AnonyMouse_1999 Posted February 17, 2007 Share Posted February 17, 2007 I just wonder do you check the contents of children's bag on a daily basis? We have some children who leave a bag with spare clothes at preschool permanently. Others arrive with a bag each day - it is the same bag containing the same clothes just that children/parents prefer to take it home each day. One day last week the children were ready (with bags!) to go home. I was just about to open the door for parents when to my horror I saw a little girl delve in her bag and bring out a bottle of calpol it was in a knotted clear plastic bag with spoon. My heart missed a beat, the bag had hung in the cloakroom all session and I had no idea there was any medicine in it. I approached Mum and barely needed to say anything, as soon as she saw what I had in my hand she was horrified and very apologetic. She had been out with her daughter earlier in the week and used the child's 'school bag' and had taken calpol with her as her daughter had been unwell. She had forgotten all about it and didn't see it when she packed spare clothes for preschool. Parents are fully aware of our medicines policy and nothing remotely like this has ever happened before but I need to ensure this never ever happens again but does that mean I check every bag on arrival each day 'in case' ?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 17, 2007 Share Posted February 17, 2007 We dont check the bags daily either!! What about putting a note up just reminding parents of the medicine policy or you could just make it a general note of reminders including reminders for appropriate snacks etc etc as well as what should/shouldnt be in bags? I dont think we would have time to go through each child's bag every session? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 17, 2007 Share Posted February 17, 2007 Or pockets come to that. We had a three year old turn up with a Swiss army knife in his pocket just before Christmas! We found him showing it to his cousin-fortunatley neither had the chance to open it as it was very stiff. Mum was horrified when she saw it. It was his older brother's and he must have sneaked into his room and taken it. I would either send home a note to remind parents about your policy or put up a poster in plain view for them all to see. Linda Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnonyMouse_4544 Posted February 17, 2007 Share Posted February 17, 2007 We once had a four year old turn up with a carving knife and a disposable lighter (up his coat sleeve) the knife can to light when he wanted to cut his own apple! and the lighter when he was asked if he'd brought anything else from home. As has already been said the only thing we can do is remind parents as I don't think it would be an option to search all children on entry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 17, 2007 Share Posted February 17, 2007 we check the bags daily because we had a real problem with medicines in bags last year, its easy for us to check the bags as the class sizes are so small and we go in the bags daily anyway for the childrens communication books so we check then, we also sent a letter out to parents to remind them of our medicine policy and the dangers of leaving medicines in bags. If we find anything it is taken out and locked in the medicine cabinet until the end of the day Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 18, 2007 Share Posted February 18, 2007 The 'management' of this issue would be different for each setting. I too have previously has a case of calpol in a bag ( when parent was informed she smiled and actually thought how clever her son was in getting the stuff out the house without her knowledge ) . Not all our children bring in bags. The reponses to this post do indicate that these items are 'discovered' before any damage is done through vigilant 'natural' supervision that is provided by staff on a daily basis. I do not really see how a notice, letter or reminder can measurably change the risk of such incidents, it seems that sometimes even the parents are unaware of what is in their childs posession Bag searches put the responsibility on us, having read this, I am inclined to think that I will include in my terms and conditions a disclaimer that I will not be held responsible for any damage caused through items bought into the setting, or words along those lines. However, noting that the ratio of adults to child enables what should be an adequate level of supervision for equipment, resources etc that are planned to be available for the childrens access. A bit like disclaimers in car parks etc. I know we are talking about human beings and not cars, but some responsibility must lay with the parents on ensuring their children arrive in a safe manner. After all our parents, under our terms and conditions are required to follow our policies. Might get legal advise on this one. Peggy on the other side of the coin, I am acutely aware of items 'leaving' the premises in bags and pockets, can't and would not want to do seaches on exit, but it is annoying when small toys especially the 'wheels' out of the lego, disappear and stock levels need to be replenished at my expense. Again, parents don't even notice that their child has 'aquired' something new or additional and if they do they don't think to return them ( unless of course they are embarassed ) Peggy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnonyMouse_6541 Posted February 18, 2007 Share Posted February 18, 2007 We are having a huge problem with that at the moment...children "borrowing" items... a lot of our resources are now redundant because the pieces have disappeared, and I am 99% sure they are not on the premises as i did all the checking of boxes and drawers and under the furniture myself. It is quite annoying and upsetting that parents do not show an interest in where their children get these mysteriously appearing bits from, especially as they make such a fuss about fees increasing and im sure they will have something to moan about in the future years when their adorable cleptomaniacs go global!! Has anyone else had this problem before? and managed to put a stop to it (well as much as it can be)? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 22, 2007 Share Posted February 22, 2007 I agree its a really tough one - things coming in and going out. And I agree I bought a wonderful wooden coloured tree game with coloured pegs. Left the table and by the end of the session hey presto - two pegs missing making the game useless. £26 of game so it was really annoying and more annoying that the manufactuer had not included a few spares in each colour!! What suprised me though - that the poisons unit at the hospital appeared to have far more concerns over multi-vitamin overdoses, the liquid type, than calpol, My chldren managed to get hold of both - yes I know I should have been more vigilant! but they certainly did a big search on the dosage of the vitamins and were very concerned and I had to go through the breakdown in great detail but they were very laid back about the calpol. I hasten to add that these were on different ocasions (even I am not that silly but obviously didn't learn from the first experience) and maybe I got different people with different perspectives. I think this might prompt me to put a note out about parents checking their bags using a fictitious example so that no parent feels I am getting at them. Thanks Nikki Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 23, 2007 Share Posted February 23, 2007 We do not check bags as we simply don't have the time! We had a similiar situation recently and the parent almost put the blame on us saying we should check bags anyway. I feel that this is just another case where parents put responsibility on us. I feel that we as practitioners are taking on more and more things which really should be the responsibility of the parent. They should be checking what their child is bringing to school/ nursery each day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnonyMouse_534 Posted February 23, 2007 Share Posted February 23, 2007 What about informing the parents that any bags left need to be transparent? That way all contents can be clearly seen. You can get transparent swimming bags. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 25, 2007 Share Posted February 25, 2007 peggy the point you make about having a disclaimer is a good one that i myself will be looking into parents fail to see the dangers of bringing such items such as calpol into the nursery environment and your right the letter doesnt always do the trick on the subject of children leaving at the end of a session with parts of materials this is a problem i have recently had i often find that when im on an early shift i will return the next day to find pieces of equipment missing because parents have gone into the room with younger siblings who have took a liking to something sometimes the items are returned several days later sometimes they are not some of the materials in the Montessori classroom are very pricy and to replace one piece of equipment that costs £150 or more is difficult we do try to stock up on the most likely items to go walk abouts but even this is so expensive as one piece of our pink tower can cost £10 and this is something that goes missing quite often (now i put it away until the next day) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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