Beginning in September, an additional 3,000 surprise nursery inspections will occur annually in England, including the first-ever examination of young children’s safe sleeping habits.
The mother of a youngster who passed away after being firmly wrapped in a sleeping bag with a blanket over his head told the BBC that her baby was “not treated as human” at the time of the commitment.
Noah, Masi Sibanda’s 14-month-old baby, passed away at Fairytales Nursery in Dudley, West Midlands, in 2022.
CCTV revealed that Noah wasn’t the only youngster who was mistreated, wrapped tightly, and put to sleep face-down by certain staff members.Masi described how her son was treated at Fairytales, saying, “Those kids weren’t seen as humans, they weren’t seen as kids.” They seemed to be treated like inanimate things, in my opinion. They did not regard them as sentient, living beings.
She is the subject of a BBC investigation that focuses on recent high-profile nursery failures in which small children were sexually molested or died.
Noah was “struggling and thrashing” inside a teepee in the nursery’s newborn area, face down on a soft pillow, according to CCTV that was shown before Wolverhampton Crown Court in April.
The court heard that Kimberley Cookson, a nursery worker, covered the toddler’s lower back with her leg and wrapped him tightly in blankets for seven minutes.
Staff did not physically check on him for around two hours after the nursery worker left him alone, thinking he had fallen asleep.
After being discovered unconscious, the hospital declared him dead.Children were not taken care of, according to Masi. “I do feel like they were being treated like inanimate objects.”
The nursery was fined £240,000 for corporate manslaughter, Cookson was imprisoned for manslaughter, and Deborah Latewood, the owner, was given a suspended sentence for a health and safety infraction.
Ten months before to Noah’s death, the nursery’s safeguarding measures were rated as “effective” and the site’s overall rating was “good” during the previous comprehensive inspection conducted by Ofsted.
Although the report for the inspection “did not specifically reference sleeping arrangements, they were observed for some children and found to be safe,” Ofsted told the BBC in a statement.
However, a subsequent Ofsted investigation at Fairytales following Noah’s passing revealed worries that infants and young children were in grave danger. Since then, the nursery has closed.
Hayley Hassall hears from parents of young children disappointed by safeguarding shortcomings when a toddler dies at a “good” rated nursery.
The government claims that the recently announced safe-sleep measures will “give parents assurance that safeguarding across the system is upheld to the highest possible standards” by increasing the number of inspections compared to the year prior to April 2025.
The education regulator Ofsted will take into account sleep habits throughout all inspections of early years providers, including how and where a child is placed for rest and if they are checked on.
According to the regulation, routines that don’t meet expectations will be reflected in the final grade.
According to Dr. Tammy Campbell of the Education Policy Institute, Ofsted ratings might be “dangerously misleading” since they might not accurately reflect the quantity of formal Welfare Requirements Notices (WRNs), complaints, or issues a nursery may have.
A nursery’s failure to report abuse claims, dangerous facilities, inadequate personnel vetting, and poor record-keeping are just a few of the concerns that WRNs can handle.A setting may have an Ofsted grade of “good” and still be totally failing, she explains.
98% of nurseries in England receive “good” or “outstanding” ratings.
Performance ratings are often maintained, even if issues are brought up between periodic inspections every four years.
When severe crimes were committed, two large-chain nurseries that employed paedophiles also received “good” ratings.
A former worker at Bristol’s Partou King Street Nursery claims that months before it was found that Nathan Bennett had been assaulting children, she warned management about his troubling behaviour.
Bessie Martin claims she informed supervisors that he would frequently seat kids on his lap, out of sight of security cameras, and hold them for extended periods of time. “I would see a child try to wriggle away or stand up and walk off, but he’d say, ‘sit here and we’re going to read a book’.
“Bessie Martin claims that her worries over Nathan Bennett were disregarded. “I was told I was imagining it.”
She claims she was informed she was “imagining it” and that her worries were disregarded.
He wasn’t suspended until she submitted a whistleblower report to the chain’s upper management.
Bennett was permitted to resume his job soon after, though. A CCTV review two weeks later revealed that he had put his hands down a boy’s trousers.
Bennett was suspended once more by the nursery, and the Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO) of the council was notified. The next day, police were notified, and he was taken into custody.
In February, Bennett was given a 30-year prison sentence for sexually abusing five boys between the ages of two and three.
Partou told the BBC that it has put recommendations into practice to “strengthen safeguarding governance further and enhance oversight across the organisation” and that it “actively encourages” the reporting of concerns.
With over 100 locations, Partou is one of the largest childcare providers in England, notwithstanding the closure of the King Street nursery in December of last year.
Following Bennett’s arrest, the BBC discovered that more Partou nurseries received official WRN notices from Ofsted to enhance safeguarding, safety, or welfare than the norm in England.
Our analysis revealed that in the four years leading up to March 2025, Partou nurseries were twice as likely to receive them as the average nursery; but, in the subsequent 12 months, that risk increased to more than seven times.
After Bennett’s case surfaced, Ofsted informed the BBC that it had expanded its inspection work into Partou.
According to Partou, these numbers need to be read carefully because various operators might use different standards. It stated that safeguarding is its “highest priority” and that it has given impacted families the “fullest possible support.”
It further stated that an independent safeguarding investigation had found that certain employees at the Bristol nursery had failed, and some of them are no longer employed by the company, while others are still the subject of ongoing internal actions.
Following the arrest of another paedophile, Vincent Chan, at its location in West Hampstead, London, Bright Horizons, another company that operates 270 nurseries throughout the United Kingdom, also received more WRNs than usual.
A former employee who wishes to remain nameless told us that Chan was “very cold and didn’t show any emotion.” She didn’t file a formal complaint, but she feels he shouldn’t have been working with children.
After molesting children there and abroad for seven years, the paedophile was sentenced to eighteen years in prison in February. He recorded his crimes on nursery iPads.
46 families have filed a lawsuit against Bright Horizons, claiming that the company disregarded their concerns on Chan’s general attitude, which included yelling at kids and pushing them to act aggressively toward one another.
According to Alison Millar of the legal firm Leigh Day, parents should at the very least demand that their children be kept safe.
She continues, “The quantity of WRNs Bright Horizons received last year is also very concerning.”
According to the BBC, Bright Horizons nurseries received WRNs at the average rate for England between March 2021 and March 2025. However, this soared to more than four times the average during the next 12 months as a result of Ofsted stepping up its inspection efforts following Chan’s arrest.
The BBC’s data analysis, according to Bright Horizons, was not a “accurate representation of the standard of care” at its nurseries, and the company welcomed scrutiny.
It said that it was testing the use of cameras, increased training, and hired an impartial safeguarding organization to examine procedures.
Following Chan’s arrest, but before his offence was made public, the regulator awarded the Bright Horizons location in West Hampstead another “good” overall rating.
There are distinct regulators in Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland.
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