Ummm I just saw nursery yank my toddler. What’s the pathway to complaint?

[sellotape12]

Anyone else been through this?
I went to collect my 21 month old early today and I saw one of the workers snap at him and yank him quite forcefully by the arm. Needless to say he burst into tears. I was very very firm with them and asked to know how on earth this just happened but got ignored and shrugged by the staff who were there at the time. If this is what I saw by accident, what goes on behind closed doors usually!?
Would you speak to the manager first or email OFSTED? I’m furious and upset because they’re simply isn’t another childcare provider in our neighbourhood.

Concerns about staff should be reported to LADO, you can google for the local number.
I would not send him in tomorrow and email the nursery manager and tell them why, log it with the manager as a formal complaint.
They should report any safeguarding concerns to LADO themselves (this is a legal obligation) I do suspect though that this may not happen and you should definitely call them yourself. They will advise further on whether they will notify ofsted or if you will need to do that yourself.
this is a serious safeguarding concern, as a nursery manager I would be taking your complaint very seriously, and as a side note I know that other members of my team would also take this very seriously and certainly wouldn’t “shrug it off”.
I can only hope that in that moment they were as horrified as you and weren’t sure how to react? if not, they are also party to the safeguarding issue and need reporting too.
Some nurseries have cctv, they are not obliged to let you see it due to GDPR, but they will have to allow LADO and ofsted to view if they request.

What a horrible thing to happen to your child and a sickening thing for you to have seen but thankfully you did see and you must never entrust the care of your child to these people again.

Good point @Xil

thank you @hockityponktas and @Primproperpenny how do you guys know all this stuff? I am a musician so I don’t work in anything like the legal or childcare setting. I also didn’t know what LADO was until I just googled it. I’m not sure if there is CCTV at the nursery. I presume so because it’s a very modern new build.
Typical that this has happened the week that my OH is abroad with Work so I’m going to have to do it alone! I can keep my son away from nursery tomorrow though, because I am self-employed.
Do you guys think I’m overreacting? It’s not like she hit him or kicked him. She pulled him with quite a force that it made me gasp. But nobody else (like other mums) saw it because it was around 3pm, so not the usual busy time for pickup.

My son would never go back. That sounds dramatic, but if this is accepted behaviour there - how would you ever trust that they were looking after him? That they didn't just get better at hiding it?

I appreciate what you're saying about the other nursery being inconvenient but they've bruised your son!

@sellotape12 I’m a nursery manager. I don’t think you are over reacting at all, no need to be grabbing or pulling a child unless it was to pull him out of serious harms way! Especially not hard enough to leave a bruise. No one reacting or explaining to you would be a massive red flag to me too.

I worked in childcare and in social services. You are not overreacting.

What @Primproperpenny said is exactly what you need to do.

No child should be hurt by a staff member this is appalling.

That's apalling OP. They tried to ignore you because they're shitting themselves that you saw it! Formal complaint, ofsted, the works and never take him back again.

Separate the behaviour and their reaction. A "yank" might have been unreasonable and inappropriate, it might have been unintentional but due to poor handling of situation. You can think of all sorts of ways to mitigate the action none of which I think are valid.
Then you have their complete disregard for the situation which just shouts that there is something more systemic going on so you are absolutely right to go ahead. Before you report to Ofsted and ideally speak to the nursery write out a time line of what happened, what was said and who was there.

I have raised relatively minor things on several occasions with my nursery and every time they have been treated more seriously than your nursery is taking this.

Do you have any gyms or health clubs that have childcare facilities? We had no child care for 13 weeks in 2021 when our nursery closed with 20 minutes notice. My neighbour gave me the details of a nursery at the local gym which allowed you to book adhoc sessions. It was a lifesaver until all the other parents from our nursery discovered it!

Long shot - but this isn’t a nursery in east London is it? Sounds very similar to a previous issue I had with a nursery