To be pissed off at nursery constantly closing at short or no notice?

Never happened once in the years my kids were in nursery.
They are running on too low staff levels which is worrying. Are they understaffed at lunchtimes? Do the staff ever take breaks?
Is this a state or private nursery?

And it's always on Friday?
Our previous nursery was like this, I had to change nursery after I was called to pick up my child 5 Fridays in a row, really annoying.

Ill admit it’s decades since i worked in nursery but this was unheard of back then. The fact multiple people have this happen to them on the thread shows the state of the sector in regards to staffing/agency staff/ nursery finances.

Just another one saying that in my experience this isn't normal or one of those things you just have to accept as standard. Across two children we've used nursery for a total of eight years, two different settings, and this has not ever happened.

There is the staff/ child ratio for the age groups and they must be on the absolute minimum to have to close so regularly. The nursery I used had a higher staff to child ratio then needed in the older groups and so were able to move staff if necessary to younger classes. I think there was also a couple of floating staff - in each day but not with fixed rooms to cover breaks and lunch etc.

Having had to close once or twice - they should have resolved the situation to avoid it happening again.
I would move them now whilst it is a big inconvenience rather than wait until they inevitably close permanently and you're looking at the same time as all the other parents.

Wow. My family owned a nursery for 30 years and I cannot think of a single instance of this happening. It is not acceptable.

This is what bank staff are for. There are agencies who they can call to have staff come in to cover the staff who are ill. This isn’t ok at all.

I did investigate going elsewhere but speaking to people it was an issue in most places so it wouldn't have resolved anything. No point going through the upheaval of moving and resettling, just to a few months down the line be in the same situation.

I'm really surprised that it seemed to be a problem with all your local nurseries. It's genuinely very unusual in my experience for a nursery to close for the day unexpectedly.

It was 100% easier when they put the set closure day a week. It meant I could plan that day week for a whole month rather than waiting each day what was happening. They lost a few children but I'd been with them for 4 years with my eldest and the school I want DD to go to, 90% of the class comes from the nursery.

I did investigate going elsewhere but speaking to people it was an issue in most places so it wouldn't have resolved anything. No point going through the upheaval of moving and resettling, just to a few months down the line be in the same situation.

Short term pain (one day a week closure) vs long term gain (90% of her class at school she would know) was worth it.

Fingers crossed you can resolve your issue with nursery. Have you asked why they don't have bank staff or floating staff to cover sickness? Our nursery were 100% open with us about the difficulties and staff numbers which really helped me understand the issues. They were being proactive to resolve the issue with managers and assistant manager daily covering sickness when needed.

On the one hand, they should have some contingency for illness. On the other, three staff having to be sent home sounds like a nasty bug going round, and it's a trickier cover situation than staff ringing in sick first thing. It's unlikely they have three spare staff available instantly, and agency staff would take time to arrive.
There's presumably also every chance that the kids will also come down with the bug, so it's probably for the best to get them all home before it spreads any further.
On this occasion, if they're telling the truth about having to send staff home after the start of the day, it's an exceptional circumstance. However if it's happening a lot, that suggests they don't have enough staff to cover normal levels of sickness absence.

And presumably you'll still pay full whack for the inconvenience?

@PrioritisePleasure24 yes, I realise teachers was the wrong word to use. I just think it's mad that 3 of them all did the same on the same day. Paid or not. It messes everyone around more for the kids to go in for a couple of hours. If they're shut from the beginning at least you know from the get go.

That’s harsh. Reliability was the reason I chose nursery over childminder, because of work patterns and lack of anything like family support - it was bad enough when my child was ill, having to manage absences caused by other people being ill would have been madness.

I can't believe you put up with that for a whole year!

Not teachers. Early years practitioners/nursery nurses. They probably dragged themselves in because sickness is so frowned upon and i doubt they get paid. Then it was realised they weren’t fit to be responsible for young children.

Also most teachers work through sickness because it’s harder to be off sick than work through it…..

It's not good that it's a constant thing.

I've put 6 through nursery and I've only experienced the "please come we're closing for staff sickness" twice (and one of those was food poisoning from a staff meal the night before - entirely not their fault!)

That’s poor. I’d look at another nursery.
We used ours for 7 years between our 2 children and there wasn’t a single incident of this.

Move him to another nursery. They'll probably close in the next 12 months if they're struggling that much anyway so best to be ahead of the curve. In 3 years of nursery this has never happened to us.

That would annoy me too. Our nursery has only ever closed once for a deep clean after 2 DC came down with the same serious illness. This is partly the reason I chose nursery over childminder, because there will normally be enough staff there to cover sickness.

We've had 2 period of this but due to staff shortages.
Once at the start of 2022 for 6 months - luckily I was on maternity leave with my second so I could accommodate.
And then again in 2023 for a whole year. Eventually the nursery did a rolling closure of one room a day so at least we knew which day every week it would be.
It was all down to the industry staff shortage issues. Where before they would be able to call on bank staff to help recover from staff sickness, being in 2022 they either didn't have any bank staff available or they couldn't get enough staff.

Ultimately you either stick with them or move nursery. We opted to stick it out esp when we got the set day each week so I could find cover (mainly me taking holiday). I didn't want to risk moving to another nursery and then going through the same issues.

Just for comparison we have used our nursery for 3 years. In that time they have shut once due to snow making it impossible for staff to get in. They treat staff well so manage to keep them and have a robust policy for cover including the managers who step in regularly with the children.
You need to find a more reliable setting - we absolutely couldn’t cope with that when paying so much for childcare

So 3 teachers thought it would be okay to risk going (and making everyone else Ill) in for a couple of hours all to be send home before lunch? Doesn't seem normal.

That seems incredibly unlikely...

Seriously no one I know who has used nurseries has faced constant closures, I'd be spending the afternoon ringing other settings.

In three years of nursery, this never once happened to us even during the Covid years. Definitely look for a new nursery.