Long time poster here, name changed. Sorry in advance for the length that this will be.
My daughter who is 3 has been attending the nursery of a prep school for the last year. This school has two prep schools and a senior school.
I will call them nursery 1 and nursery 2. She has been at nursery 1 since September 2022. She has done brilliantly there, and we love the staff. BUT they have very little outdoor provision and my daughter is a very outdoorsy child. Since the beginning of September, quite a few of the girls that she was friends with left and a lot of 2 year olds joined, which has meant that the preschool year now only has one small room to play/ work in because the other room is often used for sleepers. My daughter was suddenly saying that she doesn’t enjoy nursery much any more because they hardly ever go outside and it’s ‘very boring’.
So we decided to look at the nursery at the ‘sister’ prep school to see if they had better facilities and they have 3 Forrest schools and a lot of space so we thought that this would suit her better.
We took our daughter for a tour of the school / nursery which lasted over 2 hours. The staff seemed very taken with our daughter. She joined in some of the activities and the admissions officer said that as far as they were concerned, she would be welcome to join. We got a letter saying that she’d be a great addition to the nursery etc. They asked us to bring her in the next week to complete paperwork and agree what sessions she was going to do. We were there for quite some time and our daughter was chatting with staff and playing with the other children. The manager of nursery 2 said that she had received all dd’s paperwork from nursery 1 and had spoken at length with the nursery manager there and that they had a good idea of what she was like etc.
We then agreed for her to do a taster morning at nursery 2. This was on the Monday before half term. It seemed to go fine. It was only 2 hours and when I picked my daughter up, the staff said that she’d been fine and had enjoyed forest school. The children were asking her when she was coming back.
The following Friday, dd was doing what we all thought was her last day at nursery 1. Nursery 1 told us that they were sad that we had decided to move her but they understood our reasons which were only due to a lack of outdoor space. The nursery staff said goodbye to dd and talked with her about the fact that she was moving.
The same day, DD’s dad (not me) got an email which he unfortunately did not see. There was no phone call, no offer of a follow up, nothing. The email said
Dear Mr X,
Thank you for your patience whilst we get back to you. Having spoken with our nursery staff after the profile visit we are unable to offer A a place at this time. We feel that a change in setting would not be in A’s best interests due to the disruption this would cause, compared to the familiarity she has with the Nursery 1 setting and staff at Nursery 1.
Best wishes,
Mr Y
This email was sent at 6.30pm on the Friday before half term. The taster day had been on Monday. At the very least, I would have expected a phone call from the nursery manager at nursery 2 if they felt the taster session had not gone well. As it was, the staff at nursery 2 said to me ‘see you after half term’. We had spent a lot of our time on the process, and to get an email like that with no offer of a follow up. There was also no communication from nursery 1 to say that they had decided that dd should stay there.
Unfortunately, the above resulted in me turning up with dd at nursery 2, yesterday with both of us expecting her to start only to be greeted with a frosty reception and feelings of confusion. The nursery manager opened the door to me and said ‘oh, didn’t you get the email?’ I said no. She said I would need to speak to the head and took dd and me to reception. The head of the school arrived at the reception with a face like thunder, did not even look at us and then disappeared into his staff room. Unfortunately, my daughter had even remembered his name and try to say hello to him.
I was sat there for about 10 minutes wondering what the hell was going on. Finally, the head appeared, asked me into his room and asked the staff in the reception to look after dd. The first thing he did was to show me the email on his iPad. I was really confused and shocked tbh. I said that this was all very confusing and I asked why nobody else had contacted me.
He then said that the taster morning had not gone well because dd hadn’t settled and had been a bit anxious. He made it sound like my child had tried to set the place on fire. He wasn’t really able to say anything specific except that ‘the foundation has decided that dd needs to stay at nursery 1’
But here’s the thing, he then said that ‘apparently there are some suggestions that dd may be on the autism spectrum or have additional needs’. Dd doesn’t have a diagnosis and at the moment, she has not needed an IPP or anything. He was the first person to actually say this. The nursery manager 1 had mentioned to me a few quirks, such as dd using very formal speech and very long words for her age. She also sometimes does not like changing her clothes. But she will do it with encouragement. I asked if she should be assessed and nursery manager 1 said ‘no because she’s above expectation developmentally for her age and isn’t behind in any areas’. She basically said that nobody would assess her at this age and we would have to wait until she’s older to see how she pans out. The thing about all this is that nursery manager 2 would have known everything at the meeting we had with her. If this was an issue why sit for an hour and let us waste time booking sessions?
Dd’s dad phoned both schools yesterday to try to find out what on earth has gone on. Nursery 1 manager said that as far as they were concerned, dd was starting at nursery 2 yesterday. She was shocked at how this had been handled but she then said ‘to be honest we didn’t want her to leave.’ And she said they would like to have her back and have a place for her. The head at the other school said that he couldn’t understand why we were moving dd and it wasn’t in her best interests.
I was so upset yesterday, mainly about how we were treated. And also that my daughter was upset because she couldn’t understand what was happening. We had been considering the school for dd from
reception but probably not anymore, if this is how the head treats people.
I now have to decide what to do though? Do I send dd back to nursery 1 or look for a completely different one?