Nursery's high standards

[Nurserywoes24]

Hi, I don't know if I'm posting in the right area but I'm so down about it all. My daughter is a Gestalt Language Processor and there is suspected signs of being on the spectrum. This didn't appear obvious until she started at a school nursery last September and the first parents meeting started with the teacher telling me "I can't say she's settled in like I would wish her too". This completely threw me as she had been happy to go in and happy when she came out, there wasn't a single positive thing said about her and he issues all seemed very minor to me and usual for a then three year old - struggles to sit on the carpet, shouts out, will hide when it's time to tidy up, played alone.

Nursery they wanted to raise her at an Early Intervention meeting as she had as 'showing signs", which we agreed to and I'm waiting to hear the results of this.

We went to a private speech therapist as the Health Visitor said nothing she was exhibiting was out of the ordinary for four years old so they would refer her to the NHS. The Speech Therapist diagnosed her with GLP and said she does show signs such as hyper focus and not as much eye contact as would be expected during play.

Because I was so confused about what behaviour was causing such issues as nursery the teacher suggested starting a behavior book to communicate between us which she and the TA write in. Again the behavior is things like "found it hard to listen", "left pens out rather than putting them away", but the straw that broke the camels back for me was the snack incident. DD has been taking multiple fruit from the communal basket where kids can go and help themselves to a piece of fruit. She has been taking a bite and putting it back. They are allowed one piece of fruit, I flagged with them that she sometimes lacks impulse control and that having a "help yourself" policy where it's "help yourself but only to one per day" isn't ideal. The TA responded that is what they teach the children and they are expected to understand and that DD knows she made a mistake because she went and hid.

I don't know if I'm being precious and unreasonable but I do wonder why if they believe she has SEN they are trying to make her conform to these standards rather than making reasonable adjustments - e.g the children ask for their piece of fruit or fruit is distributed during story times like at other settings.

It all seems so petty but it's getting me down that they are constantly making me aware of every misdemeanor when she isn't a danger to herself or others and they aren't prepared to adjust their processes even for a few weeks.

Part of me wants to pull her out as she isn't going to go to the school there but then again she seems to be happy and is now able to tell me about her day and her friends so is making progress. It's just me who is concerned she's being set up for failure and it will effect her long term.

Thank you if you made it this far, I just needed to get it off my chest, and it anyone can offer advice.

It’s always difficult to navigate diagnoses process, and it sounds like you see overall managing well.

In terms of the fruit - I think you have to take a step back and see that you are expecting the nursery to change their policy for your daughter, which isn’t reasonable. Allowing children to chose when they have a snack is a good thing for most.

If your daughter is happy I probably wouldn’t move her. It sounds like a very structured set up where they are going to note every uncooperative piece of behaviour because that’s their system - it doesn’t mean they give her a hard time in the classroom. She may actively like the structure.

Get a proper diagnoses when you can.

@Nurserywoes24 petty comments by them. Far too many young children are judged for petty things. One of the people I know who works in the medical field, said she sees so many young children coming into her clinic with anxiety because there is so much pressure on them nowadays to do everything "right". As if we adults do it right.

The nursery sound really professional to me. I know that seems rigid and even harsh on such a young child but the things they are doing and communicating might help you get support at school if needed. This is also how school will be most likely unless you are lucky, time and resources mean they can't really be flexible and adapt the rules which is why EHCP is so important. I've met so many people who had a lovely nurturing nursery who adapted to quirks and then school is such a shock... this may not end up being you but wanted to raise another perspective x

I sympathize a lot with how bad it feels when the only feedback from nursery is negative. Especially because you can't be there to fix it in the moment. But I think the important thing is that your child seems happy and making progress there.

By nature, the behaviour book is mostly going to be negatives - and I actually think it's good evidence for an EHCP application, if you go down that route. I can see that the issues are individually minor but it may be adding up to a picture of a child who struggles with following directions, joining in with group tasks, turn taking - all of which might point to SEN in the future (or might not).

For what it's worth, I actually ended up just directly telling our nursery that my DS and I needed to hear positive things about his days at handovers because the negatives were becoming the whole focus, and that he had achievements even if there were also struggles. And that did improve things. Could you ask for positive things when your DD is there at handover, so this also helps her self-esteem?

I also don't think its a reasonable adjustment to ask the nursery to change its whole snack process for all children, especially if the snack process is linked to learning aims. But you could ask for more scaffolding around it for your DD e.g. does she have a "snack" card that she puts into a "finished" box after she takes her one piece, to reinforce that her snack is done? I'd also discuss strategies around responding to "poor behaviour" - if she's running and hiding when she's corrected, she's probably not taking on the correction, so they may need to try another approach like collaborative problem solving.

I really sympathise with you OP as we also receive only negative feedback for my 5 yo daughter, eg, she is mispronouncing words (just some of it though which the teacher forgets to mention), she has a few speech sounds issues but we work on it at home after we have taken feedback from private therapist as I don't see any point of they doing this at school and be taken out of the class. It has come to an extent that she has started actually mispronouncing a few more words which she never used to because she gets conscious now. I told the teacher this and she hated it. They forget to mention how kind she is, how her reading is good. The common line used by some of them is "but doesn't show at school", well I don't care if my 5 yo doesn't show the same skills at school because she is not doing her A levels now that it matters so much. The important thing which matters is she is kind at school.
It happened in a state school, then we moved to private but seems like it happens everywhere in British schools. I feel sorry for our kids. Glad I didn't study in such schools otherwise would unlikely go to uni and do masters because I would have been so anxious of doing things wrong. My husband works in the education field and he is totally against only criticising children, he always mentions positive things.

Thank you all for your comments and food for thought. I do wish I had sent her to a more nurturing nursery even if school would still be a shock - just so she would have had that experience. It seems so sad that it is a constant preparing them for the next phase rather than letting them just be, but perhaps that is more about my worries/projections than her lived experience.

Sad to hear that it's the same in private school as we were looking at options of a more nurturing environment. Current school nursery have told us she would never qualify for a one to one so I just feel she'll be shoved into the round hole as a square peg until she is forced to fit as she isn't going to qualify for help or adjustments.

I'll speak to the nursery about the feedback, with the communication. With her age it's hard for her to tell me how she is really feeling but I guess as long as she is happy going in and coming out that's the evidence I need.

@Nurserywoes24 forgot to mention that it's a private British school abroad, may be the private ones in England are better. If you are looking at the state schools, may be go for something which is outstanding rated. The only good experience in England was of my daughter's state nursery which was rated outstanding, the teachers there seemed very well aware of the typical age related things kids do and never made it into a big deal.

@Blu23 thank you, the school she's currently in is rated Outstanding but is very small, our top choice is Outstanding as well and has a much better SEN provisions so fingers crossed she gets in there 🙂