To think it’s actually really unfair to be charged for bank holidays at nursery?

So many people on this thread being deliberately dense 😂. Completely agree OP. The burden of paying for staff bank holidays is disproportionately shouldered on the parents who schedule their children in on Mondays, whilst other parents with more flexibility can opt out to deliberately avoid paying for a service they don’t receive. If the business worked out how much they needed to charge per day based upon their yearly running costs, then every day would be charged equally and every parent would contribute proportionately.

eta: no one is suggesting the staff don’t get paid for the bank hols, or that the nursery digs deeper into its pockets. A tiny increase in the daily rate spread across the entire paying parents to cover only 8 days would be much fairer.

I agree. Our nursery was open. It had a lot of doctor / nurse parents and also offered shift pattern days.

I am self employed and don’t get paid on days I don’t work. But my day rate is calculated to cover holidays. All nursery parents should pay a tiny bit for staff holidays including BHs. It shouldn’t be disproportionately on the Monday families.

Our nursery used to charge slightly less for Mondays if you did PT.
FT rate was cheaper than 5 single days. I assume that overall the balances out.

I get paid by my employer. I don’t bill my clients though.

Imagine if employers asked how they can justify paying staff for a bank holiday when they’re not getting any work in return. Same thing surely.

I don't know why they don't open for the kids of parents who have to work BH anyway

But then at least it's spread across everyone using the nursery, not just those using it on a Monday.

It’s not fair because people who don’t use nursery on a Monday don’t lose a day. If you work bank holidays you may also have to pay for alternative child care. I presume all the people saying it’s fair are nursery owners 🤣 The costs should be spread.

This thread is literally going around in circles

My nursery doesn’t charge for bank holidays. They presumably just equalise the cost through their overall charges. This makes it much fairer and removes the disincentive from having your child in on a Monday.

I’m not sure about the argument re staff getting paid etc. No other service business that I can think of charges clients for periods that they’re not open / can’t provide a service.

OP, some people are being wilfully uncomprehending on this, but your basic point is fair.

If Child A usually goes in on Tues, Weds, & Thursday, and Child B usually attends on Monday, Friday and some-other-day. Child B will be affected by a lot more bank holiday closures than child A, but a lot of nurseries will charge their parents the same amount, each month even though they receive a lower level of service.

It's not really fair, and it could be made a lot fairer if they calculated their day-rate based on their total costs base (including holiday pay for staff) plus a fair profit margin, and divided by how many days they are open, not by how many weekdays there are in a year.

Our nursery never charged bank holidays.

I mean, I’m sure the overall daily rate was worked out to cover the bank holidays but on the monthly invoice a day was removed when there was a bank holiday and stated as such.

They either already charge parents as much as can reasonably be afforded or they’re struggling with funding enough because of the pitiful amount the government gives them to provide high quality early years education for ‘free’.

would you rather the nursery didn't charge for the 8 bank holidays. - but instead included the 8 bank holidays in the monthly payment, thus increasing the daily rate?

You don’t begrudge it but you do begrudge it?

Okay. Got it.

Read my post correctly before you bother commenting.

You clearly chose to ignore part of my last 2 sentences.

My daughters nursery gave us a "free" week at Christmas but I never treated it as a free week just that they took their annual costs and divided them by 51 weeks instead of 52.
Nurseries don't work out the costs of running each day they work out their annual costs and what daily fee allows them to keep their doors open every day.
My daughter was in Mon Tues Thu and Fri and never gave bank holidays or the daily charges much thought and treated it as the bill as the monthly cost for keeping the nursery open.

Nurseries are extremely profitable for the owners. My child’s nursery was making net profits of 400k a year.

I agree OP, DD Used to go on Mondays and Tuesdays so we always paid for the bank holidays.

it would be fairer to take a fee from all parents pro rata to cover the costs.

those saying they staff should be paid for bank holidays of course they should but the business are paying the staff to provide a service and the service isn’t being provided. Would you pay another service I.e. cleaner, gardener, babysitter etc if they usually worked for you on a bank holiday or would they just switch days?

I agree OP, it would be fairer for everyone to pay a slightly increased day/hour rate to cover that cost rather than landing the BH cost on Monday parents who pay for days when no service is available.

I don't work in a nursery and can imagine the uproar if we charged our clients for a whole day of work we hadn't done so we could have bank holidays off!

I think if they charge for the day they should stay open for the day.

Yes it would really annoy me because not all of the costs are staff costs so they are making money on that day by not being open.

You can't expect a refund for holidays because they save on nappies and wipes those days.

What's next, asking for a reduction because your child didn't shit that day?!