Anyone planning on watching the childcare programme 2morrow nght?

[woodpops]

There's a programme on TV tomorrow night about some horror private nurseries. Is anyone planning on watching it. My mum said it might be best not to watch it as both my ds and dd go to private nursery. Do you reckon it'll put stupid ideas in my head about the care that my kids recieve there. Not that it should cause the nursery is great and ds and dd are extreamly happy there.

What worries me was the fact that most of these nurseries did not check the background of the reporter and allowed her in with just her mobile phone no, not even an address.

In one nursery she was asked to go with the children to the bathroom area on her 4th day. I wonder how often this happens? The nurseries seemed desparate for any help they could get and forgot one of the most important factors - no c.v was asked for, no references, no police checks!! Very worrying!

I don't think. it's fair to assume that you are not a quality person either if you are paid a very low wage. However, of course you can attract more people to a well-paid and high-valued job. It our nursery too, the staff seems very young which makes me think that perhaps they quickly get fed up doing such a hard job for such little money and move onto something else? I think if you are not properly paid for what you do, then you are of course more likely to feel resentful and fed up. I know I would be! If it's true that these girls are on 11,000 a year, then I am not surprised they have got a short temper. I know I would!

Tallulah, my DS sometimes cries when he is delievered to nursery too and he sometimes cries when I pick him up. I think most parents can tell the difference between this crying and real distress and unhappiness in their kids.

Some of the parents at one of the nurseries aren't happy with the BBC. Apparently the filming took place in February but parents weren't made aware of the problems encountered until the end of June. local newspaper report

But Blu, if she'd jumped in every time, then it would have been impossible to expose the abuse that was going on, which in the end, IMO, would have harmed more children. The man who took the picture of the Vietnamese girl running screaming down the road, on fire from Napalm was once asked why he took the photograph instead of running to help her, and he said it was a story he had to tell, and it changed history. He did try to put the fire out immediately afterwards.
I think people here are looking for someone - anyone - to blame rather than the nurseries and their staff, because to think that there are nurseries out there harming children is such a very uncomfortable thought.

I didn't actually see the programme but a friend of mine was on the verge of sending her son there after having the nursery recomended by someone.

Opinion locally is divided. Some parents are very very angry at the nursery. Others are defending it.

Its so difficult to know what to do for many parents.

Aloha- yes, I do accept the role of the reporter in those circumstances - this just made me a little bit uneasy because she was presumably considered by the nursery as someone who was there to look after children when she saw children who needed looking after, and was being paid to do that. War reporters are not being paid to rescue children.
Same dilemma for undercover policemen and spies, I suppose! I'd be HOPELESS!

Aloha, I think your post about the animals was brilliant and says it all.
My DS cried every day at his nursery, but was all smiles in the evening, so we didn't know what to think. I wouldn't put him through it again though, and ds2 is not going.

After seeing the programme, I am busy negotiating with my dh not to return to work (currently on maternity leave with number 2).

Personally I think childminders get job satisfaction from being self-employed. They can also earn a better income with fewer overheads so they are more likely to be mothers with experience of work in other professions. A good nursery could surely improve job satisfaction by involving staff in decision-making, having a proper career structure, training, flexible working, benefits, etc. The government should regulate better and improve training.

I haven't seen the programme but there are a couple of comments here that I completely disagree with.

Someone said something about girls of 18 are incapable of looking after children and they would never leave their children to someone who hasn't had any themselves. I don't think this is fair and it doens't guarantee good quality care (the vast majority of child abuse happens at home!!), besides nursery workers are supposed to have specific qualifications and training, besides on job training before actually qualifying, so I'd say most of them have much more knowledge and experience then we have ourselves when we become mothers for the first time!!!

It is down to the nursery managers to employ people who have the right qualifications, no matter what age they are.

I agree that Ofsted visits should be unplanned, my nursery had a 2week notice, and they did spruce it up a bit (in terms of putting up photographs that were not there before and a few cosmetics things). I was bemused, but I know that these was really only cosmetics, the staff there are brilliant, low turnaround, all young but you can tell they do ENJOY children. I often chat to them when I pick up dd, I think it's a good way of picking up anything strange, and I talk to other parents. Besides I've often arrived unexpected (not to check on them, it just happened)and always found a very pleasant atmosphere, it is quite obvious children are happy there and so are the staff.

I agree that it's unfair to blame the staff - it was clearly the management of the nurseries which was criticised in the programme. The programme also exposed the fact that some nurseries don't even comply with Ofsted requirements for 50% of staff to be qualified - at the time of filming there were students and unpaid volunteers and no responsible staff in charge, which is a management problem and must be very stressful for the staff.

i think the undercover jurno did pick up the little girl she also tried talking to her to console her.
Nursery care is very important. I can still remember my time at nurseryand i am way into adulthood.

I think that although the buck stops with the management, they have overall responsibility, the staff are also responsible for their own behaviour. However stressed and undertrained and underpaid they are, it doesn't excuse some of the behaviour they displayed in that programme.

It does explain it though, and although I agree that an eighteen year old is as capable as a thirty-eight year old of looking after children, I think there's a difference between looking after your own child or children whom you love, and being in charge of a roomful of children whom you don't love. And that's where experience and empathy come in, or where the staff are very young, supervision by experienced and empathetic people who have a real sense of personal responsibility for the children they are looking after.