Why no accident report forms for my child?

[Preschoolpiglet]

My 4 year old just left preschool after a year in the setting.

Chatting with several other parents, they joked about how many accident report forms they get... I've only had one in the past year for a bad fall.

Can anyone who works in preschools think if there could be a reason for this? Am I overthinking? It's just really strange that the other parents all had so many - generally the setting is very thorough.

My child is actually very accident prone (suspected dyspraxia) so it's not unusual for her to have bruises - I would have expected her to have at least the same amount of forms as the other children.

We only get them for bumped heads (seemingly weekly) and maybe the odd bad cut. Not bruises and grazed knees. Your DD must be good at falling without hitting her head!

I guess my concerns are:

That my child is autistic and nobody noticed when she had accidents as she didn't tell them.

Or... maybe the staff just didn't like me and didn't want to have to talk to me so didn't do the forms?

I'd assume you just have a fairly cautious and/or gentle child - not launching themselves off the top of the slide or getting into scraps with other kids.

Are you saying your child came home with injuries but no form?
Did you ask the staff about the injury?

Why didn't you query your child's injuries when they happened? Surely the nursery staff would have told you when you collected your child on the day.

My DD had one a week for GD2…..she had 1 in 2 years for GD1

I can’t imagine any member of staff not following policy for accidents…..i
even if they don’t like you

She often had small bruises on her legs that I assumed were from climbing things/ falling at preschool. I didn't query them at the time as I thought it's common for 4 year olds to have bruised legs/ scraped knees and I just assumed they didn't record these minor injuries as there was no cause for concern....I thought nothing of it until other parents mentioned getting them weekly.

She is a very gentle, cautious child as previous poster asked...so perhaps the other kids were all really boisterous and bumping their heads all the time!

You don’t get an accident form for a bruise….as a bruise just doesn’t happen straight after an accident ……she probably gets loads of injuries like this when she’s in your care as well as nurseries

It is extremely unlikely that they didn’t bother with the form because they simply didn’t like you!

Them not always knowing that she had bumped herself because she would have struggled to tell them is a little more possible.
But, honestly, unless you have a whole load of other concerns from her time there I really think you’re making something of nothing. Neither of mine had a lot of accident forms. One was very athletic and really fell. The other was cautious and more interested in colouring! You say she has left the setting? If so, think no more about it!

This has nothing to do with them not liking you - and that's a pretty big assumption to make in the first place.

Has your child ever come out with a significant injury without a form? If not there's nothing to worry about.

My DD (autistic but irrelevant) has managed to get herself to 15 years old and never had any sort of injury form from any educational establishment. In fact she plays rugby and has never been hurt either which is a bit of a miracle. But some children just don't get injured in that way, they don't rush about, or jump from height etc.

Where the small bruises the only injuries?

Never been given a form. Have had phone calls about head bumps and been told things at pick up like ‘he hurt his arm on the climbing frame and had an ice pack’ at pick up. I think it’s normal they’re only for serious stuff once they’re at preschool?! That age group fall over a lot, it would be a lot of paperwork if everything required a form for the parents! Then also bruises don’t come up right away and preschools have quite high ratios (can be as high as 1:13 if lead by a qualified teacher) so unless she cried or told someone they might not even know. If she’s now left then this isn’t something I’d dwell on.

I only used to get them for head injuries or when blood was involved (not from a graze as in cuts)

Some kids use their heads to stop themselves rather than putting their hands out so you end up with a lot

Head injuries and actual accidents/incidents that drew blood here. Nothing very significant though, maybe two over three years? I also had to fill them out when he'd had an accident at home which was visible to them. I assumed accident forms were mainly about protection from being sued/reported to Ofsted so it's in their interests to do one.

bruises don’t come out instantly and many kids don’t even react when they bump into something so staff are often unaware. Obviously, if they were aware of an accident I’d expect to be told and a form filled in if necessary. My teenager is forever getting bruises as she really is so unbelievably clumsy, most of the time she doesn’t even know how she got them 🤷🏼‍♀️.

I've had a million accident forms but never for small bruises on their legs, especially not by 4.

Perhaps there are wider issues but on the face of this alone you do seem to be reading too much into it.

My DD only had two accident forms the whole time she was in nursery and they were both for bumps to the head. I wouldn't be concerned at all.

You wouldn't get accident forms for scratches and bruises on knees/shins.
They're for head bumps, bite marks, deep scratches that bleed, bee stings, injuries that needed first aid.