Picking up children from nursery at finish time

[Crowtooyo]

I saw a video on tik tok. It's a jokey account from a lady who works in a nursery (or used to... can't quite remember!)
Anyway, she made a video about parents turning up in the car park but then sitting there for 45 mins to collect their child on the dot at 6pm and then expecting a 10 minute handover.
I wondered what people's opinions are on this?

I'll start by saying I work in childcare and am paid X- X and I feel that if a parent wants a full blown handover then they need to have that within the time frame that they pay for.

I am not bothered about parents waiting outside, they probably have work calls, etc... to catch up on. And they are paying for their child to be in the nursery. So that isn't the question.

The question is specifically about whether the parent should collect at closing time and then expect a 10-15 min handover.

Voting:

YABU - a handover should not be paid for
YANBU - parent should collect within time frame and handover included in that.

I can link the tik tok if people want. Not sure whether allowed?

I’m a childminder and whilst it doesn’t bother me at all if parents decide to sit outside and do other things until it’s time to collect their child, it does annoy me that quite a few of my parents will always drop their child a couple of minutes early and then pick up a couple of minutes late, despite being sat in the car for the last 15 minutes. It’s only a couple of minutes so not really a lot I can say without appearing rude, and I always want to do a good handover regardless of what time a child is collected, but it does annoy me.

I’m super grateful to my daughter’s preschool staff and if I can do anything to make their lives easier I will. For me, I know my child going home that little bit earlier than that really busy pick up time is going to help their day a little bit, so I would always go and get her if I didn’t have something I absolutely needed to do in the car. But I do understand not everyone has that mentality towards their childcare provider.

At lots of nurseries, there isn’t a buffer time built in. From 5.30 one member of staff will be reading stories/doing handover/wrangling kids while the others do closing paperwork, clean and try to get sorted to get out the door as close after 6 as possible, as their shift ends at 6pm.

I'm a childminder and I get this regularly. Not that people sit outside the house, but they turn up at exactly the time of hand over, and a lot of them come slightly later, and then want to hang around chatting g letting the kids at around while they watch, taking them to the toilet (even although I do that before I get them ready to leave. Some let them take sides and jackets back off and then spend 10 mins just trying tk get them back on.

@wineandcheeseplease

I work in childcare and we have had parents rock up at 6pm then moan when they don't get given a proper handover. It's crazy.

Aside from parents who just sit in the car, there are parents who can just about get to nursery for closing time (e.g.6pm). If a nursery advertises childcare available until 6pm, they should honour that. Thats part of the reason some parents choose a certain nursery - the hours can accommodate tgeir needs. Once the parent has arrived, the nursery shouldn't be responsible for the child's welfare. So a few mins handover (5min max) should be expected.

It's not the parents to blame imo, it's the nursery management. A bit daft to advertise childcare hours 7-6pm (for e.g) and have staff finish work at 6. That's cutting corners and being cheap.

Why on earth would you need a five minute handover as a routine thing? I get that on very, very, very, very rare occasions you might need that long, but not often. Handover for DD is typically 'here's DD, she had a lovely day didn't you DD? Bye now!'

This! DD has the world’s most talkative key worker and I can never get a word in even to indicate that I don’t need the info / that she gave the same info to DH when he dropped her off and he already told me. She’s lovely and I stand there being gently lulled by her sing-song Welsh accent but really when another lady comes out and says “Here you go LittleHummus, there’s your mum” I breath a bit of a sigh of relief. This past Monday I got 4-5 minutes about how she was planning to make the kids’ jelly for the end of term party .

No handovers in our crèche since covid . Every point of info is on the app .
Cannot image sitting in the car outside though, I pay for a full day till 6 but collect at 2:45.

I am a nursery practitioner. We have a policy that we only provide handovers for children picked up before 17:45. Those picked up afterwards will have to wait until the following morning or another day if they want to catch up. It’s harsh but we would lose staff if we insisted nobody could leave until 6pm.

Yeah, I agree with the majority here YANBU. If I had anything I would need to chat about I would be there early, people expect way too much from nursery staff. I don't use a nursery I use a childminder and as much as I like to have a (usually non child related) chinwag my daughter is spent by the time I collect her at 5:30 so I think its unfair in that respect too, we're straight out, straight in the car and straight home.

My DD's nursery school fined $1 a minute late fees for the first 10 mins then $5 a minute thereafter. Still some were late. Staff did get overtime though, one family was notorious for being 30 mins plus late multiple times a month!

My nursery have always operated strict timings that I'm allowed to collect at. Currently, its 17:10 and I have to be at the door then but am not allowed to knock. At 17:10 the door opens (in theory - sometimes late) and that group of children are let out. So for those reasons I'm often sat in the car park for a while as I need to make sure I can get there through the traffic on time which I can't exactly time to the minute.

I actually think its poor wording/management from the nursery. Parents will, rightly or wrongly, interpret closing at 6 as they can collect at 6. The nursery should either be paying you to around 18:15 or making it very clear that last collection is 17:45 to allow for the handovers. I know the staff at my nursery are paid for around 30mins after last collection to factor in handovers and sorting rooms.

My understanding is 6pm is the doors shut-I collect my child as close to 5pm as possible just because any later screws up our evening routine. But if I ran until 6pm I wouldn’t dream of chit chatting

Totally agree that if you close at 6pm that's when you close, not 15 minutes later.

Never heard of all this handover palaver, it must be very annoying for the staff.

It was a revelation when my DD moved from a private preschool to a school nursery. At preschool it became a competitive sport to collect children up to 30 minutes before the official finishing time. I found it hilarious. I would often get there early just because I am always early for everything, but then wait until the allocated finish time to go in. I didn’t love my daughter any less but as far as I was concerned I was paying through my nose for her to attend and I relished the bit of extra time to catch up with emails etc as she was very full on as soon as she came home.

At school nursery the doors literally wouldn’t open until bang on official finish time, so there was no competition between parents over who collected the earliest.

Regarding handovers, I would never expect more than a minute covering what sort of day she had - good/bad - and what she got up to. It’s interesting to note that her preschool keyworker told me that I was one of literally a handful of parents who would ask this and she admired the fact that I showed interest in what sort of day she had

@HumunaHey

It's not cheap or cutting corners, ther has to be a cut off somewhere. We are open til 6pm. If you come at 6pm that's fine, collect your kid and go. But why should staff stay longer for handover. I mean.. we do of course, but we shouldn't have to.

On the day’s I finish work at 5.30 i literally rush there and get ds as quick as I can ( 5.45 for 6pm close )and I still feel like need to apologise for being so late! , I don’t hang around &just ask his has all his info on a daily diary sheet to save time at handover .
On my 4.30 finish days I’m always last min for dd (after school club that closes at 5) but theres always a que anyway and its generally just a grab and run🤣

Play around, not at around, and shoes off, not sides 🙄 bloody phone!

No wonder parents find adjusting to school hard if they're used to 15 mins of bowel movement talk at the end of each day.

I think with my first it was 5 weeks before I spoke to the teacher. (Of course with number 2 she came out for a chat with "Satan's mummy" every night. Wasn't I lucky). I appreciate with kids that don't talk communication is more important but notable points can be conveyed in the time it takes the child to run and hug parent unless there's been a serious incident.

If the child finishes at 6pm and the staff also finish at 6pm, that doesn't seem like great management and it's going to cause confusion. Obviously, most parents are going to want to hear how their child got on that day.

Perhaps the nursery need to account for it in their hourly cost that staff will need to be there for a 10 minute handover.

No one should be working for free but the nursery should know how to manage this, surely it's a very common occurence.

If nursery closes at 6 then they should have last pick up at 5.45.

Or they have last pick up at 6 and close at 6.15.

It's not rocket science!

I'm a childminder and agree with the other minder that it's the dropping early that bothers me the most. Late pick ups I ask that parents notify me so that I know they are ok and all hand overs are done at the front door because I've seen with other minders the struggles of getting parents and children to leave.
IMO staff should be paid till 6.15 but pick ups for 6 so that staff are covered pay wise.

@UrAWizHarry

Yeah, that's really dickish, but then I don't understand why parents want to spend 15 minutes hearing the tedious details of the kid's day. If the kid is still alive and relatively unscathed that's good enough for me.

I used to be a nursery teacher and this made it laugh out loud!

We had 52 children, 5 members of staff, two big rooms, about 15 different areas within these rooms + huge outside area and parents would ask me how much their child had to drink that day. Fruit and water was available at all time so it was down to them to drink and snack when they needed it - I couldn’t possibly track the water intake of 52 children!

I don't get handovers.

Have they had a good day?
Yes, no problems.
Great- bye!

Absolutely do get sitting in the car though. You could do the food shop on your phone or renew your phone contract sitting in the car these days. Why not take some quiet time for a bit of life admin before the dinner - bath - bed routine starts?

@strawberrydonuts

If the child finishes at 6pm and the staff also finish at 6pm, that doesn't seem like great management and it's going to cause confusion. Obviously, most parents are going to want to hear how their child got on that day.

Perhaps the nursery need to account for it in their hourly cost that staff will need to be there for a 10 minute handover.

No one should be working for free but the nursery should know how to manage this, surely it's a very common occurence.

I think you're missing the point. It isn't about the nursery managing the time. It's parents expecting a 10 minute handover at 6pm. The point is, kids should be gone at 6pm. The staff are probably paid until 6:15. Therefore the cut off time for kids being out is 6.

@want2bemum

If nursery closes at 6 then they should have last pick up at 5.45.

Or they have last pick up at 6 and close at 6.15.

It's not rocket science!

Exactly. This is the point. The nursery CLOSES at 6pm. Whether or not the staff are paid til 6:15pm. Parents can't expect a 10 minute handover after 6pm because 6pm is the cut off.