to want to go through the nursery staff like a dose of salts

Oh my goodness, Granny23! Does the Care Commission not need to be informed of this? Would it be the Care Commission or another body?

The nursery staff appear not to be following guidance about what is suitable for children to do. They should provide the cake ingredients in a list to you so you know what is and isn't edible. The dog creche I take my basset to (don't raise your eyebrows - it's very L.A.!) has such guidance and we can't give the dogs anything without it being health and safety checked!! Do these people not think for themselves? Hope he will be ok and manage to pass the bat with no problems. Do you get the job of poo-sifting till it's found? xx

granny23 the nursery should have given then edible halloween icing!

As a retired teacher, I absolutely agree that this was a very stupid thing to do. I'd also be furious because they've implemented something totally inappropriate and then passed the buck to the family thereby attempting to walk away from the responsibility if anything goes wrong. You are right to be blazing mad. I'd take it further than the nursery staff. Are they trained teachers or EYP's? If it's a local authority nursery then report it. If not, then contact the Care Commission. Hope the wee lad is ok and that Mum and Dad remain vigilant!

Stupidity. I wonder if some people are so brainwashed by H&S regulations that they forget simple common sense as a first rule of thumb. Their stupidity cold have caused pain and injury - the mind boggles and I would rather not go down the road of worst case scenario - as well as great distress and they need to be severely reprimanded.

Local Authority Nursery Class at Primary School. Fully qualified teachers. They are all very nice and enthusiastic, DGS loves being there and is now worried that HE will get into trouble because the children were told firmly to remove the plastic decorations before eating.

To hand over the responsibility to little children.....oh, for goodness' sake!

I'm shocked! Do they also tell the children to watch the road when they cross over on their own to meet their parents? Are they mad?

Anyone who puts inedible things on cakes for nursery children is not, in my opinion, "fully qualified". If I were you, granny23, I would take my complaint to the headteacher. If s/he was not helpful, I'd take it further. The nursery's policy guidelines are either not in place or are being ignored. Either way, something fundamental needs to change. Anyone who can be as stupid as those teachers seem to have been may well do other stupid things. Maybe they are not stupid but they are not thinking porperly about their responsibilities, about what children are like, and so on. Good luck, and I hope the child is OK.

Granny23 I think this should be taken up at the nursery and to be honest taken higher than the person in charge,,I know soemthimes its hard to do if your child is still at the nursery, but what if a child had choked!...it is obvious that some one has not had the correct training, maybe it was a "helper" that was there?..... when my grandson was at his last nursery..he somehow got his arm stuck down a radiator and had a gastly burn on his arm due to not being able to pull his arm out...........we had the usual accident form..but at the time your just want to make sure the person/child is looked after and comforted...it is only later on when things have passed over that we think "we should have done this"!! or that! we have all done it....but when we look back now.we wish we had taken the matter further(, not for compensation.but to make sure another little one wasn't hurt, apparently they should have been guards round the radiators!... so once your DGS is ok and everything is ok..I would make an appoinment and discuss the matter....I wish we had done with our grandson..hope he is ok now...

I do hope the little lad is OK. The bats will probably pass harmlessly out of him. That is what happened when my daughter swallowed a lego piece at a similar age. And yes, plastic doesn't show up on xrays unfortunately. As for the nursery I would certainly make a formal complaint. With all the fuss there is about elf and syfty it's hard to believe that supposedly qualified staff in charge of small children - or any child come to that - would be so remiss. And passing the buck onto the little ones not to eat the decoration is unbelievable. Do make a complaint - another child might not be so lucky!

going back to lego my daughter works in a hospital...there was a young lad think he was 7 yrs old..rushed into A & E.choked on a piece of Lego! I think what they tend to do is when the pieces are stuck togther they tent to bite them apart , I seem to think there is now a Lego tool to prise them apart...

Head teacher first, then the registering authority. Can't believe they would do something so stupid.

If it is an LA school, copy letters to chair of governors because they are legally in charge of health and safety in school.
Alas there are a lot of not very able people working as unqualified assistants or NVQ qualified assistants. It is still considered an appropriate career choice for the kind but dim. And paid appallingly (I am thinking particularly of private nurseries here)
Also suspect they don't teach much health and safety for small kids on teaching quals, so if you are not a parent yourself...

So sorry to hear about the trauma with GS ...hopefully things have now sorted themselves out biologically speaking.

With regards to ... "Local Authority Nursery Class at Primary School. Fully qualified teachers." These two statements do not necessarily go together.

You can have a LANC on the site of a primary school ...without it being directly the responsibility of the primary school head or their Governing body ...neither does it have to have qualified teachers running it (something em indicated earlier). Also ...it therefore could have its own Governing body.
It would be worthwhile checking these things before anyone goes in 'guns blazing'... but try to go in as calmly as possible ...confrontation, at this point, may not be in your daughter's best interest ...however understandable that would be.

However ...your daughter ought to have the contact details of the clerk and/or chair of governing body ...to contact in an emergency ...which this situation merits. Put everything in writing ...including going in with a letter of concern/complaint to the person in charge of the LANC when nursery class next in session ...if, in your area, it is half-term next week ...get it all in the post now ... or e-mail with copies to everyone ...do not wait.

BUT ...put everything in writing before face to face contact ...and record/log all conversations in writing asap after they've taken place. Your daughter may need a 'paper trail' of times/dates/events etc for future reference. Would also suggest she takes in another adult with her ...someone who can give an unbiased account of the discussion. Also... do not have this 'discussion' in front of her son ...perhaps you could keep him with you?

Serious 'health and safety' issues have to be addressed here ... I can give you further support/advice if you would like to contact me via Gransnet private message service.

Best wishes to you and your family.

G23, presumably this nursery is in Scotland where the regime of school governance is quite different from that in England, so some of the advice on this thread will not apply to your GS's case. However, the buck stops with the head teacher, no matter how negligent her/his staff have been. I believe that local authorities have still a far greater overview of schools than they have in England, so this is something that the Director of Education, or at least the lead person for nursery education should know about.

Well spotted Annobel! DD will put DGS into nursery tomorrow morning and then straight to the Headteacher. She will ask for an accident report form, explain what happened and decide what to do next based on his response. Funnily enough he was actually IN the nursery on Friday morning taking photographs and must have seen the offending cakes, himself.

On a bright note DGS is absolutely fine, no pain and has - TMI ALERT - passed two lots of fairly loose stools. He was at the (totally seperate voluntary run) Playgroup's Hallowe'en party on Friday afternoon where he ate loads of apples, nuts, etc. then home and had his tea before eating the plastic bat, so there was probably enough bulk in there to wrap it up and pass it out.

BTW - Guess what his costume was for the Hallowe'en party? I will not drag it out - he went as BATMAN - with 2yo little sister as Robin! You couldn't make it up!

Glad he is ok Granny23. Must have been worrying for you.

Hope the nursery staff will have learned a lesson.

I couldn't believe what I was reading in the opening post! As I have said in other posts I don't have children and have very little experience in looking after them (I don't mind when they are clean and fresh smelling but like to hand them back when things get a bit smelly!!!)

However, even I with my limited experience would not have handed these cakes to such small children and leaving it to them to pass on the instructions about removing the plastic decorations - surely it must be a rule that only edible decorations are used when such young children are involved.

Just to wind up this thread. Today DD spoke with the Head Master, the head of Nursery, and the teacher behind the cake making. Same lighthearted initial re-action from all three, followed by a dawning realisation of how serious the error was and what might have happened. Head Master thought that 'the cakes must have been brought in by a parent' as none of his staff were so stupid. Nursery Head stated that it would not have happened if she had been there (she works week about at two LA School nurseries several miles apart - How unsatisfactory is that!?!) and the lovely teacher who supervised the making, decorating and distribution of the cakes, firstly said there had never been a problem before (suggesting that this is not the first time children have been sent home with cakes with plastic bits in) but then as the awful reality sank in was totally shocked and nearly in tears.

Accident form to be completed and incident recorded, full nursery staff + Head and Deputy Head will meet tomorrow to discuss, but school are accepting responsibility and apologising profusely. Class Hallowe'en party was today and all food was thoroughly checked.

Sounds like they have taken it onboard Granny23, once they realised it was no joke! Hope DGS enjoyed the Hallowe'en party.

Thats good that yes they have acted upon it, and Im sure after a meeting , they will make sure none of this happens again..and I hope perhaps they are all made more safety concious........glad your Halloween went ok..