Child ‘hit’ by nursery staff

[Supermathsdoc]

A bit long but I’ll try to summarise:

2 weeks ago I was called by my 20m old child’s nursery to say there had been an incident. My child went to scratch another and a nursery worker hit her on the bum to stop her. There was no mark. My child was fine afterwards. I obviously didn’t see this but another nursery work did and called it out.

There was an investigation, while this took place the person was removed from the room. Nursery staff (who I think were junior) told me she wouldn’t be back and that she didn’t seem aware that she’d done anything wrong. They obviously couldn’t tell me who it was, butdid say it was a permanent (but new) member of staff rather than an unknown agency worker.

The investigation is now complete, the nursery have done all the right things, they’ve told ofsted, there’s been a disciplinary hearing etc and the person is now back in the room with some extra support.

I feel super uncomfortable with this. We have had no other issues with this nursery and my child seems happy there. I guess what im asking is what others would do? Would you disrupt your child and find a new nursery just in case? Is it just one of those things? I’m not sure what the best thing to do is.

LADO has got nothing to do with whether a worker is fired or not. LADO is where referrals get made to when there is a safeguarding situation.
The nurseries own policies then apply. I'm surprised they kept her in but it does seem their safeguarding polices as a nursery were robust in that a concern was reported.
I would stay at the nursery.

I want to add that I work in adult safeguarding and am sick of care providers thinking they get to decide what is and what is not potentially a criminal offence. The amount of times I have to tell them they have a duty to report potential offences, they are not entitled to decide whether police action is warranted

I’m pretty sure this sort of thing happens all the time, and the vast majority of incidents will go unreported and uninvestigated. The fact this nursery took it so seriously and did everything by the book is a plus in my eyes. If my child was generally happy there I don't think I would move.

I don’t believe it’s “hard” to fire a nursery worker where there are safeguarding concerns. I don’t know the circumstances but a long standing member of staff was literally ejected from my children’s nursery once. I can only assume it was a safeguarding matter.

Thanks again to all.

Yes, exactly this. @May09Bump I am worried about this but I wasn’t sure if I was being a little irrational.

I also have this sense that they should prioritise my child over this worker, and I feel a little resentful that my child’s life should be disrupted rather than the workers. I’m considering writing to the local authority and the nursery to see whether they might reconsider their choice, but it seems like most people would just take their kid out. Which I can also totally understand.

In my culture smacks are normal. But no way in hell would I tolerate this. I cannot understand why she wasn't fired. Get your child out of there.

No I’d remove my child. Simply because IF something else happened, I couldn’t live with that feeling of guilt that I knew there was an incident, yet didn’t heed the warning.

If the hand reached to tap why it didn’t reach to hold or be put in between both children

Or did the tap came after as punishment?

Were any words used? ‘child! stop! ‘child! don’t scratch’

I have asked for an email containing a summary of the investigation and the outcome. They will send this today.

My child was attending during the investigation but the worker was not. They won’t tell me when she returned (I assume the info would have enabled me to identify her and they also have a duty of care to her)

Maybe I’m also overestimating the disruption of changing nursery? Have others done this? How did your kids handle it if so?

I wouldn't mind if she'd just grabbed the dc to stop them scratching but not smacking. It just wouldn't have been my instinct to do this to my kids, whatever they were about to do. It's not the 1970s.

For my own peace of mind (and because I would be furious) I would remove child and make the complaint very well known.

Yes. I also have this same worry. I’ve spent the day looking at other nurseries / google safeguarding procedures and policies.

Remove your child

I said ‘I’d like to know how many days my child’s been in the same room as this person without my knowledge’ and they said ‘we know this is really difficult, but we also have to make sure the worker can’t be identified’ I said ‘I don’t need their name, just a number of days’ and they said ‘we’re really sorry this wasn’t discussed with you sooner’ etc

What am I reading here? They kept her on? Totally unacceptable! She did hit your child. Find the next level to complain to, this is really really off key. That is an unsafe member of staff. The nursery are not being safe keeping her on.

Ps, take your child and run for the hills. Staff like this eventually make the headlines.

All nurseries are desperate for staff. Every single one.

I wonder if the worker has some protected characteristic, like a disability, that means they haven't been fired like someone else would be?

Frankly I would be removing my child and contacting the police

What the worker did is assault and without police involvement won't show on a DBS and therefore leaves them open to abusing other children.

From what I can piece together the worker was behind my child who reached over a table to attempt a scratch/lunge. I think words were quickly followed by grab and ‘tap/hit’. I’m ok with the grab, I think that’s what I’d want to happen if someone went for her (which they frequently did when she was the smallest in that room!) but telling a child not to hit with a hit obviously makes no sense, and is now illegal.

Perhaps cctv has been provided and the hit was indeed a tap to get the child’s attention rather than a punishment. I’d assume if the worker was kept on it was decided she posed no risk to the room.