Zande › Free templates › Incident & accident report
Incident and Accident Report Form for a South African Crèche
Something will happen. A child falls off the climbing frame, another gets bitten, a knee opens on the concrete. What protects your crèche is not that it never happens. It is that you wrote it down the same day and the parent signed.
No email needed, no catch. Print it in black and white at any copy shop. It fits one side of A4.
What it is
An incident and accident report is your centre's own written record of one thing that happened to one child on one day. It holds the facts and nothing else: the time, the exact place, what happened, what the injury was, what you did about it, and who you told.
Three people sign it. The practitioner who was there, you as principal, and the parent when the child is collected. The parent signature is the part that does the work. Most disputes are not about the injury. They are about whether the centre told the parent and when.
Write it the same day, before you go home. A report dated three days later reads like something written after a complaint, no matter how honest it is.
Who asks for it
Your provincial education department. ECD moved from the Department of Social Development to the Department of Basic Education on 1 April 2022. Your registration as a partial care facility under the Children's Act 38 of 2005, and your subsidy, now run through the provincial education department and the district ECD official who visits you. This applies to partial care that runs an ECD programme, which is what a crèche is. If you also run after-school care with no ECD programme, ask the district office who registers that part, because it may still sit with social development. Any facility caring for more than six children who are not the caregiver's own has to be registered as a partial care facility. The norms and standards for partial care facilities require you to keep proper records, and provincial registration conditions list accident and incident records among them. Ask your district ECD official for the current list of records your province expects to see on a monitoring visit.
Two other offices can ask for the same file. The Environmental Health Practitioner who issues your Certificate of Acceptability for the kitchen, usually from the district municipality, can ask for it after any food, water or hygiene incident: a child who choked on food, a burn from hot porridge, a group of children who vomited after a meal. The local municipality's fire department can ask for it after anything involving fire, gas or an evacuation.
Your insurer is the one who asks first. If you carry public liability cover, the incident report is usually the first document an assessor asks for. Ask your broker what your policy requires, because a missing report is a common reason a claim goes nowhere, and that is a cost you carry yourself.
You do not send routine reports to anybody. You keep them at the centre and show them when asked. The exception is a serious incident: a death, a serious injury, a child taken to hospital, or anything you suspect is abuse or neglect. Most provincial registration conditions require you to report a death or serious injury to the district office. Phone the same day and follow it with something in writing. Confirm with your district ECD official exactly what your province requires and how fast, because the wording differs by province. Ask the same official which form the province currently uses for serious incidents, because that document changes and the current version is the one they want.
Abuse and neglect run on a separate track. The Children's Act places a duty on people who work with children to report a reasonable belief that a child has been abused or deliberately neglected. That report goes to a designated child protection organisation, the provincial Department of Social Development, or the police. Note this carefully. Registration and subsidy moved to education, but child protection reporting still runs through social development and the police. There is a prescribed reporting form under the Children's Act regulations. Ask the DSD social worker or the child protection organisation for the current version. That report does not go into a drawer.
What must appear on it
- A report number that runs in sequence for the year, so a removed report is visible (2025/001, 2025/002, 2025/003)
- Full name of the child, date of birth, and the group or class
- Date of the incident and the exact time it happened, not the time you wrote it up
- The exact place: 'the wooden climbing frame in the outside play area, over the sand', not 'outside'
- What the child was doing immediately before it happened
- What happened, in plain factual words, in the order it happened, with no opinion about fault
- Name of the practitioner who saw it, and the name of any other staff member who saw it
- Did the child strike the head. Answer yes or no on every report, even when the answer is obviously no. A blank here is read as a question nobody asked
- The injury: which part of the body, which side of the body, and the size in centimetres
- What first aid was given, by whom, and the time it started
- Whether medical attention was advised, and exactly what you advised the parent to do
- The time the parent was phoned, who phoned, and what the parent said
- The time the child was collected and the name of the person who collected
- The action taken to stop it happening again, the name of the person who did it, and the date it was completed
- Where another child was involved, that child is named only on the centre's copy and described as 'another learner' on the copy that goes home
- Signature and printed name of the practitioner who attended
- Signature and printed name of the principal or supervisor who reviewed the report
- Signature of the parent or guardian with the date and the time they signed
- A line stating that the parent read the report and received a copy
A filled-in example
Sunrise Educare Centre, 27 Nkosi Street, White River, Mpumalanga. Incident report no. 2025/032. Report written 5 August 2025.
| Child | Amahle Mabaso, born 12 March 2022. Group: 3 to 4 year group. Practitioner in charge: Nomsa Sibiya. |
| Date and exact time | Tuesday 5 August 2025 at 10:20. |
| Exact place | Outside play area, on the wooden climbing frame nearest the back fence, over the sand. |
| What she was doing immediately before | Climbing the frame with three other learners during morning outside play. |
| What happened | Amahle was standing on the second rung, about 60 cm above the sand. She let go with her right hand to point at a bird, lost her balance and fell forward onto her left side. She landed on her left knee and left forearm. She did not hit her head. She cried at once and stood up on her own. |
| Staff who saw it | Nomsa Sibiya (practitioner on duty at the frame) and Lindiwe Nkosi (assistant). |
| Did the child strike the head? | No. |
| Injury | Left knee, front: graze about 3 cm across, small amount of blood, no deep cut. Left forearm, outer side: red mark about 2 cm, no swelling. |
| First aid given | Knee rinsed with clean water, cleaned with antiseptic, covered with a plaster. Cold cloth on the forearm for five minutes. Given by Nomsa Sibiya, started 10:22. Amahle stopped crying at 10:28 and returned to play at 10:40. |
| Medical attention advised? | No. Mother advised to keep the plaster dry and to check the knee for redness or swelling over the next two days. |
| Parent notified | Mrs Zanele Mabaso (mother), phoned 10:35 by Thandi Mkhize (principal). She asked us to keep the plaster dry and said she would collect at the normal time. |
| Child collected by | Mrs Zanele Mabaso at 15:05. |
| Action to prevent this again | Sand under the frame raked and topped up to 20 cm depth on 5 August by Sipho Dlamini. All rungs checked and found sound on 5 August. One adult stands at the frame for the whole of outside play from 6 August. |
| Practitioner | Nomsa Sibiya. Signed 5 August 2025. |
| Principal | Thandi Mkhize. Signed 5 August 2025. |
| Parent or guardian | Z. Mabaso. Signed 5 August 2025 at 15:10. Copy given to parent: yes. |
The prevention block is often completed after the parent's copy goes home. Complete it on the centre's original and date it when the work was actually done.
Notice what is not in there. No "she was fine afterwards". No "nobody was at fault". No "it was a small thing". Facts, times, names, centimetres. That is what makes it usable months later.
Names, dates and amounts are invented. Use your own centre's details.
What happens at inspection if you do not have it
The district ECD official arrives for a monitoring visit and asks to see your accident and incident records. If you have nothing, this is what usually happens: it goes down as a finding on the monitoring report and you get a date to fix it, either a return visit or proof sent to the district office. Practice varies by province and by official. A missing incident file on its own does not close a crèche. It does sit on your file, and it comes up again at renewal, or the day you apply to increase your approved numbers.
The harder day is not the official's visit. It is the day a parent complains. A mother sees a bruise at bath time three days later and phones you angry, or walks into the district office, or sits down with an attorney. Everything then turns on one question: is there a dated, signed record of what happened and when the parent was told? With a report signed by the mother at 15:10 on the day, the argument usually ends there. Without it, the record of that day is whatever the parent remembers, and you are arguing from memory against something in writing.
There is one way a half-record is worse than no record. A report written three days later and dated three days later reads as something produced after the complaint, even when every word is true. Same-day writing is not a nice habit. It is the whole point of the document.
Patterns cut both ways, and this is the part people miss. Four falls from the same climbing frame in one term, each report with a completed "action taken" line and a date, shows you spotted the problem and fixed it. Four falls with that line blank shows you saw it four times and did nothing. It is the most useful field on the form and the one most centres leave empty.
Watch how you store it. These reports carry health information about a child, and POPIA treats a child's personal information as protected. Keep them in a locked cupboard, or password protected if they are digital, and let only the principal and the child's practitioner near them. Do not put a photo of an injured child in the WhatsApp parent group. That is a separate complaint to the Information Regulator, on top of whatever the parent was already upset about.
Last thing. Time does not run out on a claim brought for a child while that child is still a minor, and the clock keeps running for at least a year after the child turns 18. A report about a three-year-old can still be called for two decades later. Do not clear the file when the child leaves and do not clear it on the child's eighteenth birthday. Ask your insurer how long they want these kept.
Common questions
Do I have to write up every small scratch?
No. Write up anything that needed first aid, anything involving the head, eyes, teeth, bones or bleeding, any bite, any fall from height, any burn or scald, any allergic reaction or sting, any medication error, any swallowed or inserted object, and any near miss that could have hurt a child, like a gate found open. A scratch you rinsed with water and forgot by lunch does not need a form. When you are unsure, write it. A five-minute form is cheaper than an argument.
What if the parent refuses to sign?
Do not argue and do not press. Write "Parent declined to sign" on the signature line, add the date and the time, and have a second staff member sign underneath as a witness that the report was read to the parent. Give the parent the copy anyway. A refusal that is recorded and witnessed protects you almost as well as a signature does.
Can I name the other child who bit mine?
No. The other child's name is that child's personal information, and POPIA protects a child's information. Name the other child on the centre's own copy only. On the copy that goes home, write "another learner". Speak to each parent about their own child only, even when both parents are standing at the gate together.
How long do I keep incident reports?
Longer than you expect. Time does not run out on a claim brought for a child while that child is still a minor, and the clock keeps running for at least a year after the child turns 18, so a report about a three-year-old can still matter twenty years later. Keep them past the child's eighteenth birthday, not up to it. Keep them after the child leaves the centre. Store them locked, or password protected if they are digital, because they contain health information about a child. Ask your insurer how long they want these kept.
When must a child see a doctor after a knock to the head?
Phone the parent immediately for any knock to the head, even when nothing shows. Advise the parent to go to a doctor or clinic straight away if the child lost consciousness for any length of time, vomits, becomes unusually sleepy or hard to wake, has a fit, has one pupil bigger than the other, bleeds or leaks clear fluid from the nose or ear, or will not settle. Call an ambulance on 10177, or 112 from a cellphone. Do not move a child you think has hurt the neck or back.
Zande logs an incident against the child's record, numbers it in sequence for the year, prints this form for the parent to sign at collection, and keeps the signed copy on that child's file after the child leaves.
Set up your centre free →Or WhatsApp us and we will set it up with you, free.