Wwyd with nursery

[Hollie089]

DS is 22 months and attends nursery 2 days/week, has been at same one for a year, no concerns up until today. MIL picked him up as closing at 4pm today to find him stood at the door in the foyer with parents getting their kids ready but no staff in sight looking rather confused. She went in, got him ready as he was getting upset and says it was about 2-3 minutes before a staff member came in and seemed surprised to see him there.

I'm now worried, I'm sure most parents are lovely but I don't know them and I don't pay for them to look after my child or ensure he doesn't follow other people out of the door.

Should a concerned email suffice or do I find another nursery? There is an outstanding rated one nearer, more expensive and less flexible but that's not really an issue in the grand scheme of things. Or am I just being overly cautious/over reacting?!

Is there a door between the room he should have been in and where he was?

Yes, 2! And a short corridor.

I work in a nursery.

Is the foyer also an office/reception area with someone manning the door? How are parents/carers let in?

Is she sure that there were no staff at all in the room? If not, this is not good.

A delay in staff coming to speak to a parent/carer is not ideal at all, but sometimes unavoidable, especially last day as they were prob lower in staff.

But if your son was alone in the foyer with only parents then you need to speak straight to management when he's in next. Face to face ideally. They should have CCTV to look into this. It would be very serious.

No the foyer is operated by a key pad from the outside which parents/guardians are given the code for, there is then a set of stairs to 2 rooms upstairs or another door off the foyer which leads to a corridor off which is another room (where he should have been) there are staff in each room but not the foyer. (Hope this makes sense!)

She is definite there was no staff in there, which is usual.

Sorry to hear that, Hollie. Please go and speak to management when they open after the break.

It sounds like he must have walked out of his room and down into the foyer and it took them a while to notice. Not good at all and it would be taken extremely seriously in my setting.

I wouldn't be necessarily looking for a new nursery, but seeing how they handle this. They should investigate fully looking at CCTV and talking to staff and if that's what happened, a serious apology should be given and a review of procedures.

Good luck and hugs for your DS. Poor little one.