A childcare in Western Australia has been slapped with a hefty fine for failing to adequately supervise children after a toddler was scratched and bitten in the sandpit.
It was 8am on December 2022 when a two-year-old was dropped off at Kids HQ Jacaranda in High Wycombe, WA. At 3pm that afternoon, the child was playing with five other kids in the sandpit and was originally supervised by four people.
However, the supervisors soon walked away to watch other areas of the childcare centre, leaving the toddlers alone to their own devices for up to seven minutes.
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Toddler hit, scratched and bitten by other children while unsupervised
According to recently released court documents, the toddler, whom the State Administrative Tribunal referred to as Child 1, approached another toddler of the same age (referred to as Child 2) in the sandpit and whacked them with a yellow dish.
Child 2 immediately responded, hitting and scratching Child 1 in retaliation.
Child 2 then followed the other toddler around the sandpit, trying to bite their arm. This caused Child 1 to fall to the ground, which was captured by the childcare centre’s CCTV footage.
All the while, the children were left unwatched by an adult.
In the clip, Child 1 was still on the ground with their legs in view. Soon Child 2 approached them once again, this time bending down near the toddler’s head.
“As child 2 bends down, Child 1’s legs can be seen to be squirming,” the report read.
Soon another toddler, named Child 3, entered the equation and joined the kids in the sandpit.
It didn’t take long for both Child 2 and Child 3 to “throw sand at Child 1” before leaving the toddler in the sandpit.
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Footage showed that when the child got out of the play area, they were “breathing heavily”, had visible scratch and bite marks on their right cheek and ear, and had injuries on both hands.
There were no visible supervisors in the footage during the incident, the report found, and the four assigned supervisors at the centre claimed they heard and saw nothing occur.
As a result, Kids HQ Jacaranda has been fined a total of $13,500.
The SAT found the childcare centre showed “genuine contrition and a desire to ensure a similar contravention does not occur” and have since added a “Director of Supervision” role to their books.
Kids HQ Jacaranda will also introduce a lanyard system to clearly identify supervision stationing points at the centre.
Originally published as WA childcare centre hit with fine after toddler seriously injured in sandpit
