my son escaped from OAK TREE nursery (Tell Grove, SE22) on wed 7th may

[Otta]

http://www.itv.com/news/london/2014-05-15/boy-manages-to-walk-out-of-a-nursery-totally-unnoticed/

You have a cute kid.

I do think that that report was unfair on the nursery though, as it looks like he just walked up whilst they probably had kids in there.

Please don't get me wrong sweetgirl, if I was you I'd have been livid, but I think it would be shame if the nursery doesn't have a chance to make amends and sort things out.

[Otta]

Haha, cross post.

[Convex]

I agree...

It feels like a mistake has been made which now jeopardises the nursery and several jobs. The next post will be the revised ofsted report I suppose?

Otta Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> http://www.itv.com/news/london/2014-05-15/boy-mana

> ges-to-walk-out-of-a-nursery-totally-unnoticed/

>

> You have a cute kid.

>

>

> I do think that that report was unfair on the

> nursery though, as it looks like he just walked up

> whilst they probably had kids in there.

>

> Please don't get me wrong sweetgirl, if I was you

> I'd have been livid, but I think it would be shame

> if the nursery doesn't have a chance to make

> amends and sort things out.

[Saffron]

Surely the nursery doesn't instantly close in a case like this? Many working parents would likely be left with no childcare at short notice!

What's the Ofsted protocol? Do they make emergency recommendations, then follow-up at intervals?

I can completely understand parents wanting to stay or go based on their personal feelings. xx

[woo88]

Clearly the nursery made a very serious mistake by allowing a child to wonder out of the premises, and they need to demonstrate that they have put measures in place to make sure it doesn't happen again (adding a spring to the gate and the front door would be a good start). If it had been my daughter then I would have been very upset indeed. My thoughts are definitely with you, sweetgirl.

However, I think it would be a disaster if the nursery closed. Our daughter has been there for a year and is happy there. She is often full of joy when I collect her from nursery. Yes, the atmosphere isn't quite as friendly as it was before Christmas. But some members of staff are genuinely excellent and I'd hate their moral to be crushed by this event.

I also think the ITV report was unfair and the angle they took was a little scare mongering. Frankly I'd be worried if the nursery had welcomed in a couple of random people (the presenter and the camera operator) with a video camera when the nursery had kids inside. I certainly hope that OFSTED have more sense than to let the media influence their decision.

[minder]

Just seen this on the ITV news London this evening.

Think Rags Martell (spelling) was right to go up to the nursery door. Parents do collect at odd times anyway so that's nothing new.

This child was so lucky that the lady found him. I wonder how long he had been missing from the nursery in the first place? They should have a ratio of 3 children to one worker so I do feel for the actual worker as she/he should have noticed the child was missing and alerted her colleagues but they seemed unaware that child had not been around. Maybe he/she had popped to the loo or something but only Ofsted will be able to say what happens next.

[Otta]

Saffron Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Surely the nursery doesn't instantly close in a

> case like this? Many working parents would likely

> be left with no childcare at short notice!

>

> What's the Ofsted protocol? Do they make emergency

> recommendations, then follow-up at intervals?

>

> I can completely understand parents wanting to

> stay or go based on their personal feelings. xx

In my experience they just tell the nursery to shut, and will send someone in the morning to turn people away.

I hate OFSTED on so many levels.

[ianr]

> In my experience they just tell the nursery to shut,

They seem to have more degrees of freedom than that, and a duty of circumspection and fairness that I think would make it unlikely. It would seem to me to imply an extraordinary finding, that the nursery was incapable of improving its ways, and that the children remained at risk. The following is from their pamphlet of information for parents about Ofsted's role in regulating childcare, downloadable from http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/resources/information-for-parents-about-ofsteds-role-regulating-childcare.

Enforcement

"We have powers to make sure that providers keep to the requirements and conditions of their registration. If we find the provider is not meeting the requirements, we can take the following action.

- We can write to the provider telling them what they must do to meet the requirements. We call this a ?notice to improve?. Normally this is sufficient to make sure providers meet the requirements.

- We can send a provider on the Early Years Register a legal notice, called a welfare requirements notice. This sets out what the provider must do, and by when, to meet the welfare requirements. If the provider does not comply with this notice they commit an offence.

- We can change or add new conditions to a provider?s registration.

- We can prosecute a provider if they have committed an offence.

- We can cancel a provider?s registration, in exceptional cases, if we believe nothing else will protect children or to make sure the provider keeps to the law.

We may suspend the provider?s registration if we believe that children are at risk of harm, so we can investigate or take steps to reduce or remove the risk of harm. We have a separate leaflet available if you would like more information on suspension.

When deciding whether we need to take action, or what action we need to take, we must be fair to the registered provider. We cannot stop a provider from earning their living without good reason. This means that we do not take action unless we have evidence of a failure to meet requirements or conditions of registration or unless we have reasonable cause to believe children are at risk of harm."

[loz76]

I too have a child at Oak tree nursery, firstly I would like to say that I am sorry that this happened to your son sweetgirl and I can understand that this must have been a very distressing incident and I am pleased that your son was found safe and well.

I would be very upset if this had happened to my son but I feel that I have to point out a few things from the perspective of a parent that has a child currently at the nursery. Turning on the ITV news last night I was not happy at all to see a reporter with a camera trying to gain entry to the building with my son inside! Parents have been notified of this incident and measures have been put into place so that hopefully this will never happen again. OFSTED visited the nursery yesterday to do a spot check and it is their opinion on the nursery and the reaction to the incident from the nursery itself that I am interested in, not the opinion of the media who will take their own angle on this and pick out the snippets of information that back up their story.

My own opinion on the nursery (which is first hand) would support a lot of what Woo88 has to say. My main problem with this report is the focus on the staff being uncaring and uninterested something that has really upset some of the girls who work at the nursery. I am not saying that they did not come across like this following the incident, (I was not there). I have to add however that this is certainly not my experience of the staff. My son has been there for 9 months and one of the things that I constantly tell everyone is how lovely and caring the staff are with him. My son is very happy there and whenever I pick him up which is often at different times due to the hours that I work, all the children including him are very happy and engaged with the staff.

I too would be very upset if the nursery closed down, the members of staff that work with my son and his keyworker our fantastic and it would be a shame to see their jobs on the line. Our son is very happy there and has lots of friends, I hope this can all be rectified in an appropriate way with communication between the people directly involved and not through the media.

[Stu]

Just to say our 18 month old daughter is also there and I agree with loz76.

Terrible incident that should never have happened but involving the media and shutting down the nursery rather than working with it benefits noone. I believe there have been some transitional problems with the new manager but they seem to be getting back on track and there are some lovely caring men and women on the staff there.

[Mrs TP]

The reporter and cameraman did not try to gain entry to the nursery, they simply asked to speak to the person who answered the door. They did not barge in and film the kids or identify them and nor would they, they are professionals.

If the nursery closes it will be as a result of its own failings and not because of a local news report on a worrying local issue.

[Otta]

Couldn't they have tried calling to arranged a meet an an appropriate time?

[Mrs TP]

Do you know that they didn't?

[Otta]

Do you know that they did? And if they did but didn't get the answer they wanted, should they then have tried storming in? It looked aggresive and cheap, much like most of the reporting on ITV.

[Otta]

ianr Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> > In my experience they just tell the nursery to

> shut,

>

> They seem to have more degrees of freedom than

> that, and a duty of circumspection and fairness

> that I think would make it unlikely. It would seem

> to me to imply an extraordinary finding, that the

> nursery was incapable of improving its ways, and

> that the children remained at risk. The following

> is from their pamphlet of information for parents

> about Ofsted's role in regulating childcare,

> downloadable from

> http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/resources/information-for

> -parents-about-ofsteds-role-regulating-childcare.

>

> Enforcement

>

> "We have powers to make sure that providers keep

> to the requirements and conditions of their

> registration. If we find the provider is not

> meeting the requirements, we can take the

> following action.

>

> - We can write to the provider telling them what

> they must do to meet the requirements. We call

> this a ?notice to improve?. Normally this is

> sufficient to make sure providers meet the

> requirements.

> - We can send a provider on the Early Years

> Register a legal notice, called a welfare

> requirements notice. This sets out what the

> provider must do, and by when, to meet the welfare

> requirements. If the provider does not comply with

> this notice they commit an offence.

> - We can change or add new conditions to a

> provider?s registration.

> - We can prosecute a provider if they have

> committed an offence.

> - We can cancel a provider?s registration, in

> exceptional cases, if we believe nothing else will

> protect children or to make sure the provider

> keeps to the law.

>

> We may suspend the provider?s registration if we

> believe that children are at risk of harm, so we

> can investigate or take steps to reduce or remove

> the risk of harm. We have a separate leaflet

> available if you would like more information on

> suspension.

>

> When deciding whether we need to take action, or

> what action we need to take, we must be fair to

> the registered provider. We cannot stop a provider

> from earning their living without good reason.

> This means that we do not take action unless we

> have evidence of a failure to meet requirements or

> conditions of registration or unless we have

> reasonable cause to believe children are at risk

> of harm."

A year ago my older daughter was at a preschool in Sydenham. Allegations of bullying (staff not children) were made against the manager. OFSTED came in had a look around and went away again. Shortly after, someone from within blew the whistle, and OFSTED got on the phone to the chair of the board (a volunteer mum) and made her go there and close it instantly. They were really heavy handed, threatening her and the other members (of which my wife was one) with all sorts of legal action. They just volunteered to bake the odd cake and raise a bit of money, they didn't sign up for all this!

Basically OFSTED had messed up, so they were covering their own asses by being ridiculously harsh. I myself was having to phone parents that evening telling them not to bring their child to preschool the following morning. OFSTED do not get involved in that, or finding alternatives.

The volunteer parents then had to do a whole disciplinary process and the preschool never reopened, meaning the community lost a very rare good value child care option. Yes things were going wrong between the staff, but it could have been dealt with so much better, but all the volunteer parents kept getting from OFSTED was "you're liable for this and that and we will prosecute you".

Be careful what you volunteer for, it can come back to bite you!

Very different story I know, but I don't trust OFSTED one bit (I also work in education, so that is not solely based on that incident).

[Otta]

Otta Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Do you know that they did? And if they did but

> didn't get the answer they wanted, should they

> then have tried storming in? It looked aggresive

> and cheap, much like most of the reporting on ITV.

For the record, I don't mean, nor do I think that they actually tried to push their way in to the building, but it still looked OTT and I felt sorry for the woman that was at the door. And she's there to be watching kids, so surely they shouldn't be distracting her when they have concerns over the nursery's ability to watch the kids.

[Mrs TP]

It didn't look aggressive at all. He introduced himself and told them what he wanted to talk to them about.

We don't know if they phoned in advance or not. Otta you were assuming they didn't but we just don't know.

This is all irrelevant, it is the nursery that needs investigating not a local news reporter who knocked on the door. It's an odd state of affairs when people seem more concerned about a reporter knocking on the door than the child going missing and from all accounts the nursery not seeming to care or even have noticed.

'Child escapes from nursery' is a headline 'man knocks on door' is not.

[Mrs TP]

I think we cross-posted. I still don't think he did anything unreasonable.

[Otta]

"It's an odd state of affairs when people seem more concerned about a reporter knocking on the door than the child going missing and from all accounts the nursery not seeming to care or even have noticed."

Whoa, I don't think that is remotely fair!

Not a single person has done anything other than condemn the nursery for that incident, and rightly so. But it is sad that it might lead to them being closed rather than leading to them sorting out the things that need sorting out, and continueing to provide a valuable service.

The reporting irked because it is so typical of the lazt one sided tabloidesque reporting that is all over the TV these days.

Pointing out that other people had come on this forum with negative reports about the place, yet completely failing to mention that actually quite a few people had said positive things too.

[Stu]

If I was at work and ITV came to the door asking me for comments on my company I wouldn't speak to the camera men either. Grow up and give the girl a break. Yes the nursery needs to give a comment at some point and yes they should (by the sounds of it) been much better at following up with the mother but you cannot moan about a general member of staff refusing to give a tinpot journatlist an ad-hoc interview on a national tv.

Focus on the issues. Non-interview to ITV is not one so move on to more important considerations.

[sweetgirl]

itv london did call earlier & spoke to adenike, (at least that is what the reporter told me) she is the nursery owner who was at the door. it was all too much going on because ofsted were there too....

i personally think it would've made sense to speak to all nursery parents in a special meeting set up by the nursery & given the parents a chance to raise their concerns & to reassure them.

the nursery manager was made aware on monday the media had an interest in this story.

[sweetgirl]

just for the record they did not go storming in.... they knocked on the door like the rest of the parents do when picking up their children.

[Convex]

I don't think media interest adds anything. I thought the story was unbalanced... It implied they don't care that the little boy escaped and they do. Could they not gave waited a few days for a response, especially given ofsted were there and take priority over the news? Etc...

I'm glad parents are being supportive.

[sweetgirl]

i told sylvia on the day it happened, i wanted the parents to be made aware of the incident. i waited 24 hrs before posting anything on the forum, so i gave them their chances. i think she should've called an emergency meeting with the parents almost immediately!

the worst of the story is that they didn't know he was missing until he was returned to the nursery!

it seems the reason behind the parents receiving the email over the weekend was because they discovered the thread on the forum!

[Convex]

No, I think they took way too long to respond but I think they would have communicated it out.

I'm glad you posted though.

The problem with an immediate meeting is there isn't much to say beyond what was in the email, so I don't know what it would gain. If there is a meeting in a couple if weeks for example then the can update us on progress, plans, take feedback on other things, etc. I can't speak fir other parents but we have made suggestions directly to the nursery eg re the gate as mentioned above.