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 ?

I’ve never known a nursery open late tbh.

Where I worked we charged $25 (in Australia) for the first minute, then $1 per minute after that. The staff didn't get the money so it really did depend on how often you were late, and if you were nice to the staff if you got the fine.

Its to try and prevent late pickups. It's a £10 flat fine here, one parent just pays it every day (and it's in the evening so the last of the staff are waiting at the door, kid with their coat on Andrew next users of the room are arriving -34 mins late Friday! They are now bringing in a £50 for more than 10 mins fine!

I agree that if lateness is very occasional and can't be avoided, it's fine. Knowing there will be cover is one of the reasons people choose nurseries.....and expect to pay a larger charge for that occasional lateness. The whole thing being mentioned on this thread though, is that without the hefty fine, the occasional couple of minutes becomes more frequent and longer......it's all about incentives really, and unfortunately people generally need a hefty financial fine incentive to get them there on time.

Regarding nurseries opening late, you won't get a refund. However, as a parent I would certainly call them on this issue. I would email if they opened late and make clear in a polite but firm way that I was relying on them being open and ready to fully receive children at the stated time, as my journey plans depended on it and that was why I had chosen the nursery, and please could they confirm that they would ensure this was the case. People choose nurseries often for their location, start and finish times and how those fit in with their transport to work schedules. Nurseries need to be open and ready to receive children at the specified time. It's not good enough for a member of staff to be pulling up outside and fiddling with the keys to the building at the opening time nor runningnroundninside opening the curtains. They need to be ready to start and this probably involves paying someone to be there for a. While before that opening time.

Parents should be able to expect the service they've paid for, and to stick to their side of the bargain regarding payment and timings, knowing an occasional lateness is covered by the nursery but an extra fee will be payable. Simple really. The problem is that some parents don't want to stick to the timings, think more than an occasional lateness is okay and/or don't want to pay the fines.

Never known our nursery to be late opening - they always have staff there before the official opening time so that when it gets to 7am they literally just unlock the doors. I hardly ever have to drop off that early but when I have done they're all there ready and waiting.

And seems entirely reasonable to charge for any lateness. You need to factor journey times etc in when choosing a nursery. Some people seem to be mixing nursery up with school - the children aren't 'let out' at 1pm or 6pm or whatever, you go and pick them up at a time convenient to you as long as it's before the time nursery closes!
Ours is open until 6.30pm, which means we aim to be there by 6-6.15 as that allows time for some travel delays and also handover time with keyworker

$1/minute for the first 10 minutes.

Then $10/minute for every minute after that.

It focusses the mind, we were never late, couldn't afford it.

I used to work at a nursery and we fined parents who were late, even if it was just a minute. Otherwise people take the piss and it creeps later and later until parents think it’s fine to turn up 20 mins late.

£10 is bloody steep though - I think we charged £2.50 for every 10 mins that someone was late.

Nurseries must open late sometimes, if there's a ton of snow or train strike or the manager's car is stolen or something. Anyway, just musing really, I don't even have a kid at nursery any more.

It's curious how so many of the "lates" here are saying they know they were exactly 2/5/10 mins late.

It's never 3.5min or 9 mins or 17 mins - let alone "approximately" anything.

Which, if you are so exactly certain of the delay, you'd think would happen more often than these nice round 2/5/10s

I'm one of those people who is early for everything, but I never look at the time and make a special point of noting that it is 7 minutes early or 13 or 26.

It's more like a subsconscious "oh quarter-of-an-hour to spare, I can nip to the loo" or whatever.

I wonder if the late collectors are of similar mind - "oh, it's only 5 minutes"...

I’ve never known a nursery opening late. At my setting staff shifts start 30mins before opening and pretty much every day we have a couple of kids dropped off 5 mins early. And it wouldn’t matter if one member of staff was late, because there’d be other staff to open up.

We tend to make allowances for certain situations - ie. a parent caught in traffic because of an accident who is never usually late. It’s the ones who are late all the time by those 5/10 mins who get the charges added because those are the parents who mess up ratios or home time for staff. Everyone is ok with one off situations.