to wonder why nursery's charge for bank holidays

[captaincake]

Just wondering really because it comes up a fair bit at the toddler groups etc. I do understand that they still have their costs but around here every nursery you contact tries to get you to sign up for a Monday and Friday. Sometimes they will say if you start on a Monday and Friday then they will change the days after a period of time. This is because everyone flatly refuses those, especially Mondays, because they don't want to have to pay when they're shut all the time. So many times I've heard oh yes we looked around there but i'm not sending him/her because they only had monday/friday. I wonder if they didn't charge when they were shut, or opened, that so many more people would take those days that they would cover the bank holidays anyway. I left work now but when I was I couldn't do a monday because I still had to work bank holidays, so if I did that every bank holiday I would have to unsettle DC with different childcare that I probably wouldn't be able to find anyway, and pay twice when I wouldn't have been getting paid any extra.

[mrsmugoo]

All the more reason why they should just build in the costs and let parents pay for what they use. I only use Tuesday-Thursday but I'm happy that I'm probably paying a little extra to subsidise Fridays and Mondays to make the overall fee structure fairer.

[Tanith]

A lot of parents who don't use Mondays or Fridays won't see it as fair to have an increase in fees to pay for other people's paid bank holidays. I know because I've had the discussion with them before.
In particular, term time only parents often pay a higher fee to make some compensation for the holidays they don't use. They would question why they should pay for bank holidays they will never use.

As I said earlier, you are never going to please everyone or make it fair for every parent, existing or potential. So we do it differently to meet the needs of the parents we want to attract.
Childminders in particular are extremely flexible: I know one who does charge for holidays but has no notice period - her parents need to move at short notice and the contract best suits them. She has to make her profit somewhere and that's how she makes it, rather than a high hourly rate.

That's why you need to shop around and find the childcare that works best for you.