Taking my Daughters nursery to court?

littletiger

My childrens nursery also asks for 6 weeks notice before planned time off, but with no reduction in the fee offered.
I understand why they wouldnt reduce the fee while the children are off, but I have never bothered with the 6 weeks notice thing - I just tell the nursery about 1 week before. Plans can change and I wouldnt want to commit myself to not sending my child to nursery on a day I had already paid for.

I think that it is up to the nursery how they distribute the discount. The nursery my children attend give it in term time, but not in holidays, but i know that other nurseries average the discount out over the year.

KathrynPenguin

My DS used to go to a small nursery and would have to pay for days off, bank holidays sickness etc. It was a small nursery with a high adult to child ratio and their profits would have soon disappeared if every child didn't pay for sickness, holidays etc. For example when Chicken Pox went round DS room had just 2 children in instead of 10 for a week - thats a lot of money if they didn't pay. You could book 2 weeks holiday per year at half price. As a teacher I used to send him for his days during the holidays (he was 3 days a week) as I had to pay anyway and he would ask to go.

Now he is in school and attends after school club at the nursery next door, although also a small business they are a big nursery and they do offer term time only care for small chidren. I'm still also enjoying some free time during my holidays as he begs to go to holiday club at the nursery and I book him in for 1 or 2 days a week. I try and book on the days they have trips, yesterday he went on a trip to the woods and a picnic and had a great time - it cost me £20 for the day but considering the day before I took him swimming and we had lunch after that cost £11.50 for just 2 hours of amusement.

Today we are playing gardeners!

Madmel

Early years funding seems to correlate roughly to school terms. Hence you would receive it for the 4 months from Easter to July, but then not across the summer until September. It also only covers a short time per session (2.5 hours?) which was always far less than any sessions of the providers I used.

It's going back a couple of years ago for us now, but we used a nursery at the uni which to begin with was only open during uni terms. It was ok, but I had a shortfall of a few days at each end of my school terms. Then they stayed open until the end of the school term which was a godsend as I had school holidays off with the kids. People who had other jobs had to find other childcare during the holidays.

Because nursery was more expensive than pre-school and the pre-school was not open every day I worked, I ended up splitting the Early Years grant between the 2 providers, with the majority going against my nursery bill. They were pretty fair, as was the pre-school in terms of only charging for the days they were open. If you missed a session at nursery due to illness or holidays, you would get meal costs credited from your next bill, as long as you let them know before 9.30am. You still had to pay for the sessions, for the reasons explained by other posters (staff, heating, bills etc.)

This was run as part of the uni and were very flexible and if I had another little one, I wouldn't hesitate to use them again. I think those who are part of a bigger group have to be very inflexible, whereas the smaller independent ones are more open to negotiation.

clairehi

This kind of query pops up with monotonous regularity on discussion boards ie "its not fair that my childcare provider charges me when my child is absent blah blah blah".

None of us likes to get unexpected bills and Ive been caught out myself. But the onus is on the parent to look at the total cost of the care (including bank holidays, sick days, your own vacation and any shut down days) and work out their budget accordingly. IME it is standard practice for nurseries to charge for the place whether you are on holiday or not as they are holding the child's place for your return.

At the end of the day, the quality of the childcare is always going to be paramount and to start thinking about court action for the sake of three days fees is ridiculous.

robbsafc

Surely two months notice gives the nursery sufficient time to revise catering orders and the likes and should reduce the nurseries outlay in respect of this. Although even if they didnt revise them the food would be used another day. Even a partial reduction should be the norm provided enough notice is given. Seems to be the nurseries are out to rip us off. Seems to be the nurseries cant lose. They make you pay whatever, however you cant hold them responsible if they just close up for the week without giving you notice (as has happened here due to flooding and the subsequent loss of mains water). I know its extreme circumstances, just as well I'm off for a couple of weeks to look after my daughter. The problem is people just sit back and be dictated to . If you think something is unreasonable then make your voice heard, surely if enough people did this they would have to take notice?

Rob.

Savvy_Sue

It would astonish me if the main expense of running a nursery wasn't staff salaries, and you can't reduce the number of staff you have in when one child is on holiday.

If you DO allow parents to not pay for their holidays, sickness and odd days off, then they WILL be charging slightly more for the times your child does attend. The staff have to be paid 52 weeks per year, whether the nursery is open or not, and are entitled to paid holidays, and these costs have to come from the fees charged to parents.

By all means make your voice heard, get other people on your side, but do the sums for yourself, and think about whether you want well qualified, reasonably paid staff caring for your child, or cheap labour.

Counting_Pennies_2

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

It would astonish me if the main expense of running a nursery wasn't staff salaries, and you can't reduce the number of staff you have in when one child is on holiday.

If you DO allow parents to not pay for their holidays, sickness and odd days off, then they WILL be charging slightly more for the times your child does attend. The staff have to be paid 52 weeks per year, whether the nursery is open or not, and are entitled to paid holidays, and these costs have to come from the fees charged to parents.

By all means make your voice heard, get other people on your side, but do the sums for yourself, and think about whether you want well qualified, reasonably paid staff caring for your child, or cheap labour.

I completely agree with your post. Nurseries aren't that often a great profit making business and there is a post further up this thread which even states the nursery arm of the particular nursery in question is making a loss.

I also want to reiterate my point I made previously to the OP that if you ruffle feathers too much on this point which I'm not convinced you are right to do given the amount of people who agree on this thread that holidays are to be paid, that you might just find the nursery not being too flexible for you at the point you might need it, or even the care to your little one unintentionally not being as great as it was due to the amount of fuss that is created on this matter.

Please as Savvy-Sue suggests do your sums first before you consider taking this further, yes nursery does cost a lot, but you are paying for an establishment set up to care for your little one with qualified staff, who ultimately are to be paid for their work and food and equipment to be provided.

BernadetteN

I can understand a parent's frustration when they find themselves paying for bank holidays when the nursery closes on bank holidays, especially when their child only goes part time to nursery and Mondays is one of their days - they end up paying the same as a parent of a child who doesn't attend on Mondays but who attends a different day instead.

However, if a nursery charges all parents for their holidays and it's in their terms and conditions, I cannot see how a parent could win a small claims court case against that nursery. Of course it is frustrating for parents to have to pay for hours their child does not attend but that's life, that's the T+Cs parents have to live with and there are many things in a child's life you will end up paying for and not getting the full benefit out of eg termly dance or swimming lessons when a child is unwell.

astonsmummy

If they didnt charge for holidays i would bet the fees would be higher anyways, its swings and roundabouts.

Sagaris

But most of us get paid for taking annual leave, bank holidays off and sick pay - surely the nursery also has to pay these things to their staff?