Accident or negligence? Please help (sorry long)

[Nuala73]

My daughter and son have been in the same nursery for 18 months. I was very happy last year and still happy with my son's room.
My dd (4 yo) is now with these 2 new staff members I have not liked from the begining (September 2008). The exchange of communication is absent and the room seems always chaos where the same room with kids of same age had a fantastic feeling to it last year.

I have raised this issue with the manager. 3 weeks ago I had a new conversation with her. Told her that my daughter I felt I needed to know arrangements for next year in advance. My dd will go to school but i did not want my ds to go through this room and spend 2 years more with these persons (I did not say it like this but this was the message)

One week after this conversation, my dd breakes her arm in the nursery. She was playing standing on construction blocks (round ones) and the "student" who was with her let her hand go to hold some other child's hand who I guess may have been falling.

I took her out for a week, went to Madrid with my family and came back on Tuesday morning. That same day she fell again in the nursery (on her back from a baby slide). Head injury with a lump the size of a golf ball. The staff member was "inside" instead of outside, where two of these students they are there all the time was in charge.

The only explanation of what happened comes from my own dd, since the staff members did not see anything. Fortunately the head injury does not seem to have resulted in any damage (although I cannot be sure of course)

I have not been able to speak with the manager yet (tomorrow morning finally) and today the last news: my daughter comes telling me that I am the one who should have not brought her to the nursery on Tuesday because she was tired and sleepy from the trip. I asked and obviously this is what the staff member is telling her. She is 4 years old!! I am trying not to make any comment negative about the persons looking after her to be sure she feels safe an confortable while I can sort this out. And these people are using her "to blame me"! Would be bad enough to tell me, but her!

Sorry for the whole story. What can I do? I am from Spain. Not very sure about how to go about this now

am sorry about your dd.

I am afraid i dont have experience from nurseries (i only used CM and nanny) so i acant give any advice.
I am just trying to keep your thread going and hopefully someone will come

I would be putting my concerns in writing to the nursery manager. Is the nursery independent or part of a chain?

If it's independent and your concerns are not deal t with adequately then complain to the owner, if it's a chain i would phone their head office.

If you are unhappy then you can complain to Ofsted, who inspect nurseies.

I would however go on my gut instinct and be looking around at alternative nurseries. It doesn't sound as though the older room is managed very well.

hope things imporve for you.

Thank you
The creche belongs to the University where I work. More I think of it and despite all the trouble more I believe I must take her out of there.
Any suggestions on nursery close to Hendon or Golders Green

she broke her arm and you sent her back in?

I don't think she should have been on the slide with a broken arm
the supervision doesn't sound good, students should not be supervising children, they still need supervising themselves

complain to Ofsted

Purepurple,
I took her out for almost two weeks. But the period in cast is long: 6 weeks in total. She has been very independent and by her own nature she is not a child who takes "risks". However, looking at the outcome I guess I should have found another solution. Will speak with manager now. Also with University's management. And I will probably complaint to Ofsted too. Depends on how I feel after this conversation. Looks like I will spend Easter looking for a nursery only for a few months. Hope she will cope fine with all the changes.

nmot sure about the arm, but anyway, I am sure that kids must go to school/nursery in plaster? If so, and the slide was unmanned, then thats wrong. it IS easy tho to get a whopper of a bump on the head, even fron a slight knock.

Def best to bring this matter up, with whoever is in charge, becuase it does seem that these 2 employees are causing concerns for you. As for them voicing their opinons of wether dd should or shuoldn't be back in school, thats really not on, as you say she is only 4.

let us know how you get on.

I don't think that it is fair to berate the OP for putting her child back into nursery after the first incident. That one does fall under the category accident. I have been standing right next to one of my DC when they have fallen and hurt themselves, no broken arm or serious injury, but that is just good luck.

The second incident is more worrying as there was no proper supervision. Where the students outside?

Saying that, I broke my arm when I was about 5 or 6 and was not allowed to ride my bike so borrowed my friends. It is difficult to contain a very active 4yo, even with a broken arm.

The staff should not be commenting on your decision to take her back to nursery. If they felt that she was too tired then they should have had her inside reading to her, or doing craft activities.

I would speak to the manager and express my concern. If she does not offer a solution, I would be thinking about looking for a new nursery.

I think I would probably speak to the manager and if you don't get a satisfactory explanation then I would consider making a formal complaint to the nursery, and possibly ofstead, about lack of proper supervision

negligence; imo awful- you sound like you want to take her out tbh. go with your gut feeing and complain.

Reporting:
I Spoke with the manager. I explained I was really upset, not so much about the accidents themselves (more than aware it can happen) but about how it was handled and the telling tales to my daughter. Also reminded her all my previous conversations on how I felt that room was not functioning as the other ones.
She gave me a full explanation on several issues but the main think: she is moving staff around, so the most experienced staff member we know from the past and who is wonderful will be in that room along with these 2 persons who are new (coming from another campus in the University) and clueless.
Under this condition, I will keep her there. I have to think of her and how stressful it would be to get her out right now and to settle her down in a different place only for 3 months since I will take her out in summer and then she will go to school. She also commited to tell me well in advance any other changes on staff on my son's room. So I can react.
Not sure whether this is the best decision. But I feel a bit better about the whole thing. The moral of the story: next time I feel something is going wrong I will request changes straight away instead of trying all this polite warning I have been into without results

Well done, that sounds like a good result.

students should never ever ever be left alone with the children, i would pull her out of nursery if this was the case. students at our nursery are not even used in ratio and they are never out of staff sight this is shocking