England to conduct 3,000 extra nursery inspections annually focusing on safe sleep

Warning: This article contains content some may find distressing

An extra 3,000 unannounced nursery inspections will take place a year in England from September - with checks on safe-sleep practices for young children included for the first time.

The commitment comes as the mother of a toddler who died after being tightly wrapped in a sleeping bag with a blanket over his head, told the BBC her son was "not treated as human".

Masi Sibanda's 14-month-old son Noah died in 2022 at Fairytales Nursery in Dudley, West Midlands.

CCTV showed Noah was not the only child treated roughly, tightly wrapped and placed face-down to sleep by some staff.

"Those children weren't seen as humans, they weren't seen as children," said Masi, describing how her son was treated at Fairytales. "I do feel they were being treated like inanimate objects. They didn't treat them as living, delicate beings."

She features in a BBC investigation that highlights recent high-profile nursery failings, where young children died or were sexually abused.

CCTV played to Wolverhampton Crown Court in April showed Noah "struggling and thrashing", while face down on a soft cushion, inside a teepee in the nursery's baby room.

Nursery worker Kimberley Cookson wrapped the toddler tightly in blankets and placed her leg across his lower back for seven minutes, the court heard.

Believing he had fallen asleep, the nursery worker then left him alone, but staff did not physically check on him for about two hours.

He was found unresponsive and later pronounced dead in hospital.

Cookson was jailed for manslaughter, the nursery was fined £240,000 pounds for corporate manslaughter and its owner Deborah Latewood received a suspended sentence for a health and safety offence.

At the last full inspection by Ofsted, 10 months before Noah died, safeguarding arrangements at the nursery had been described as "effective" and the site's overall rating was "good".

In a statement to the BBC, Ofsted said that while the report for that inspection "did not specifically reference sleeping arrangements, they were observed for some children and found to be safe".

However, after Noah's death, another Ofsted inspection at Fairytales found concerns that babies and toddlers were at serious risk. The nursery has since closed.

The newly announced safe-sleep measures, which would see a tripling of such inspections compared with the year to April 2025, will "give parents assurance that safeguarding across the system is upheld to the highest possible standards", says the government.

Sleep practices, such as how and where a child is put down for rest, and whether they are checked on, will be considered at all inspections of early years providers by the education regulator Ofsted.

If routines fall short, it will be reflected in the overall rating awarded, says the regulator.

Ofsted ratings can be "dangerously misleading", says Dr Tammy Campbell, of the Education Policy Institute, because they may not reflect the number of complaints, concerns or official Welfare Requirements Notices (WRNs) a nursery could have.

WRNs can cover a range of issues, including a nursery failing to report allegations of abuse, unsafe premises, poor record-keeping and inadequate staff vetting.

"It's possible for a setting to have an Ofsted rating of 'good' and to be completely failing," she says.

Most of England's nurseries (98%) are rated "good" or "outstanding".

Even if concerns are raised in between routine inspections every four years, performance ratings are usually retained.

Two nurseries where paedophiles were working, both run by large chains, also had "good" ratings when serious crimes were committed.

A former employee at Partou King Street Nursery in Bristol says she alerted management to Nathan Bennett's concerning behaviour months before it was discovered he had been abusing children.

Bessie Martin says she told bosses he would hold children for too long, often sitting them on his lap, out of view of CCTV. "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'."

Her concerns were dismissed, she says, and she was told she was "imagining it".

It was only after she filed a whistleblowing report to the chain's senior management that he was suspended.

However, Bennett was allowed to return to work shortly afterwards. Two weeks later, a review of CCTV showed him putting his hands down a boy's trousers.

The nursery suspended Bennett again and informed the council's Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO). Police were alerted the following day and he was arrested.

Bennett was sentenced to 30 years in prison in February for sexually abusing five boys aged two and three.

Partou has told the BBC it "actively encourages" the reporting of concerns and has implemented recommendations to "strengthen safeguarding governance further and enhance oversight across the organisation".

Although the King Street nursery closed last December, Partou is one of England's biggest nursery providers with more than 100 sites.

The BBC has found more Partou nurseries were given official WRN notices from Ofsted to improve safeguarding, safety or welfare than the average in England after Bennett's arrest.

Partou nurseries were twice as likely to get them than the average nursery in the four years to March 2025, our investigation found, but that rose to more than seven times more likely in the following 12 months.

Ofsted told the BBC it had increased its inspection work into Partou after Bennett's case emerged.

Partou told us such figures must be interpreted carefully, as different operators may apply varying standards. Safeguarding is its "highest priority", it said, and it has provided affected families with the "fullest possible support".

An independent safeguarding review had identified failures by individuals at the Bristol nursery, it added, and some no longer work for the company, while others remain subject to ongoing internal actions.

If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this story, you can find information and support via the BBC Action Line

Another chain, Bright Horizons - which runs 270 UK nurseries - also received a higher than average number of WRNs following the arrest of another paedophile, Vincent Chan, at its site in West Hampstead, London.

Chan was "very cold and didn't show any emotion", a former staff member who wants to remain anonymous told us. She believes he should not have been working with children, however she did not formally complain.

The paedophile was jailed for 18 years in February after abusing children there and elsewhere over seven years. He used nursery iPads to film his crimes.

Bright Horizons is now facing legal action from 46 families who claim it dismissed their concerns about Chan's general behaviour - including shouting at children and encouraging them to be aggressive with each other.

From March 2021 to March 2025, the BBC has found, Bright Horizons nurseries were getting WRNs at the average rate for England. But in the following 12 months, this rose to more than four times the average, because Ofsted increased its inspection work in light of Chan's arrest.

It expanded training, engaged an independent safeguarding organisation to review practices, and was piloting the use of cameras, it added.

The regulator gave the Bright Horizons site in West Hampstead another "good" overall rating after Chan's arrest, but before his offending was revealed.

Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have separate regulators.

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