How Much Compensation Can I Claim For A Nursery Accident?

Updated on 7th January 2026. The amount of compensation you can claim for a nursery accident is dependent on the severity of the injury your child suffered and whether financial losses were incurred. We put our trust in childcare providers to ensure our children are kept safe and treated with respect. So, having to navigate a situation where your child has been injured through someone else’s negligent actions can be very distressing. If this has happened to your family, Legal Expert’s advisors can explain how to make a nursery accident claim.

Here at Legal Expert, our team of advisors can show you how to claim and get you matched with a solicitor as soon as possible if you are eligible. They are committed to simplifying the initial stages of the claims process by answering any questions you may have regarding nursery injury claims. Our solicitors will also fight for the maximum child nursery injury compensation on a No Win No Fee basis, so you can claim without delay.

The Big Questions Answered

What injuries could a child sustain at a nursery? Injuries can range from burns to broken bones, depending on the nature of the accident.
What accidents can take place in a nursery? Nurseries might provide the wrong food, allow children to play on faulty playground equipment, or fail to ensure a safe environment (e.g., by keeping doors unlocked).
How can nursery accidents be prevented? They can be prevented by nurseries providing staff with appropriate training, conducting regular risk assessments, and listening to parents’ concerns.
Can I make a nursery accident claim? You can make a claim on behalf of your child if you can prove that a third party committed negligent acts that resulted in them being injured.
How can a solicitor help to secure child nursery injury compensation? They help clients pursue compensation by gathering evidence, preparing paperwork, and negotiating a settlement with the defendant’s representatives.

Here at Legal Expert, we always prioritise a client-centred approach so families just like yours get the most out of our services and support. If you are seeking legal representation that is both compassionate and experienced, please get in touch with an advisor today.

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What Can I Claim If There Has Been An Accident At My Child’s Nursery Or School?

Compensation in successful nursery accident claims can be awarded to both the parent/legal guardian and the child themselves, depending on the circumstances of the claim. We set out the possible ways compensation could be awarded here:

General damages to the child – compensation for the physical and psychological harm caused to the child as a result of the breach of duty.
Special damages to the child – this is much less common owing to the fact that special damages awards for monetary losses and young children in the vast majority of cases, do not undertake paid work. However, a possible case would be if the child was a young actor and they had to leave their role as a result of the harm caused.

General damages can be calculated using relevant medical evidence alongside the Judicial College Guidelines (JCG). This publication contains the guideline compensation brackets for various injuries. We have used some JCG figures below.

Guideline Compensation Values

Please be advised that the first value was not taken from the JCG and that this information has been provided for guidance purposes only.

Multiple very serious injuries with additional special damages including lost income, medical expenses, and home modifications. – Up to £500,000 plus.
Moderate (c)(ii) brain damage – moderate to modest deficit in intellect and greatly reduced ability to work – £110,720 to £183,190.
Less severe (d) brain damage – a good recovery from memory and concentration issues and ability to return to daily activities – £18,700 to £52,550.
Chest Injuries – Traumatic injury (b) – permanent damage, functional impairment and reduction in life expectancy. – £80,240 to £122,850.
Back Injuries – Severe (a)(iii) – cases involving disc lesions, fractures or soft tissue damage resulting in chronic conditions. – £47,320 to £85,100.
Back Injuries – Moderate (b)(ii) – Disturbance of ligaments and muscles, exacerbation of existing conditions, prolapsed discs – £15,260 to £33,880.
Other Arm Injuries – Substantial and Permanent Disablement (b)(ii) – such as forearm fractures where there is significant residual disability. – £47,810 to £73,050.
Other Arm Injuries – Less Severe Injury (b)(iii) – Injuries where a substantial recovery has occurred. – £23,430 to £47,810
Digestive System – Non-traumatic Injury (i) – severe toxicosis causing vomiting, diarrhoea and acute pain necessitating hospitalisation. – £46,900 to £64,070.
Digestive System – Non-traumatic Injury (ii) – Serious but short-lived food poisoning causing vomiting over two to four weeks – £11,640 to £23,430.

Special Damages

A much more common head of claim that compensation could be awarded under is special damages to the parent or guardian, such as:

Loss of earnings due to being absent from work to care for the child.
Medical expenses such as prescriptions or therapy for psychological distress.
Travel costs due to repeated hospital visits.
Accessibility modifications to the home.

To get a more personalised idea of what nursery accident compensation you could receive in your particular circumstances, contact our advisors today using the details provided below.

Four children doing a painting activity.

Who Is Responsible for Accidents At A Nursery or School?

If your child is injured at school or whilst attending nursery, it is likely that someone is responsible for their care, and where there is responsibility, there is also liability, meaning they may be liable to pay damages and compensation for the accident. Even if the accident was clearly the child’s fault, somebody should have ensured the child could not get into the kind of trouble that caused the accident in the first place. Schools and nurseries have a duty to keep children safe in education and to prevent accidents.

So we are almost always talking about negligence of some kind in a nursery accident compensation claim. Either negligence by the management of the nursery for failing to provide adequate safety for the child. Or negligence on the part of the nursery staff, for not undertaking their duties correctly.

The issue gets a little grey when your child is injured at school by another child. The UK protects minors from legal action. However, once again, there is a likelihood that the nursery itself was to blame in some way.

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Can I Make A Nursery Claim If My Child Is Non-Verbal?

You may not know whether you can claim nursery accident compensation on behalf of a child who is too young to talk or cannot communicate due to a disability. You could still be eligible to start a claim on the basis of valid evidence. For example, a staff member may have witnessed the incident and provide witness testimony for your case.

Can I Claim If My Child Was Injured On A School Trip

If you are looking to start a school or nursery accident claim, you may be wondering whether you can claim for an incident that occurred outside of the premises

When your child attends a school trip, the school still owe a duty of care to them. Depending on the type and location of the school trip, the school may need to provide its staff with guidelines and conduct risk assessments to minimise the chances of a child suffering harm. Furthermore, the school may be required to have a policy in place to handle an emergency, should one arise.

You can contact our advisors at any time to discuss the specifics of your claim. They can look into the nature of the accident and assess whether you could be eligible to proceed with one of our experienced No Win No Fee solicitors.

You can also head here to read our dedicated guide on school trip injury claims

For What Reason Can I Claim Compensation Against A Nursery Or School?

There are many reasons a parent or guardian may claim compensation following a nursery accident, either on behalf of the child or the parent. Some of the most common reasons are:

Inadequate environmental safety provisioning – here we are talking about nursery accidents that were clearly caused by an unsafe nursery environment. Examples of this would include: old, damaged and unsafe play equipment. Sharp and dangerous edges are left exposed on equipment. And also, general safety concerns such as access to the street and road being available to unsupervised children.
Inadequate staffing or undertrained care staff – every nursery is regulated legally to provide a minimum number of staff for the number of children in attendance. Furthermore, the nursery is also regulated to ensure that properly trained senior staff are always on site at all times to support junior employees. If inadequate staffing levels led to the accident, this is a valid reason to claim.
Negligence on the part of the staff – if employees failed to carry out their duties to an adequate level of competence, thus exposing the child to the risk of an accident, then this is also a reason to claim damages.

Almost every claim for compensation following a nursery accident will be fundamentally driven by one of these three core areas of responsibility. Almost every accident that occurs at a nursery will have been caused by one or more of these reasons.

Can My Child Make Their Own Nursery Accident Claim?

If your child is below the age of 18, they cannot make an independent nursery accident claim. You could either wait for your child to turn 18 and make their claim, or you could do so on their behalf. Since it is better to act quickly while your child has a recollection of the event, we recommend that you initiate the claim on their behalf.

You will have to apply to become a litigation friend. If you feel too overwhelmed by the entire process, you need not worry. Your co-parent or any of the following people can become litigation friends as well:

Family members
Relatives
Solicitor

The court will decide on the appointment based on the following points:

You are capable of making fair and competent decisions for the child.
There will be no conflict of interest.

If the claim is successful, the Courts Fund Office will hold your child’s compensation amount in a separate bank account. Once your child turns 18, the court will transfer the money to them and close the bank account. Until their 18th birthday, you will be responsible for managing this account as the litigation friend.

We understand that making a compensation claim can be tedious and stressful, and it can be traumatic to watch your child suffer. However, our advisors are there to make the process easier and can help to claim on behalf of your child. Call us now to book your consultation.

What Is The Time Limit For Nursery Accident Claims?

All nursery accident claims must be started within the relevant time limit. As set out in the Limitation Act 1980, the usual time limit for starting a personal injury claim for adults is three years, starting from the date of the incident that injured them.

However, if the injured party is a child, then the time limit works differently. Instead, the three-year time limit will be paused until the day of their 18th birthday. Before this date, a court-appointed litigation friend could make a nursery accident claim on their behalf. As discussed above.

To learn more about the time limit for claiming nursery accident compensation, you can contact our advisors. They could also inform you of the additional exceptions to this three-year time limit.

How To Make A Nursery Or School Compensation Claim

You may be asking what to do if a child has an accident at a nursery and you wish to claim on their behalf due to negligence. The first legal step you should take is to collect evidence which establishes how your child became injured and how negligence from another party led to this. Evidence you may be able to gather could potentially include medical reports and CCTV footage.

You could then consider contacting a qualified solicitor to represent you and support your case. If you have strong grounds to make a claim on your child’s behalf, then Legal Expert may be able to provide a No Win No Fee solicitor who can support you and utilise their experience in nursery accident claims.

If you choose us, we will always start every compensation claim case with a completely free-of-charge consultancy session. We use this session to get to the bottom of the events leading up to the accident and how it occurred. We then use the facts we have learned to offer you advice on what to do next. In almost every case, this means we will represent you under a conditional fee agreement.

If we don’t win compensation for you, then you don’t pay your solicitor any service fees for their work. If we do win, your solicitor takes a success fee from the compensation. They will only take a small, legally limited percentage of this compensation, so the vast majority always goes to the client.

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No Win No Fee Nursery and School Compensation Claims

If your child was injured in a school or nursery because of a breach of duty and you’d like to make a claim on their behalf, one of our solicitors may be able to help. If you have a valid claim, they may offer you a Conditional Fee Agreement (CFA), which is a type of No Win No Fee arrangement.

When making a claim with a solicitor under this type of arrangement, you can access their services without paying any upfront or ongoing fees. Additionally, if your claim does not succeed, you will not need to pay them for their services.

If your nursery accident claim succeeds, then your solicitor will take a success fee from your compensation. This fee is a small percentage with a legal cap, which means you keep the majority of what you receive.

Our team of advisors are on hand to help if you’d like to learn more about how to sue a nursery in the UK. They can offer a free evaluation of your claim, and if they find that you could be entitled to personal injury compensation, they may connect you with one of our solicitors. Get in touch today to learn more.

Call for Free Advice and to Start a Claim

Has your child recently been involved in an accident whilst at nursery or at school? Regardless of whether the child believes it was their fault or not, somebody was responsible for ensuring they were kept safe at all times.

This means that somebody was to blame for the accident happening, even if it was your child who caused it, as they should have been supervised more closely.

Therefore, you have a very valid reason to make a compensation claim against the nursery or school. So you really must contact us right now. We will arrange an initial free session where we will gather the facts of the accident, and then we will offer you our best advice on how to press the matter.

This means us representing you under a No Win No Fee type of arrangement. Nothing to pay now, and you only pay our fees if we win damages on your behalf. So what have you got to lose? Contact us today to discover whether we can help you claim compensation for an accident that your child suffered whilst attending school or being looked after at a nursery.