Nursery Fees on Bank Holidays

greenface

Hi my daughter has her daughter in a local chain nursery on Just Mondays and Thursdays . She has to pay for every bank holiday Monday even though the place is shut. Is this right ? I know the staff need to be paid but this should be swallowed up by everyone all year in fees . People pay the same for a Wednesday and have 5 more every year (normally) Im a tad miffed . I even think she pays for the brekkie and dinner that doesn't get cooked too. but could be wrong

surreysaver

Yes, it is normal, and unfair. Weighted in the nursery's favour. Like you say, people who pay for Mondays will pay the same as people who pay for Wednesdays, but will get less for their money.

Savvy_Sue

Is she able to swap nursery days at all? Worth noting that part-time staff who work on Mondays get less choice about when to take annual leave than those who don't work Mondays ...

freebiequennie

Yep pretty normal and if sign the contract you have to pay it people should remembering a contract is negotiable before signing a friend of mine negotiated hers to 50% fees for bank hols as she only used Mon n tues.

MrsChook

Yes, normal here too, and I remember being rather miffed by it myself.

wendz86

Yes normal unfortunately. Ours is shut for a week at christmas and we still pay.

jackieblack

I had this argument with my DDs nursery (many years ago now). Their reasoning/justification was that the worker parents whose children attended the nursery would get paid for Bank Hols, so weren't losing out/worse off.
I wasn't working at the time so, using their argument back at them (and by pointing out that nowhere in the contract did it state that they didn't open on Bank Hols, nor had I been told this verbally when agreeing to Mondays as one of my sessions), I managed to negotiate that on a week when there was a BH Monday, they would give DD an extra session on another day when there was a space.

As part of the service sector, I don't understand why nurseries aren't open on Bank Hols anyway.

duchy

I suppose one way of looking at it is that your daughter is no worse off financially as she is paid for that day but gets to spend it with her child instead of working it.

Of course if she isn't working and nursery is for social reasons she'd be better changing her days.

GwylimT

The only way any business can afford to pay their staff on bank holidays when closed is to continue to charge clients, or have a small price increase which will cover the costs. I'm paid for bank holidays, why should I expect that my sons nurses to miss out on a days wages.

susancs

greenface wrote: »

Hi my daughter has her daughter in a local chain nursery on Just Mondays and Thursdays . She has to pay for every bank holiday Monday even though the place is shut. Is this right ? I know the staff need to be paid but this should be swallowed up by everyone all year in fees . People pay the same for a Wednesday and have 5 more every year (normally) Im a tad miffed . I even think she pays for the brekkie and dinner that doesn't get cooked too. but could be wrong

I can understand your daughter not wanting to pay for a service she is not receiving however the Nursery will still have overheads such as rental/mortgage payments, council tax, utlilites, staff wages to pay for bank holiday which have to be covered by fees. It is often the case in regard to childcare for some reason, that people are very unhappy to pay for a service they can't use on bank holidays or when they have family holidays, but if going on holiday, without their car for 2 weeks for example they would accept that they would not get a 2 week reduction in mortgage/accomodation rental payments, council tax, road tax, car tax, household and car insurance, broadband charges, utility standing charges, non-metered water rates etc.

I can see that your daughter would see it as unfair that she has to pay for Monday's when there are several bank holidays in the year, whereas a person who does not have their child contracted to attend a Monday will not have to pay for these days. However if you consider that a lot of Nurseries charge parents for the place when the family choose to have a holiday to cover overheads, then you daughter will probably pay less for days she cannot use than Parents whose children attend more than 2 days a weeks e.g. if she was on 2 weeks holiday she would pay 4 days, whereby a full time 5days a week child would pay for 10 days and also pay all the bank holidays.

Like you sugguested in your post, I expect that it would be possible for the Nursery to increase fees for everyone over the year to cover bank holiday costs, but then I suspect that other parents might object to this and it might make the Nursery fees less competitive in relation to other childcare provisions.

As others have sugguested an option she might want to consider would be seeing if it was possible to change her working days so that she does not need childcare on a Monday, then she won't be paying for bank holidays.

Mojisola

greenface wrote: »

I even think she pays for the brekkie and dinner that doesn't get cooked too. but could be wrong

There's no excuse for charging for food that doesn't get bought, cooked or eaten.