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How to make a complaint about a pre-school?

  • 15-09-2015 07:05PM
    #1
    superleedsdub
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 364 ✭✭


    Hi there,

    I was wondering if anyone could point me in the direction of where I can make a complaint regarding the pre-school my son is currently attending?

    My son is 3 next month and as he has not attended a creche my wife and myself felt that it would be of great benefit that he attend a pre-school for a couple of days for a year prior to him attending his full pre-school year.
    Therefore, my wife viewed a place close to our home late last year, my son then spent some time in the place and loved it.

    My wife paid a deposit in late december of last year and was then informed that as she was the first parent to enroll her child for this year that she could have her pick of the days/times that we wish to enroll our son for. My wife stated that she wanted a morning slot and wasn`t too pushed about what days, eventually settling on tuesday and wednesday. We still have the written receipt with these details dated 23/12/2014

    In late august, my wife was getting anxious that she hadn`t heard from the pre-school and called to confirm his starting date. She eventually reached a contact and had a strange conversation where she was informed that there were still places available for the new year, this was after informing the contact that we had enrolled our son last year.....

    So my son then started in the school 2 weeks ago, a few tears have been shed etc... but no major problems and he is loving the place. While dropping him in today, my wife was informed that the HSE had visited the creche and they were informed that they had too many children on site in the morning. My wife was also informed that the creche was down one member of staff and that we would have to move our son`s time to the afternoon, my wife mentioned that why was this happening as he was the first child to be enrolled for the year and was informed that children in the free pre-school year had to take precedence.

    So my wife returned home and informed me about this (I work shifts and that is one of the reasons that we wanted our son to attend in the morning).
    I asked her, when she was collecting our son to request a meeting with the manager to discuss the situation as we were not happy, after a little tooing and froing, a time was provided for thursday. My wife was informed that my child was not the first on the list and that all the children that had previously been attending as part of the creche facilities take priority.

    So the long and short of this is we are now moving our soon to another place, we are extremely unhappy about our experience, a contract has been broken in my view and I would not like to let sleeping dogs lie on this. Seeing my wife very upset has had a big effect on me. I am dreading tomorrow morning when my son realises he is not going to school.
    Can I make a formal complaint to the HSE or somewhere similar??


Comments

  • #2
    Moonbeam
    Moderators, Education Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 19,019 Mod ✭✭✭✭Moonbeam


    The playschool is in a creche?
    The small children are mixed in with the ECCE year children?
    Is their loss of a member of staff permanent?
    There is a 5:1 ratio until a child is 2 1/2 and 10:1 from 2 1/2 - 6 for sessional services


  • #3
    Mink
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,260 ✭✭✭Mink


    Sorry to hear about that. I would find it very upsetting if I had to suddenly move my son after he's just settled in.

    I think Siolta might be the organisation that would look into this, they come under HSE, so maybe start with HSE first.

    However, really what should have happened is when you originally made contact, they should have made it clear that the kids moving into ECCE year would take precedence (which makes sense) and there would be a chance he would have to go to afternoon slot.

    But then as Moonbeam says, it does seem strange that ECCE kids are mixed in with toddler session kids. They don't even mix in the outside play area at my son's preschool.

    My hunch would be that the place is a bit mismanaged or has teething problems of it's own. Although it is upsetting for your wife & son, it may be better in long run to move to another place. I reckon your son will transition better than you think, after kicking up initially.


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