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

[sweetgirl]

goodness i am soooo p****d rite now!

since the incident with my son the owner, nicky as you all know her has made contact with me once, at my request. this was the following friday after it happened.

since then i sent her an email requesting termination of contract & refund of monies owed to me.

last saturday i received a response to this email, which stated a cheque was enclosed.

there was no cheque in the letter which i made known to her through another email i sent her last sunday.

i guess this was a genuine mistake????

on the same mail again i requested a refund of all money owed to me including any overpayments i have made, i asked for a hand delivered cheque in the next 5 working days, which meant by the end of today.

i went to the nursery today where i met sylvia, i told her i want to see nicky as i want my money to pay my sons new nursery, anyway nicky wasn't there. besides the other things i spoke about i was told a cheque for the month of May was in the post to me????

(i don't live far from the nursery, somebody should have hand delivered this to my door considering the circumstances)

i then told sylvia i want ALL my money back, because i had overpaid (i think im paid up until early/mid july)

its just over 2k owed to me according to my calculations.....

sylvia told me, nicky said i have to prove what payments i have made to nicky, as she said couldn't locate them!!!!!!

as you can probably imagine im well p****d off!!!

luckily i had all the details of payments made with me, i then wrote everything down on paper & gave it to her, asking for a signed photocopy to say she received it, which she gave me.

now lets see what happens!

but i am left wondering if i hadn't paid my fees promptly would she then have been able to locate the payment info????

any ideas anyone?

if there are any other questions i will only answer through pm....

[sweetgirl]

have the parents or ex parents of oak tree nursery had this ofsted report available to them?

this has recently come to my attention & was dated the 16th may 2014.

very interesting read......

The period of suspension is for six weeks to 26 June 2014.

We are taking this step as we have reasonable cause to believe children are, or may be, exposed to a risk of harm. The purpose of this suspension is to allow time for the circumstances to be investigated and for steps to be taken to reduce or eliminate the risk of harm.

You must comply with this notice by ceasing to act as a registered childcare provider immediately. It is an offence for a person registered on the Early Years Register or the compulsory part of the Childcare Register to provide childminding or childcare, which requires registration, while suspended.

We believe children are, or may be, exposed to a risk of harm because on 7 May 2014 a child was able to leave the nursery unnoticed. He was found in the road and brought back to the nursery by a member of the public. A driver of a car who had to swerve to miss him on the road called the police. This person knocked at several doors with the child before bringing him back to the nursery. They said when they arrived at the nursery with the small child it seemed as if you had not noticed he was gone. The child was able to leave the premises as the entrance door to the nursery was not secure. Following the incident you made a notification to Ofsted of the incident and informed us that you were taking steps to ensure the nursery was safe. As a result of the notification Ofsted instigated a priority inspection.

On 15 May 2014 the inspection was conducted and a judgement of inadequate requiring enforcement was made. The inspector noted concerns in relation to security of the building and risk assessments. Due to the nature of the incident and the concerns identified at inspection it was decided a visit the following day was to be made by one of our Early Childhood Regulatory Inspectors.

The Regulatory Inspector visited the premises on the morning of 16 May 2014. She observed the security to the building to be weak. The main door to the nursery did not self-close, if someone was leaving the nursery somebody else would have to follow to shut the door for them. The door could not be closed from the outside. Since the incident bolts have been fixed to the door however, this is a fire door, and we are unsure if this has been checked with the fire department. We also have concerns that following the incident the mother of the child was not shown a copy of your incident report.

There is another entrance to the building that does have a key pad system You informed the inspector that members of St John?s Ambulance and Church officials have the key code to gain access. We are concerned that un-vetted adults could have access to the building and some of the children?s rooms and toilet facilities. We have further concerns regarding risk assessment of this door and how nursery staff are sure it is closed when others are leaving. The inspector also noted the lobby area was blocked by children?s buggies which were a hazard and an additional fire exit was also blocked with heavy play equipment.

Outside the Pre School room is a large chest of drawers that children could access. The inspector pulled open one of the drawers to find several aerosol sprays. You removed the aerosol sprays when the inspector was present however, they should not have been there in the first place. Outside the preschool room was a stack of adult chairs about eight high. This was a significant risk if children were to try and climb up it or pull down. You identified this risk to the inspector along with several other risks but said your hands were tied as it was church property.

The baby room and toddler room is divided by a heavy screen which has metal feet attached. Whilst walking through the baby room the inspector tripped on one of these. We are concerned that a staff member could have been carrying a baby and then tripped or fallen with a baby.

We have therefore suspended your registration to safeguard children whilst we investigate these concerns. We will be liaising with other agencies in addition to conducting further investigations of our own in respect of the potential risk of harm and your continued suitability for registration.

We will review your suspension as soon as we receive further information.

The law requires you to display a notice of suspension at the premises where registration is suspended. I enclose a notice you can use for this purpose which does not include any personal or sensitive information. You should display the notice in a location visible to parents and carers who may visit the setting. You must continue to display the notice until:

 the period of suspension on the notice has ended, or

 we serve a new notice of suspension with a new display notice which you must display, or

 we lift the suspension.

What we will do now

We will monitor your compliance with the suspension, usually by visiting your childminding or childcare provision during the suspension period. We will tell your local authority and the parents of children you care for that we have suspended your registration. If we have reason to believe that you are providing a childcare service for which you are registered while suspended, we may take further action. This may include cancelling your registration or prosecuting you for committing an offence.

We will review the suspension regularly and will lift the suspension when we are satisfied that the grounds for suspension no longer apply.

We will aim to complete our investigation within the period of suspension. Where it is not possible to do so within the initial six week period, we may extend your suspension for a further six weeks. We may extend your suspension for more than 12 weeks if, for reasons beyond our control, we cannot complete our investigation or take steps to reduce the risk of harm to children. For example, this may be where we are waiting for other agencies to complete their investigations.

We will work with other agencies in order to protect the welfare of children, including:

 local authorities, who are responsible for investigating concerns about the welfare of children; children?s services are under a legal duty to investigate and to take any necessary action to safeguard a child?s welfare where they receive information which leads them to suspect that a child may be at risk of harm

 the police, who are responsible for criminal investigations where it is alleged that an offence was committed against a child.

What you can do now

Seek independent advice

You can ask for independent advice or support by contacting:

 the Citizens' Advice Bureau. You can get details on how to contact your local office through its website www.citizensadvice.org.uk.

 a solicitor

 Family Rights Group. which offers independent advice where children are the subjects of a child protection investigation or conference. You can contact the group at www.frg.org.uk. It has information and advocacy for families involved with children services departments.

Provide us with additional information.

At any time during your suspension you can provide us with any additional information you believe may affect the suspension of your registration. We will review the information you provide and decide as quickly as possible whether the circumstances leading to the suspension continue to apply. We will lift the suspension where this is not the case.

Appeal against our decision to suspend your registration

You may appeal to the Health, Education and Social Care of the First-tier Tribunal against our decision to suspend your childminding or childcare service. The enclosed leaflet provides further details about suspension and how to appeal against our decision. The Health, Education and Social Care of the First-tier Tribunal must receive any appeal within 10 days of the date of the notice of suspension that you are appealing against. If you are unable to meet this timescale you will need to contact the Tribunal.

If, during the suspension, you have any concerns or questions about this notice, or any information you wish to tell us, please contact Siobhan O?Callaghan from our Compliance, Investigation and Enforcement team on 0300 123 1231. It would be helpful if you could provide your reference number from this letter.

We have set out the relevant legislation supporting our action in the annex below.

[sweetgirl]

absolutely disgusting to know the driver had to swerve to avoid romeo!!

seeing it on this report makes my blood boil!!!!!!!

[Saffron]

Yes, very upsetting because the situation could have been so much worse for everyone. It's such an unfortunate situation in so many respects. I echo Trimbler's sentiments and hope that parents are able to find the right solutions for their families. xx

[Monkey]

This is just awful, absolutely awful.

[Otta]

It really is.

I have to say some of the things they point out in that report (about the interior) are a bit OTT, and I think most places would stuggle to not raise concerns if they are being that picky.

But that is an aside, and certainly doesn't detract from the real issue.

[Laur]

Oak Tree Nursery is closing:

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/ofsted-to-close-nursery-where-toddler-walked-out-onto-road-9645764.html

[Convex]

Hello, it's 'pending an appeal' the result of which must be due soon but I'm pretty sure it isn't out yet

(Unless it's been leaked ahead of parents being informed which is if course possible)

[sweetgirl]

YES, TO MY UNDERSTANDING THE APPEAL WILL BE BASED ON LIES...

i understand she wants certain members of her staff.... the ones who are still standing by her, to write statements on her behalf saying the staff meeting in which security of the nursery had been discussed.... didn't take place! (one of her staff has let this slip! but i guess we will find out in due course...) there were too many members of staff present at this particular meeting so it will be difficult for her to get through this....

THERE IS ALOT TO THIS THAT PARENTS ARE/WERE UNAWARE OF.... BABY FILES HAVE GONE MISSING, STAFF WORK IN THE NURSERY & NOT CRB CHECKED, KIDS OFTEN CRIED THEMSELVES TO SLEEP (IN THE LAST FEW MONTHS...) minutes of meetings were not kept,

I AM HAPPY MY SON IS OUT OF THERE!

my son was under the care of [name removed] when he walked out of there... [name removed] told me this on the day the incident happened, how then do you discipline another member of staff who wasn't even involved in this incident??? & this member of staff has been sacked!

FROM WHAT I HAVE RECENTLY EXPERIENCED OFSTED ARE NOT ON TOP FORM, I BELIEVE CHILDCARE IS TOO EXPENSIVE & CHECKS NEED TO BE CARRIED OUT MORE OFTEN!

i suggest spot checks carried out as & when.......

[sweetgirl]

yes, [name removed] was/is the deputy manager & as adenike told me, also the safeguarding officer!

[Family Room Moderator]

Please note that I have removed names from some previous posts - please refrain from naming/identifying individual staff members. Thank you.

[Leona01]

It's been a while since anyone has posted on this thread, but you might all be interested to know that the appeal that was made by Oak Tree Nursery against the decision to close the nursery has a date set for the 12th Jan 2015 (over a period of 4 days). I would be quite worried, but not surprised (as my faith in the system that regulates our children's safety is so very flawed) if the appeal were overturned, but I guess we can only wait and see!

[sweetgirl]

I wonder what that says about the great oak tree nursery...