Three pre-schoolers escape childcare centre on trikes
Three pre-schoolers riding trikes have managed to escape a kindergarten unnoticed in New Zealand, sparking an immediate investigation.
The children, three four-year-old girls, evaded staff at ABC Sunset daycare centre in Rotorua, 200km southeast of Auckland, around 9am on Thursday, The New Zealand Herald reported.
The Ministry of Education is now investigating how the children managed to escape the centre where one girl stood on a trike to unlock a fire exit gate.
The three girls travelled 320 metres down a busy road before crossing an intersection prompting a passerby to pull over and contact the centre telling staff the children were missing.
"It is a worry because we want to make sure children are safe and the care of our children and their safety is the utmost importance to us," Fiona Hughes, the deputy chief executive of BestStart Educare, which runs the centre, said.
Seven employees, including four teachers, were responsible for a group of 28 children which the three girls managed to escape from.
Ms Hughes said the staff are horrified by the incident despite one mother of one of the girls brushing off the situation saying it was a common occurrence at home.
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"Some children are naturally really good climbers and adventurous but we are not light-hearted about it. We talked to the children and told them about what is and isn't safe," Ms Hughes said.
The teachers are said to have been distracted by a child with behavioural issues when the girls left the premises.
Legally the centre must have one teacher per 10 children – a requirement one parent told Rotorua Daily Post was not the case and the centre was understaffed.
Katrina Casey, the ministry deputy secretary, sector enablement and support, has said she is confident the centre has taken the incident seriously and is assured the centre has taken the appropriate action to make sure it will not occur again.
