Paid nursery inset days

That would mean children of poor parents being denied nursery.

sooooooo where is your nursery and do you have any places, please??! Sounds amazing, lucky parents near you!

so how are staff holidays and other planned staff absences covered? They have a rota and have enough hours planned in to cover it. I don’t see how and why staff training shouldn’t be the same? And if it’s important to do it altogether could they all have an extra half a day off during the week and do an evening training, for example. I’m not saying people shouldn’t be paid for their time, far from it, but there must be a way to manage it that works for the staff, business AND parents. Given that not all nurseries use inset days, it must be possible. Other businesses in other sectors don’t just stop because they need to do training.

the thing with the inset days is that you feel like you’re paying twice - once for a service you can’t use and once to cover the gap, whether that’s by taking annual leave, unpaid leave or finding other arrangements. I get that having staff to cover the training will result in higher costs but honestly given how much we pay anyway I’d rather just pay a bit more on top and not have the inconvenience of trying to sort it out.

And yes maybe it was in the t&c’s for OP and anyone else in the same boat, but that doesn’t mean it was crystal clear exactly what was involved, and so many parents have a difficult time finding a childcare place in the first place they feel like even if they had objections then it’s just tough.

I own a private nursery. We don't charge bank holidays or Christmas closure and we certainly wouldn't charge for training days. If we're not available, parents don't pay. Full stop.

There is NO business that won't train staff. There is no business that will be able to train staff with no money. Businesses who don't charge for training sessions will charge more for other things. Maybe they should just charge a few pounds more each day...

Everyone at my DDs nursery is training for some level of early childcare certification and it mostly seems to be based on practical thingns they can show they’ve done with the children - my DD’s key worker asked permission to use examples of things she’s done with my DD for her portfolio for example.

So it seems to me a lot of the “training” is hands on practical training done with the children when they’re in!

I have never heard of a private nursery doing this!

Mostly they do it by exploiting the staff as much as they can get away with!
Proper inset days will be very attractive to staff - most nurseries are massively struggling with staff recruitment and retention at the moment, especially level 3 qualified staff.

@Zombiefluff realistically do you have any other childcare options locally?

But quite obviously most nurseries are managing it somehow because I don’t know any other nursery that has inset days and they’re still clean with trained staff.

Not sure how you think they manage!

Haha 4pm - you really want training outside nursery times - well that means a morning session that finishes at 7am or at evening session that starts at 7pm. You really think workers should do a more that 12 hour shift to do their training? Plus stuff like H+S training or deep cleaning often take several hours so 7-10pm or 4-7am?

Weekends, evenings,

The economy doesn't stop at 4pm

It’s normal and would have been outlined in your contract with the nursery. Not the specific dates, but that they happen.

The nurseries are hardly struggling like some posters here seem to think.

I personally know two separate people who own nurseries and they both have huge houses in North London, both drive Teslas and their kids go to prestigious private schools,and they are on luxury holidays 5 times a year. They are also looking at purchasing more nurseries because it's so lucrative and the profit margins are great.

There is a common sense correlation between very high nursery costs that many people struggle to afford and profit.

Do you seriously think that the minimum wage workers and wholesale purchased food and same old toys and paid off site mortgage costs £100 per day per child? Nope.

That's true. The funded hours are properly funded. The parents who just take the "funded hours" are a drain on the nursery as a whole. Nurseries should be able to choose whether or not they offer it.

Yes this is nuts. Most nurseries train their staff in non-contact time by rotating staff, not closing the whole nursery.

I hope they at least spread the training days over the week with none on Mondays. Monday users are in many nurseries already unfairly treated by having to pay for bank holidays when no care is given.

I work in a private nursery.
all training is done after work or on a Saturday.
it’s awful for the staff as sometimes we are there for 14 hours.
But 6 inset days is crazy and an absolute rip off

That's awful.

Oh and how they train staff is they need to have enough staff to rota in training days without closing the whole nursery at once, if they are running as a business and want to offer the service customers need.

Childminders follow exactly the same EYFS as nurseries & they seem to manage without inset days.

In reality its probably to help their own staff manage childcare when their own children in local schools have inset days.

If you are on a funded term time only 30 hour place i think the funding paid matches school terms so typically assumes there are inset days.

Or they could do it in an inset day and not piss off their employees 🤷‍♀️

My kids go to two nurseries rated outstanding. Neither has ever had any inset days yet managed to be rated as outstanding. I'd look for another setting if I were you - or gather a group of fellow parents to request they change back to the previous approach.

I do feel the OP has had a bit of a hard time here. My children are grown up now but I never had a situation when they were at nursery/ preschool when the setting was closed for training. I know this happens in schools - but have not encountered it in nurseries at all. Had to pay for child minder holidays - but never inset days. I’d be looking for another setting as that is a lot of leave to lose if you need to cover the days.