AIBU -fine for picking child up late

[Arnoldthecat]

This is not me,its just a true story that was related to me and i wondered if anyone had similar experiences.

A friend has a child at the local montessori and picks him up at 1300 so only on a morning stay. She states quite adamantly that she was 2 minutes late picking him up recently and was charged an extra £10. A note on the door states that if your child is booked in for the afternoon only, you cannot bring the child in until exactly 1300. If someone arrived at 1310 could they get a £10 refund ?

My DDs nursery would charge if later than 10 mins. 2 mins is a bit extreme. That's just called being stuck in traffic and can't always be helped.

I don't understand this at all.

What is your AIBU?

Friend was late. Friend got charged in line with agreement.

She can always find somewhere else.
As a teacher, fines would buy a lot of glue sticks and pencils...

The fines are meant to be excessive as a deterrent, late parents cause the nursery issues with staff ratio's / or staff can't go home on time.

Your friend signed a contract and confirms adamantly she was late and got fined. Don't know what her issue is.

Your friend is a CF. Every parent I’ve ever known knows the rules on picking up and any they are in place. Most places have punitive fines because if they are “reasonable” then parents see it as an affordable way to extend childcare.

It’s fairly standard here and I understand why they do it, you have paid for care for a fixed amount of time, they have other children arriving and yours hanging on skews the adult/child ratios AND it’s bloody rude. I have a coworker who rushes out the door at 12.10 every Friday, he has to pick up his dc from daycare by 12.30 or pay an extra $10 for every 5 minutes or part thereof he’s late. They have to make it an amount that’s going to sting a little. He’s only been late once to my knowledge because, well, expensive lesson learned.

At my son's nursery if I were to be late collecting him I would have to pay for an extra full hour.
An extra hour is £4 at my children’s nursery.

My DD's old nursery introduced a fee for late collection after a lot of blatant piss-taking.

Parents saw that there were no consequences for turning up a few minutes late and so arrived later and later each time. The final straw was when parents were regularly arriving 20 minutes late without so much as an apology.

Children leaving late after a morning session or arriving early for an afternoon session means that there may be enough staff to provide the correct ratio.

Generally i thought kids are supposed to be picked up before their finish time with enough time so that the handover is done before that time.

So for a finish time at 1, the handover should be finished by 1 if that makes sense?

may not be enough staff

This is something I live in dread of as there are roadworks gridlocking the whole of where I work. The nursery is actually the closest one to my workplace but I finish at 5:30 on a Tuesday and nearly break my neck getting there. I was five minutes late once and in tears when I picked the kids up: they didn't fine me, thank god.

Most nurseries allow a grace period of 5 minutes when it comes to lateness so it’s a bit harsh. Should still charge for lateness I reckon but only if it’s over that.

At my son's school, if you're even 1 minute late... you get a detention for being late (and yes; he attends those detentions because even at 14, he understands the concept that, as LovingLola said - "late is late").

If your friend signed a contract - which she must have done, otherwise her child wouldn't be there - then she's expected to abide by the rules. There are issues with hanging around waiting for late parents - upset children who don't understand why all their friends were collected on time, and they weren't... staff to student ratios... preparing for the afternoon session after the morning one... Why should the school be expected to pick up your friend's slack. Even if she'd called ahead to say that she was going to be late - she was still going to be late.

Late is late.

Even by 1 minute.

Which probably felt like a lifetime to her waiting child.

I was speaking to an owner of the nursery and he said they are meant to be a deterrent. If you said £1 per minute, a lot of people would always be a few minutes late and more. If you know you are going to get hit with say £10/£15 straight away then you’ll less likely be late.

Was she persistently late? I can understand them charging if it keeps happening.

It's a long time back when my DC in nursery but they also fined either £5/10 if we picked up after 6 pm because they had to pay staff member to stay.

It would work the same in the morning if staff are part time or missing their lunch.

It has an impact on the member of staff who has to stay behind, perhaps missing their bus meaning they are late for their own children.

I had to pay a late fee once, as both dh and I were stuck on the underground, which was fair enough.
What was frustrating though, was that they told us when we called to say we'd be late that they needed the cash when we arrived, meaning that we were even later, as we needed to find a cash machine.

That's ridiculous, Loudest

I presume this is a nursery where you have to pick your child up BY 1pm rather than nursery finishing at 1pm (in which case 2minutes wouldn't even be noticed). So the onus is on the parent to build in contingency time for traffic holdups etc. So it really isn't "just" 2 minutes late...

Late is late

I’ve had £50 & admin fee in my contracts before with childcare. I think we were possibly late a couple of times over years and it was never billed. We were late when there was an accident etc that meant several parents had difficulty, I also rang to keep them in the loop.
Your friend should suck it up in honesty. £10 extra is not worth the conversation and bad feeling.

Don’t be ridiculous of course you don’t get a refund if you’re late to drop off, because the staff were there ready to accept your child at the start time and unable to take another child in your child’s place and need to be paid.

£10 for two minutes late to pick up does seem a bit heavy handed. However where do you draw the line? There will always be parents who take the piss, if they didn’t charge for 5 minutes late then the same parents would be 5 minutes late every day.

If your friend doesn’t like the policy then they’re free to find other childcare.

It’s pretty standard. People take the piss if there isn’t some kind of sanction in place.

I worked in nurseries years ago. If it was a one off we wouldn’t charge but if someone continually takes the p then they would be charged.

It's £15 if you're late for pickup at my dd's nursery. I've not been late so don't know how strict they are. The staff are leaving as the kids leave so they look a bit pissed off if you arrive at 2 mins to. Don't blame them as they're only paid until exactly then. I think it's all fair enough and to stop people taking the piss.

Those saying that 2 mins is a bit 'heavy handed'; what would be reasonable? 3 minutes? 5? 7? What if someone arrives 6 minutes late and is not fined, but a parent turning up a minute after that is? If the rule says 1pm, then that's where the line is drawn. For everyone. Simple.