Nursery asked to me to keep daughter home due to OFSTED visiting

[Fidgitigdif123]

So my daughter is 4 and has a diagnosis of autism. She has a speech and language delay, and needs some support throughout the day, particularly when it comes to toileting, but isn't too difficult to handle, and she generally keeps herself to herself. The nursery are always praising her for how good she's been during the day, and they always say she's a happy girl who enjoys being there.
I had a phone call from her key worker the other day (who also happens to be one of the nursery managers), asking me to keep her home the following day because they have an OFSTED inspector visiting. Apparently they don't have enough staff to be able to support my daughter while the OFSTED inspector is visiting (apparently they'll need a member of staff to show the inspector around, which will mean my daughter won't have anyone to support her during the visit).
I'm confused by this, as there's been countless times where they've had several staff off sick at one time (including her key worker), and yet she's still been able to go into nursery.
I'm actually starting to think they just want her out of the way for the day so it'll be easier for them to focus on the inspection, but surely this would be the best time to show off how good they are at dealing with children with SEN and other disabilities?
I genuinely don't know if I'm right in being a little bit upset about this, as it feels like they just want to sweep her under the carpet; like they're embarrassed by her being there or something.

That's awful! 😔 the more I'm reading up about it, the angrier I'm starting to feel tbh 😕

I'd absolutely be contacting Ofsted. I'd also tell them that they often not to charge for the day and for you to get an extra day free if you agreed...

Of course inspections put a lot of pressure off staff, but that's not unique to Ofsted. Should difficult clients in care homes be hidden away? Maybe disruptive patients in hospital? With prison inspections, should the trickier ones just disappear? Maybe health and safety not visit the one section of a kitchen that isn't ready for them?

Keeping a disabled child out of the way for Ofsted is disgusting. IMO, the nursery forfeited your goodwill the moment you were asked to hide your child so they could cheat the inspectors.

@VJBR
Because what the nursery have done is illegal.
If they are breaking rules doing this, what else are they doing? Staff levels too low? Unqualified staff?

OFSTED would be assessing whether your DDs needs are properly met in the setting. If they are not managing this properly it would easily drop their rating down from Outstanding to Good or to Inadequate. It is important your child attends school during the OFSTED visit ( how the school manage your DD with unexpected changes is important!)

If this didn't happen its important that you make OFSTED aware of why your child didn't attend that day.

I had a situation where inspectors forgot to consult parents - then suddenly realised they'd forgotten and emailed parents at lunchtime saying could they respond by 5pm that evening! Obviously no good for many people at work. I managed to respond by 5pm but even that was too late!
In their hurry they'd sent the email to all parents so that everyone could see other people's addresses - against GDPR rules.
I tried to complain and was told "Oh no, the inspector would not do that" - but they had! Also wrote but received no reply.
When the report came out it was clear that much was copied and pasted. Needless to say I had no respect for their opinions.

I think OP it depends on whether you want to keep your child there or not and whether you are generally happy otherwise with the setting.

if you do leave make sure you have another nursery spot as some areas are difficult to find and do you really want your child to be settled at another setting given she is non verbal? The grass isn’t always greener at a new setting

Contacting Ofsted isn’t going to help if you are going to stay -it just makes things awkward between you and the nursery staff.

It’s easy for people to say contact ofsted etc etc etc and complain etc as they are not the people that have to deal with the consequences of the actions! It’s in the past now so think about what you actually want to do moving forward..take care

I feel it is wrong for the nursery to have asked this of you especially without explaining their rationale.

OFSTED want to be able to inspect a normal day at the nursery. All nurseries face the same criteria for inspection and therfore go through the same anxieties to maintain high standards. Funds are low for all settings and high levels of staff sick leave affects all providers alike since covid. In that way it’s a level playing field.

The process of inspection certainly isn’t perfect and major changes are needed. Some provider reputations suffer as a result, causing loss of business and/or terrible anxiety amongst staff.

Even so, as a manager, I would find it morally wrong to manipulate the situation to my advantage by asking a parent to withhold a child for any reason at all, on an inspection day. And I would never single out any child in this way.

Your child’s absence prevented the inspectors from a valuable opportunity to observe interactions with a SEN child even though they could still ask to see the planning for her and her development records.

As her parent, I would be wanting to know why this unusual request was made for my daughter and I would request a meeting with the manager to find out why she didn’t want inspectors to observe interactions with her. I would also ask if the nursery regularly requests parents to keep their child away if and when staff ratios are compromised below the legal requirements.

I understand it perfectly. I have been working in nurseries since 2016. You’re right, we are under a lot of pressure daily, often understaffed with poor management and minimum wage. I would still NEVER discriminate again any child and I also wouldn’t cheat an inspection.

👏 Wish their were more nursery workers like you around.

@Mummyyellow

"Contacting Ofsted isn’t going to help if you are going to stay -it just makes things awkward between you and the nursery staff.

It’s easy for people to say contact ofsted etc etc etc and complain etc as they are not the people that have to deal with the consequences of the actions! It’s in the past now so think about what you actually want to do moving forward..take care"

I think the relationship between them will already be awkward from now on. Why should the manager (and presumably owner of the nursery) get away with cheating the system to increase their profits at the expense of a disabled child.

I'm always, always saddened by the reaction of education providers at the thought of scheduled OFSTED inspections having spent most of my working life as an inspector of schools and colleges and some years as an OFSTED team inspector. Your daughter is one of our children whose welfare and educational & social well being & progress are OFSTED's mandated concerns. The nursery is doing no favours to OFSTED nor to our children if it selectively aims to paint half a picture of how our children are doing and who our children are. Each and every one is precious, worthy of careful & sympathetic monitoring for the sake of society, especially the parents. OFSTED is meant to monitor and provide advice -- by sympathetic and caring professionals with many years of experience in the relevant fields. Good luck.

Ofsted don't contact the parents - for schools or nurseries. How could they? Ofsted don't have all the parents' email addresses! When the inspector phones up the day before the inspection starts, they tell the owners/headteacher to contact the parents to inform them all an inspection is taking place, and for schools so parents can be sent a link to the parent survey online. So if that happened it would have been the school or nursery who were probably in a bit of a flap preparing and forgot to do that bit.

It's in the inspection handbooks - "confirm that the setting knows about its statutory duty to inform parents of the inspection".

For schools the letter that gets emailed does look like it comes from Ofsted as it's Ofsted headed and everything but it is sent to you from a school email account, by the school.

Do the inspectors check registers in a nursery?
I wonder what excuse they gave for OPs daughter to be absent that day. Hope they didn't say she was sick when in fact she was excluded on purpose 😞

Children's as well as teachers'/carers'/educators' absences tell a story -- and Inspectors do make a collective note of that!! Also, involvement or otherwise of parents (friends and parents of a provider) tell a subtle story, which is also recognised. 😀

I'm no apologist for Inspection as an activity or for OFSTED! However, the OFSTED inspection processes and procedures are systematic and fairly rigorous, which are sometimes mistaken as unsympathetic, unsupportive. Practically everything is looked at, explored, examined -- and collectively monitored by normally experienced professionals in the relevant fields. 😀

This is disgraceful ! They are trying to cover up the fact they are not fully staffed , fair enough if someone calls in sick but long term understaffing puts those children possibly at risk or poorer childcare, those of you saying Ofsted is to blame for putting staff under scrutiny would be the first to complain if your child was affected . I’m an early years practitioner and expect my school/nursery to provide the best service we can and we should be Ofsteded , yes it is stressful but if you are meeting the standards you have nothing to fear . Recently a baby died in a nursery and this case is currently in court , wouldn’t you want the best care for your child . Please fill in the parentview and tell them if you are satisfied with the care your child receives currently but don’t think you should have been asked to keep them off .If they are trying to mislead Ofsted are they misleading parents as to their level of care to all those children .

It frustrates me that so many people advice to keep your DD home as requested!!
mits important that OFSTED are assessing the nursery on a ‘normal’ day and assess how they deal/care for SEND students.

Can you imagine conditions if there was no OFSTED in nurseries...

As a mother of an autistic 6yo I’d have been upset if they asked me to keep him home and wondering for what reasons they asked me to keep him away. I understand ofsted can cause a great deal of stress to the school (DS school had an inspection last year) but I’d expect the staff would see how important it was for my son to be included the same as any other student and
make arrangements for support for my child as they have to when there are staff absences. So what now, do they think they can just ask you to keep her off whenever they see fit now? Sorry this happened op

Maybe the nursery are thinking of the child and how lots of strangers walking around asking questions might upset him?
so in that respect it’s not a ‘normal’ day is it.
far from it as far as the child is concerned.

Cannot believe there are posters saying OP should go along with what she's being asked by the nursery as if Ofsted are the problem. The nurses have obviously identified they're likely to be pulled up on something and posters are saying the OP should conspire with the nursery to cover it up?!?

That's not what they told OP though. They simply said they didn't have enough staff on that day. OP is suspicious that the truth is they don't want her DD messing up the inspection because there have been many other times when they've been short on staff yet still managed to support her DD.

If they had had a discussion with OP, explaining how disruptive the day might be for her DD, OP may well have decided to keep her DD off that day anyway.

This is not my experience. Generally, it's the adults who seem to be extra aware of the "strangers" in their midst but the children themselves are usually amused, interested, even eager to chat & interact. Generally, a very pleasant & rewarding experience for the "strangers" who are fortunate to have been given this role of monitoring, advising and supporting children's & staff's progress and well being on behalf ultimately of parents (and society). And you'll be lucky if there are "lots of strangers". These inspectors are expensive!!😀

She's not bothered by strangers walking around, she actually likes meeting new adults 😕

Was she back at nursery today? Did they mention the inspection?