A private nursery was closed by inspectors due to 14 "serious concerns" about medication, provision and the feeding of children, a report has revealed.
The Scottish Government ordered an immediate inspection of The Hamilton School in Aberdeen earlier this month after complaints from parents and staff about the nursery prompted a police investigation.
Following the inspection, the Government ordered on Friday that the school be removed from the Register of Independent Schools.
The Care Inspectorate served an improvement notice on the school's nursery, which is covered by separate legislation, and applied to Aberdeen Sheriff Court seeking suspension of the nursery's registration.
At the weekend, a nursery spokesman said parents had been told it would not reopen. The Care Inspectorate said it had decided to make its nursery inspection concerns public due to "intense" public interest.
The interim report said medical information on children was not kept up to date with parental consent forms expired in some cases, and some children as young as 12-months-old were left to feed themselves at lunchtimes when they were unable to do so.
Notes on allergies at meal times were also mixed up. The report said: "We also saw a menu plan designed for one child with allergies that contained details of another child's dietary requirements."
Dangerous cleaning products such as air fresheners, plastic bags and medicated creams were also stored within reach of children in the nursery toilets.
Annette Bruton, chief executive of the Care Inspectorate, said:"The decision of the provider to close the nursery is, we believe in the best interests of children, although we know this makes it a very difficult time for parents and families."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article