Response from StuartS
Responded 22 Oct 2023

We were sorry to read of your comments and feel it appropriate to respond.
As you may recall on the day of the incident, 19th April 23, we did not call you as the incident happened at 5.10pm, with you due to be collecting your daughter a short time after. As we knew you would be driving from your place of work at the time, we made the decision not to call you but to tell you on your arrival, 20 minutes later. Had it of happened earlier in the day we would have notified you and your husband using the contact numbers on file.
During the time from the incident to your arrival soon after, your daughter was checked on and we made sure she was not experiencing any complications as a result of the fall. We are all Paediatric first aid trained and know the signs to look out for in the event of a fall happening.
In an attempt to not sound as though I am being defensive but confirm that the incident happened due to your daughter learning to pull herself to standing. We made the decision to allow her to explore this development as this was a key part to her development at the time and allowing her to gain a different perspective to her learning. This is vital and had we have stopped this we would not be supporting her with her development.
The accident happened as a result of her not having any anti slip socks or shoes on and therefore she slipped and bumped her head. As a result of this incident, I messaged over the following days, not to prevent you from reporting us, but because we care about every child we look after and even when the child is poorly with a cold, I will call the parents to see how they are. We take our role extremely seriously and understand the importance of supporting all children in their development as well as not disclosing any private information about children.
By holding children in our arms all day to prevent injury is not practical and would not see them progress with their development. You yourself even suggested that this is what happens at home when Daddy is with her.
I would also like to confirm that in line with our policy and procedures I contacted Ofsted myself at the time of the incident to seek advice and if there was anything else I could do or have done. It is at this time that I decided to message you and ask for your daughter to wear little shoes or anti slip socks that you confirmed you would sort to prevent this from happening in the future. The incident was correctly written up with recommendations to prevent this from happening again.
I am sorry you feel this way as we really had no idea. I have reread the email you sent when advising of your daughter leaving us on the 8th September 23, continuing to allow us to look after her for a further 5 months after the incident, which gave us no indication of your concerns. Your email read ‘we would like to take this opportunity to thank you for having and helping her settle and develop. Thank you for your patience and everything that you did for her’.
Your daughter was an absolute pleasure to have, and we enjoyed watching her grow in confidence and helping her settle into an environment that she was not used to. By the time she left us she was leaning with her arms out to one of us at the door to come and play, laughing and smiling as you saw in the photos within the learning journal.
I do understand that we are not the setting for all people as it is a very personal and important decision but one thing we pride ourselves on is the team of professionals that promise to give our all to the children to ensure they feel happy and safe, and this can be seen with all our children arriving happy and eager to come in every day. We provide lots of opportunity to learn from activities throughout the day and provide a personalised learning journal.

I am sorry if this was not enough for you and hope your daughter has settled well into her new setting.