Am I being a mean mummy?

[MelvinThePenguin]

My DD’s nursery is great. It’s warm and friendly, the staff are excellent and DD loves it.

Recently however, they’ve started to bring in external companies to run activities with the children during nursery hours (gymnastics, pottery, synchronised swimming...) One of those might not be completely true, but it is getting ridiculous.

These activities come with hefty price tags which are on top of the £70 per day fees.

The classes are optional and I’m not sure I want to put my DD into them on the grounds that:

1. I’m a bit dubious about the ethics of this, given the desire most of us have for our children to feel included. I don’t really want to encourage any more of this.

1. I could (and do) pay for these sorts of things on the 4 days a week I don’t work, when I actually get to see my DD enjoy them and assess whether they’re worth it.

AIBU?

P.S. I might reconsider if DD comes home and mentions that her friends are doing something she’s not.

Yanbu and I agree that there is an ethical issue here.

As a comparison, I'm a teacher and sometimes we organise trips which parents pay for. However we would never ever exclude a child whose parent couldn't or wouldn't pat. We are inclusive.

I imagine that the nursery is getting a big back hander here. They're guilt tripping you.

Really not on and I would probably take it up with them if it kept on happening.

No, you're not mean! My daughter's nursery is similar. It's brilliant but there's a variety of extra activities on offer...I've just declined the option of a £200 ski school 🙄

YANBU. That’s ridiculously expensive.

Scotinoz- ski school? That’s even more ridiculous than my made up synchronised swimming!

Good grief, parents moan about the £10 book the kids are allowed to buy on World Book Day at our place (bookshop visits the school and those that want can choose a book and parents get billed later) they would go ballistic about any other extras!

I don't think you are being mean at all, and have never heard of a nursery having optional "extra" activities. Are they popular? I really can't imagine them being so.
The only situation in which I could envisage paying for such activities would be if my child was in nursery for five full days a week, and I had little/no free time at the weekend to do anything with them myself. Even then, it would be pushing it!

My daughter’s nursery has external teachers come in for optional French and drama classes. She does neither and happily plays with the nursery teachers while they are on.

I worked in a day nursery which was attached to pre school that offered this. Many of our children were in 5 full days a week so parents didn't get the opportunity to take during the week and very little was offered locally for under 5s at the weekend at the time. It was popular with extra sessions having to be booked to accommodate the uptake.

Most of the full time pre schoolers took the many of the additional activities and just under half of the age range offered at nursery level. For those not doing the extra activities they would usually do something similar to the group that was so when dancing we would have music and movement just without the professional directing us. Actually it offten inspired our planning. I never knew of an issue with children feeling left out as it was usual for small groups to be off doing activities in different areas and everything we did aimed to be fun and engaging.

YANBU, at £70 per day they ought to be devising and running activities for the children themselves

YANBU. We did tennis for a bit with our girls at pre school. But all they did was faff about and play. I didn't need to pay extra for that!

I don't see any meanness. What plans are there for the children who don't do the extra activities?

This is reassuring. Thank you.

I don’t know what the non-activity children will be doing, but I’m sure it will be fun.

bookshop visits the school and those that want can choose a book and parents get billed later so parents are not given a choice? If you DC chose a book you habe to pay £10??! When they can be £1 if you buy a pack on BookPeople...
I would be really annoyed!

have not habe... Sorry