Childcare Woes - Part II

The nursery school turned out to be the stuff of nightmares, or at least, the stuff of my nightmares. The thing about working with children yourself is that you tend to be choosy about childcare and particularly watchful of the way other people interact with the kids they are caring for.

We turned up for our “orientation session” yesterday so that Ella could integrate with the other kids while we were still there. The baby room (0-2) was chaotic at best. When we arrived, the kids were sitting down for “craft” but the nursery teacher running the session didn’t seem to care a hoot whether the kids were participating in the activity, provided she was able to tick the box to say she had completed it. When she decided the session was finished, she quickly shooed the children away and removed the tablecloth before they had chance to finish what they were doing. The kids had no idea what was going on.

(She also looked uncannily like Julie T Wallace in the BBC adaptation of “The Lives and Loves of a She Devil”, but I digress).

After “craft”, she started on the nappy changes, picking the kids off one by one and half dragging them into the nappy room when she plonked them on the table and changed their bottoms without looking at or speaking to them. My overall impression was that the kids were an enormous inconvenience to her and that the children were shooed between too many activities in too short a space of time with no opportunity to learn from any of them. And all of this in front of parents.

When I got home I wanted to cry. Ella needs the company of other children but there’s no way on earth I was going to leave her with Julie T Wallace. Today I rang the centre manager and told her I was removing her name from the list because my observation of the morning session had concerned and upset me. “As a professional” I told her, “if I had to comment on the quality of the interaction occurring in your nursery, I would slate the place”. “Thanks” she replied, “I think I’ve got some work to do there”.

So it’s back to the drawing board, playdoh, crayons, bricks and dingle-dangle scarecrow song for me. I know half of the second verse now, It’s character-building stuff.