Nursery advice for holidays

nomadicmatt

Thank you everyone for the advice and information. My wife signed the contract so I never saw it, and I didn't realise that the practice of charging the whole year regardless of attendance was so common. I understand their reasons for doing it.

I picked up my daughter from there tonight and she was all smiles and giggles. She loves it there. We're lucky to have found the place and fortunate to be having a holiday,

Thanks again everyone

susancs

nomadicmatt wrote: »

Thank you everyone for the advice and information. My wife signed the contract so I never saw it, and I didn't realise that the practice of charging the whole year regardless of attendance was so common. I understand their reasons for doing it.

I picked up my daughter from there tonight and she was all smiles and giggles. She loves it there. We're lucky to have found the place and fortunate to be having a holiday,

Thanks again everyone

I am glad you are feeling a little happier about the situation and hope that you all have a lovely time on holiday. On the plus side, although the Nursery will be charging while you are away, if you claim any childcare tax credits or childcare vouchers these will still be paid to help with the childcare costs.

chonorla

Hi
Yes another person that has paid full nursery for my 2 little ones even when they weren't in. They both attended 4 days a week so it was a bit of a dent in our budget! But they loved it there too

We did get one week with no charges at Christmas as they were closed and they did not charge for Bank holidays either. But I know all nurseries are different.

Have a lovely holiday!!!!

ognum

I am interested that people feel they should not be paying the full fees when their child is not at nursery.

I just have a few points, presumably if you are employed you get paid while you are on holiday so why would you not pay the nursery?

The nursery has to hold the place open for you, if you stopped paying for holidays I assume the price would go up for every other week.

If you suddenly had to cancel your holiday you would expect your child to take up their place again.

Seems fair to pay to me but I am not the one paying and understand the strains on budgets at the moment!

sulkisu

ognum wrote: »

I am interested that people feel they should not be paying the full fees when their child is not at nursery.

I just have a few points, presumably if you are employed you get paid while you are on holiday so why would you not pay the nursery?

The nursery has to hold the place open for you, if you stopped paying for holidays I assume the price would go up for every other week.

If you suddenly had to cancel your holiday you would expect your child to take up their place again.

Seems fair to pay to me but I am not the one paying and understand the strains on budgets at the moment!

TBF nobody has actually said that though. OP has asked the question because he didn't realise that it was standard practice, and all of the responses so far have simply confirmed this.

Kayalana99

balancelife wrote: »

I thought it was pretty standard to be charged the full rate when you choose to take holidays. It was at ours.
The thing that annoyed me most was that they used to charge you full rate even when they were closed! So every bank holiday would cost a parent £40! We purposefully didn't sign up for Mondays because of that. I was annoyed when our son was there and Christmas boxing day fell on his day. I didn't need/want to send him anyway and if it had been my choice I'd have understood the fee but it annoyed me that I had to pay for something I couldn't use!
Now at a school preschool and so it's great. Pay for term time only and They reimburse for when they close due to snow etc. I still have to pay for any sessions they miss for illness etc but accept that.

I understand why they would charge for a child being on hoilday, but this?!? Sorry thats outrageous !! How can they charge you when THEY are closed?

:eek:

zaksmum

My daughter's nursery also charges for holidays at full price.

zippybungle

At the private nursery my kids used to go to, you were allowed two weeks 'holiday' leave at which you just paid half the daily rate.

When they moved to a term time only nursery I had to pay the full daily rate if we went on holiday, but I didn't mind as this nursery was half the price of the private one and the care was a million times better!

Zippy x

vroombroom

We must be lucky with our nursery - we get 6 weeks 'holidays' where we pay 50% of the cost when we're away.A week of that is reserved for Xmas and New year x

balancelife

Kayalana99 wrote: »

I understand why they would charge for a child being on hoilday, but this?!? Sorry thats outrageous !! How can they charge you when THEY are closed?

:eek:

I know!! I never understood it. It clearly said it in the information given which was good as I chose not to send him on a Monday but was pretty annoyed about the whole idea.
The other thing they did was when a child was on holiday they used to open the space up for anyone wanting an extra session. .meaning they got paid twice. I never used to say I'f we were away and just phoned on the morning.
Our son moved to the school preschool as soon as he was old enough. I don't get school holiday childcare now but that's the only downside.