I’m not usually one to air my laundry, however I think when it comes to
reviews on childcare it is important to provide feedback on our
experience. We have had to remove our daughter from this setting and
report Mai to Ofsted due to inadequate care and putting our daughter’s
welfare at risk. Our daughter is currently going through assessments of
Autism and speak and language support. The last 3-4 weeks at the setting my
daughter had been really upset, refusing food and generally very emotional.
This is a far cry to how she is at home where she is happy, full of energy
and loves her food. Two weeks ago we went to the setting for what I thought
was a discussion on how we can all support my daughter, however instead we
were shown numerous videos of my daughter sat at the setting in floods of
tears with nobody comforting or supporting her. Instead of trying to look
after her Mai and her husband were too busy taking videos of her crying.
There was also no context to the videos to show if anything had happened
prior to cause my daughter to cry. We saw a number of videos of this
nature. Subsequently, we were then sent a 22 second video of our daughter
standing crying in hysterics, struggling to catch her breath and all the
while Mai and her husband were standing with a camera videoing her. Can you
image how a 23-month-old must feel standing crying hysterically and the
people who are supposed to be looking after her, comforting and supporting
her are next to her with an iPhone videoing her instead.*


*Mai told us she was acting within the guidelines of what is expected of
her as a childcare professional!!! We have shown the video to a number of
other healthcare professionals, child support workers and a social worker
we know and the response from everyone has been the same. The feedback we
received was that the actions of Mai and her husband are shocking,
disgusting, heart-breaking and not in line with the behaviour of a
reputable childcare professional and need to be reported. We were asked by
professionals if we would be willing to report this setting as no child
should be treated that way. None of childcare professional we spoke to said
they would ever video a child emotional/distraught in order to send to a
parent and it is so far from the guidelines and expected behaviour of a
childcare professional. *

*This is now with Ofsted and it is for them to decide on any consequences
but I will also stand-up and fight for my daughter’s welfare and against
people who simply want to take parents money and provide unacceptable
childcare services.*

*I would recommend reading the Ofsted reports for this setting. While they
have recently passed a re-inspection the first inspection at the end of
last year was marked as inadequate for all areas. My biggest regret is not
removing my child from this setting 6 months ago when we saw the inadequate
Ofsted report. It was such a red flag for us and after a meeting with Mai
to discuss we wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt and support her
as a new childminder who wanted to work to improve the setting and Ofsted
report. Instead, she provided inadequate care and trauma to my daughter and
the mum guilt of leaving her in that situation will never go away.

• Overall
• Setting
• Cleanliness
• Food
• Communication