Little Ozzies Nursery

Lost Child Procedure From Nursery

At Little Ozzies Ltd we take all reasonable steps to ensure the safety of children on the premises, we only release children into the care of individuals who we have been notified to us by the parent and have safety systems in place to ensure that children do not leave the premises unsupervised. These measures include: high handles, locked key pad doors and button release main entrance. Access to premises is made through a buzzer system and main school gates remain locked during the school day and only opened for short periods during school drop off & pickup. No child will be allowed to leave nursery without parental permission and a correct password must be given.

In the unlikely event of a child going missing within/from the nursery, we have the following procedure which will be implemented immediately:

• All staff will be aware of the procedure when a child goes missing and supply information to support the search, e.g. a recent photograph and a detailed description of clothing
• The nursery manager will be informed immediately and all staff present will be informed. Some staff will be deployed to start an immediate thorough search of the nursery, followed by a search of the surrounding area, whilst ensuring that some staff remain with the other children so they remain supervised, calm and supported throughout
• The manager will call the police as soon as they believe the child is missing and follow police guidance. The parents of the missing child will also be contacted
• A second search of the area will be carried out
• During this period, available staff will be continually searching for the missing child, whilst other staff maintain as near to normal routine as possible for the rest of the children in the nursery
• The manager will meet the police and parents
• The manager will then await instructions from the police
• In the unlikely event that the child is not found the nursery will follow the local authority and police procedure
• Any incidents must be recorded in writing as soon as practicably possible including the outcome, who was lost, time identified, notification to police and findings
• Ofsted will be contacted and informed of the incidents
• With incidents of this nature parents, carers, children and staff may require support and reassurance following the traumatic experience. Management will provide this or seek further support where necessary
• In any cases with media attention staff will not speak to any media representatives
• Post-incident risk assessments will be conducted following any incident of this nature to enable the chance of this reoccurring being reduced