BLACKLISTED
Coat row sees children barred
A mum claims her pre-school children have been blacklisted from a nursery following a row over lost property.
Emma Randle’s two children have been removed from the register at Kidsunlimited Day Nursery in Maidstone with immediate effect.
The Bearsted mum says she can no longer send four-year-old Thomas and 20-month-old Poppy to the Turkey Mill nursery because of a dispute about missing coats.
Miss Randle, who has been using the centre for more than two-and-a-half years, says she was stunned at the decision and given no advance warning.
The 35-year-old teaching assistant said: “I had an email from the area manager, stating that my contract was terminated with immediate effect.
“She said that there had been a breakdown in trust.
“I was confused because the issue that I had a few weeks ago about some lost coats I thought was resolved. We’d discussed it and we were moving forward.”
Miss Randle had complained to the nursery after three of her children’s coats went missing, and it was agreed they would use different hooks to avoid any confusion.
She said the decision to terminate the contract has been particularly hard on four-year-old Thomas, who starts primary school in September.
Kidsunlimited offered to let him stay on until July 22 to aid his transition, but this would still leave him without a nursery for the six weeks before he begins school.
“It was quite clear that my children and my family are not welcome at the nursery so I declined the offer,” added Ms Randle.
She is now having to rely on friends and family to help out with childcare.
Miss Randle added: “My son is really upset that he’s not going to see his friends.
“It’s not fair on him, he’s not
My son is really upset that he’s not going to see his friends’
done anything wrong.”
A spokesman for Kidsunlimited said: “We are confident that as soon as the nursery became aware of this matter the nursery staff took appropriate action.
“We absolutely put the inter- ests of the children in our care first and that’s why we reluctantly came to this decision.
“We believe in creating a caring and cooperative environment for the children in our care and their parents.”