Complaining to nurseries

[ElbowofEthel]

I've just spent my evening drafting a formal complaint about management to our nursery - the child care is great and we are very happy with it but management decisions and communication with parents as customers leaves a lot to be desired.

Have you ever complained to a nursery - what for and what was the outcome?

[ElbowofEthel]

Bumping for daytime traffic

[Littlefish]

What are your concerns around communication and management decisions?

I think the outcome of any complaints depends on the validity of the complaint in the first place.

[Middleagedmotheroftwo]

Before writing a formal complaint, I'd ask for a quick chat with "management", and give them some constrictive feedback. You don't want to get their backs up unnecessarily.

[insancerre]

can't see the point in complaining if the childcare side is great as you risk alienating them
who are you actually complaining to?
if the nursery is part of a chain then it is mostly head office and the directors who make the decisions and they probably won't be interested in your concerns, as they are detached and don't see you in the same way as the manager and staff do
if the nursery is run by the owners then frankly they probably don't care what you think about how they run the place
most places do annual surveys, or have a suggestion box at the very least
can you not do it less formally than a formal complaint?

[ElbowofEthel]

Thanks all. They have without warning changed the rules on drop off and collection to allow only 2 parents in at a time - the staff don't like it either.
It's not the waiting I mind, it's the feeling of pressure to hurry in and out without having a proper conversation with DD's key worker. All the children can see all the parents arriving due to the path being right next to the huge windows, so children are also getting upset.

I think a lot of my annoyance is that this just happened with no warning and no mention at parents' evening just a week before. Even the nursery staff weren't told until the day they had to implement it.

There didn't seem to be a problem before, so why create one? They harp on about partnership with parents but don't inform, or explain decisions which have a reasonably big impact on my feeling of confidence that handover is detailed enough to know what she's been doing all day.
Perhaps there is a reason behind it - I might not be so fed up if we had had the reason explained in advance - and if it was the first time we felt communication was bad. It is consistently bad from the owners/managers - the practitioners are lovely and couldn't do more for us...

[Pancakeflipper]

I complained in writing about the management of our nursery and several staff thanked me because they would not listen to the staff. And it had no detrimental care to my children.

[MrsMaryCooper]

I complained about unscheduled closures for which they provided no refunds, I was asked to remove my child.

[TiggyCBE]

Even the nursery staff weren't told until the day they had to implement it.

Childcare is one of those professions where the people who actually do the work get told how to do it by people with no fucking clue. The No Fucking Clue people (NFC) spend most of their days trying to justify their existence by finding issues to "solve". The fact that there might not be any issues is not good enough for the NFC people, so they make them up, then "solve" them.

I'm sure you could make a long list of all the other jobs like that.

[ElbowofEthel]

pancakeflipper (great name!) - I suspect that is the situation in our nursery. It was one of the staff who suggested I wrote in.

Have calmed down a bit and intend to speak to the "management" asap face to face but have a 3 page (honestly, it's not excessive!) letter ready to back our point up with!

I wouldn't have thought that they would suggest a paying customer leave - but I hadn't considered it, so thanks for the heads up MrsMary

[MrsMaryCooper]

We didn't remove him in the end but DH had to go in for a meeting and be "told off" he also undertook to not attend the parent council anymore. She (the owner) was a very strange woman. The manager who was responsible for day to day care was fine.

[KatyMac]

Gee thanks Tiggy - you know how to make a Nursery Manager feel good.......

[Parliamo]

Tiggy- that is the best explanation for crap management, made me laugh thanks!

OP I agree with the others, we've been asked by nursery staff to complain about stuff because the owner wouldn't listen to them.

[insancerre]

op I take my previous comments back
that sounds proper barking
I expect somebody has complained that they can't speak to their child's key person a there are too many people there
or complained that ratios are not being maintained at pickup and dropoff times if the staff are busy talking to the parents
I think you are perfectly justified in complaining
why not ask for their complaints policy- they have to have one and follow that

[TiggyCBE]

KatyMac, I'm talking more about 'hands on owners' and head office support people in big companies.

[KatyMac]

Oh that's OK then....