yet and have asked for another few weeks to work with him and for SALT to continue working with him too, once a week at present. Over the past few weeks he has started using some words, he has started saying "love you mummy" (and my heart melted) but he still very much prefers to play independently. They have stated that alot of children who were born during COVID are having similar issues with regards to communication. SALT have stated that he has a delay in his communication and understanding - but haven't said how much of a delay there is.

I'm in Scotland, so our processes are different.

I've requested a review of his health visitor due to the failings she has caused from the start - I should have nipped this in the bud sooner. My fault for trusting and not wanting to get her into bother. Being busy is not an excuse for incompetence - she lost his notes and didn't visit/contact at all when he was a baby, I had to chase his baby injections, she has ignored telephone calls/emails from both me and my husband asking for help/advice and when I managed to speak to one of her peers she got her to phone back and said "I didn't think you needed support, it's your 2nd child" , she has promised to attend meetings then hasn't shown face and hasn't sent any messages to cancel and she hasn't followed through on any promises she has made. Thankfully I started communicating with her via email only around 6 months ago, so I have evidence to support all of this.

And I'm not entitled by any manner or means - I'm a parent advocating for my child as I think he is being excluded unfairly without any evidence to support this. I've asked for a copy of his personal learning plan and any risk assessments but they've stated they don't have any - I've now requested this in writing. His previous nursery did not report any concerns other than his speech and they supported the SALT assessment as the health visitor did not put this through.

The nursery is local authority ran and is the feeder nursery for both mainstream primary school and they also have a separate unit which feeds into the SEN school. They are saying he doesn't meet the criteria for the special needs unit.

As stated in my OP, we're totally willing to accept that he might not cope with full days but I was looking for opinions on wether or not they were unreasonable to let him try. Thank you to everyone for taking time to reply, it's been really helpful to read other people's experiences.

My next step is to ask about a blended learning model, perhaps with a childminder, to check if this is an option.

OP I would push nursery to get an assessment done. It's not too early.

Is he on a sen plan or anything?. Has the nursery noticed anything. Initially they need to put him on a plan then review. Can they do referral for services? I would speak to gp they can refer then speak to nursery see if your child is on a sen plan. They should be able to apply for some kind of funding may not be one ro one but realistically a lot of pla es can't offer one ro one because of lack of funding from councils. Even with ehcp it's not guaranteed one to one. (My daughter has ehcp and doesn't get one to one? Also goodle sen local offer for your area definitely helpful info

Just reading your comments. Definitely not too young for assessment please don't let nursery fob you off. Go to gp see if you can get referral. Write all your concerns down for them. Honestly whole system is frustrating. We are in similar position with my dd where been told no point doing referral but we are pushing and pushing and finally have appointment

Imagine finding out your child has a disability, can’t access regular childcare for more than a few hours - which means you can’t access work, healthcare, etc - wondering how you’re going to pay bills etc and then being told you’re entitled for trying to access that childcare.
Not entitled just desperation of scared SEN parents.

My DS has just turned 4 and sounds similar to your son. You don't need to wait for nursery to apply for an ehcp or diagnosis, I've done it all myself as I wasn't prepared to wait until the term before he starts school (which is when nursery were going to do it). I sent the ehcp paperwork in July and have already had the draft version, and should have the final one in the next few weeks. Your local council website will have the details of how to apply.

If your health visitor is no help your GP should be able to refer you to the paediatrician to begin the diagnosis procedure (if that's what you want to do), which is normally a couple of years.

Edited to say his ehcp includes a full time one to one as there's no way he'd cope in mainstream without one.

Wow @Luckyduc , hope you never experience what OP has. If the nursery has the reason they should be telling it to OP instead of fobbing her off and delaying getting the support OP’s child needs.

OP, the nursery doesn’t need to support the assessment.

I also had useless HV who refused to do a referral to peadiatrician claiming that she was not authorised person to do it. She lied/gave me incorrect information.I was also told that they don’t diagnose children before they enter educational system then raise the concerns and look for support.

I got referral from SALT specialist who contacted me about NT DS1.
DS2 has been referred to local autism centre and paediatrician for observation and assessment.
Similarly to you I didn’t want to rock the boat and trusted HV. DS2 was sticking out like a proverbial sore thumb at the toddler groups.

When I was told they don’t diagnose before 3rd birthday I argued. By this time I completely lost confidence in HV and supported by friend telling me „when it comes to your child sometimes you have to capsize the fecking boat”

DS was diagnosed with ASD a month before his 3rd birthday. He started nursery 3 months later and support was already there just because I pushed.

Good luck. It’s sometimes long and winding road but acting in the best interests of your child means sometimes you have to be pushy,assertive and lay your arguments well.

The nursery are definitely contradicting themselves.
They won’t let him increase his hours.
They don’t feel there is a need to go down the assessment route….

If you were in England I would advise you collecting evidence now of his needs and keeping a record. Dictating conversations with the nursery. Action plans for them. Things they can and can’t do at home. SALT feedback and targets.

Request to meet SENCO and in the meantime apply for an EHCP (they can support you with this) you don't need a diagnosis for one. I would explain to them about your operation and say they need to be more inclusive. Maybe they need to employ more staff?

Sorry just seen they don't support a referral. Your DC already being referred to SaLT is a massive sign. Also if they don't support it this would make me think they have no concerns, so surely he can be there all day like others? They're contradicting themselves here massively!

I’m sorry I don’t understand the system in Scotland but I will say it’s very unlikely that nursery are experts in SEN so take anything they same with a huge pinch of salt and get actual SEN professionals involved ASAP.

Hi
it’s currently 2:26 am . I just couldn’t get myself to sleep
so my son 3 years old has started nursery it’s been couple of days. I went to pick him up yesterday from the preschool/nursery the informed me that they will be minimising my son’s childcare hour because he hasn’t been listening to them , he’s been messing up the toys and his behavior is not good and that day he managed to run ta tap in the bathroom and get himself wet to which i can see they were really upset about as they were a bit rude and agitated while informing me about the incident. I could not talk to them much at the time as there were many parents who came to pick up their kids later than after I reached my home i rang the pre school and asked them what has happened because when they said “his behavior is not good” i feared if he has pushed or hit someone to get hurt as i have never noticed any of such behavior from him but then they told me that my son plays by himself and doesn’t want to share toys he does his own things and doesn’t listen to what they say ,he runs around and jumps everywhere.

so i am just here thinking because he does have his little brother at home and doesn’t hurt him in any ways or has behavioral problems while at home and to hear that his behavior is not good to the extent that they are refusing childcare hours.

am i just overthinking about it ?? Is my child behavior really unacceptable??? Cause we take him to everwhere we go to friends house,parks,playdate but no one has complained me about my childs behavior till yesterday.

any kind of feedback will be really appreciated

@Triplecheesepizza you took the words out of my mouth!!

Whilst I’m with you on the not knowing how the Scottish system works, on your comment about nursery staff and taking what they say with a pinch of salt ! Most will have encountered contact of some form of children with SEN , especially given how so many more children with SEN are coming through the system, last year and this year we have had our highest number of children with clear intake ever! Whilst as Nursery professionals we are not able to and would never take upon ourselves to diagnose, we are able to recognise when there is something to be concerned about and would support the parents in recommending what they need to do/ where to seek advice and help .