Anyone else’s nursery pulling this stunt at the moment?

[Skinnermarink]

Let me preface this by saying I KNOW nursery work is hard and it’s long and it’s woefully underpaid. It was a long time ago but I’ve worked in one myself. I can totally see why there’s a recruitment crisis with it at the moment.

DS is one and we thought we’d found a good nursery. Long established, nice staff etc. I wasn’t keen on sending him at all because I wanted him at home with me but it’s not financially viable. So four days a week he goes, at a cost of £1100 a month.

The amount of calls we’ve had to go and collect him over something or other have ramped up in the past eight weeks to the point of ridiculousness. They include

-a temperature that we never managed to catch at home and he was completely well. That happed 3x
upset stomach that magically we never saw at home, but came with a 48 hour exclusion. This went on for weeks. At worst he had a few soft nappies, certainly nothing anyone could describe as diarrhoea. I eventually got a stool sample to clear him for this at their insistence before they’d have him back. He missed days and days of nursery for this.

Teething pain which meant he was ‘not himself’ (I didn’t collect for this, as he was playing, eating and drinking, and I told them I wasn’t going to collect for something as flimsy as this and they were welcome to give calpol)

a head injury that we had to come immediately for or they’d call an ambulance, threw myself into a taxi in sheer panic to find him running around with a tiny bump on his head, but they wanted me to take him home to be checked out and not return him for 24 hours. I’m not under reacting by the way, it really was in no way anything other than a typical toddler bump.

This week has been the final straw. He had his MMR vaccine last week and developed a few tiny spots- a side effect listed on the NHS website. They called and said we had to collect and he couldn’t return today unless a doctor cleared the ‘rash’.

Luckily our GP is fab and had him in this morning, cleared him in seconds with a note so I took him straight to nursery because I had to get to work. There were already 9 babies in the room, mine would take it to ten. 3 members of staff. They looked pissed off and a bit panicked and said he couldn’t come in unless I had a doctor’s clearance - which I produced. The manager was called down who said they had staff sickness but she would be covering herself until an agency worker arrived.

I felt shit leaving him to be honest but it’s no exaggeration to say our jobs have been on the line due to dropping things to pick him up, staying off with him at short notice etc. we’ve used practically all remaining annual leave we had for Christmas so that’s scuppered plans to visit family. We don’t have any outside help, it’s just us, no grandparents to call in an emergency etc.

So I want to know has anyone else been in this situation? I’m not being paranoid (although I did tell myself I was at first) and I honestly think they have to pick babies to send home to stay within the ratios and then hope they stay off the next day.

I’ll add that DS has been genuinely unwell with things on occasion and of course we’ve kept him off. But we are at our absolute limit now and have pissed hundreds up the wall on unnecessary pick ups and days off.

Think I have found an alternative setting and are looking on Monday, but they have no availability until January.

I've had a few childminders over the years and I don't think any of them would have been happy to take on an ill, vomiting child, it's not really their job surely??

Definitely making the financial decision to stick at one- couldn’t manage this with two practically or financially sadly. Plus we are on our late thirties (not saying that’s a massive barrier, just that we’d have to crack on and have two needing full time childcare like @Xenia said

Well we disagree so much else to say really is there

It does sound like the nursery is being a little over zealous in sending children home to stay within ratio. There is a massive recruitment crisis in nurseries at the moment and when Ofsted visit and they are over ratio they are marked down so I can well believe some nurseries are sending children home when there is no need to do so.

By all means raise this with your nursery. However, I imagine they will argue that they were all genuine reasons for sending your child home and will quote the EYFS to you about preventing spread of illnesses and protecting other children.

Personally, I would remove your child and find a better alternative setting, whether it be another nursery or a childminder.

Bit mean on the child too. Surely a poorly pre schooler needs to be at home with mum not in childcare

Or dad 😂 He vomited once and was bouncing around but thank you for your concern, dastardly mother that I am.

That’s pretty gross you expect a childminder to clean up your child’s vomit! They do not get paid enough for that.

But a child who has vomited (even only once) shouldn’t be in a childcare setting. It’s the policy at every single childcare setting for good reasons. Even if mum and dad are working, even if it’s inconvenient, even if they were running round happily, even if dad shows up and says actually the baby only vomited because he had chocolate in the car, blah blah blah.

Calpol seems hit and miss in nursery. Last nursery DS was in wouldn't give Calpol at all.
Current nursery asked if it was OK to give some to DS once. However I work there and if I'd taken him home it would have put us out of ratio.
Never seen them give it to any other child so perhaps they aren't supposed to really but will do anything to keep the staff in (DS was totally fine).

I think some childcare settings are stuck between a rock and a hard place, must be really tricky when people think it's OK to send in a child with a sickness bug "because they only vomited once"

But you are changing what happened in this circumstance 🫠 She gave it to him, she had no other kids to look after so yes she could have had him, but I didn’t ‘send him in’ you disagree and I’ve told you I don’t agree with you so going round the houses is pointless.

Read the actual circumstance or stop quoting/tagging me 🤫

Yes that’s exactly what happened 🙄

He wasn't with her long @Kanaloa as basically she didn't like working and we had to find a nursery. But it's not that easy to find different childcare at the drop of a hat.

Certainly I had no issues with the care he had there and he was always happy to be left there. Plus the other 2 boys she had were also well looked after. But she just had an issue about looking after him if he knew I wasn't working.

My children are grown up now but when they were young I used a very excellent childminder for my child under 2, then eldest went to nursery 3 mornings a week and childminder collected and had her in afternoon. 2nd child, DS went to same childminder. Also after they started school she collected them and kept until 5.30pm. I told childminder I would pay a bit more than she charged as she did not charge enough compared to others, but she was so kind to my children, they both loved her. She also took them through teething.

Ours text the other day asking for parents to keep their kids off if possible due to staff sickness leave and said they'd either s swap days or refund if you took them up.

Having a second is what’s unstuck me. Not only the financial aspect but the fact that every incidence of illness is x2 as the other picks it up straight after, then I get it. So it feels like continuous disturbances to my ability to
work-the latest bout has been 3 weeks with one or the other at home with me.

Does it though?

3300 per month for 3 children over 4 days on a 5 day working week is £49,500 per year?

Lets just say a childcare worker is on £25k per year that leaves approx another £25k per year for share towards rent, bills, etc.

Multiply by 5 workers / 15 children per year (as a minimum) you’re talking c£125k to allocate towards rent / bills / materials etc.

Not sure how this isn’t seen to be easily feasible and why the government 😴 should get involved?

It’s a private business at the end of the day.

£25,000 profit 🤣 to cover, pension, holiday, sickness, NI, corporation tax, before we even get to building maintenance, resources, food, heating, water etc.

Didn’t say profit though did I? “Unallocated funds” for other business expenses that you listed (which most are the same for every business)..

Pension is 3% - so £750 per annum

Holidays / sickness 25-30 days a year - approx. £2.5k - £3k per year for cover

Rent (dependent on area obviously) - say £3k per annum / 14.4k per year split across 5 workers

Utilities - £480 per annum per worker

Building maintenance - would be covered by the rent etc. but let’s say £500 per annum per worker.

Food - £3000 per annum for 3 children - although I’m sure this would be an added extra charged to the parent(s) 😉

which still leaves over £14k for further expenses not noted, but let’s just call it a nice even £10k per annum per worker.

Leaving a grand total of £50k per annum profit which would then see corporation tax applied (as it’s profit).

obviously you’re not going to become a millionaire with 5 workers but as we’ve proven it’s easily feasible…

You haven’t included National Insurance which is 16 percent of gross salary - also, I’m not sure why you assume a nursery worker would be on 25k when the average UK wage is 33k these days.
Yes some of the nursery workers may be in their first year at work but surely you need a good mix of experienced and less experienced people looking after very small children.
I just don’t understand people who expect childcare professionals to be earning literally 25% less than average wage, yet somehow doing a stellar job bringing up other people’s children, and also having solid common sense, pragmatism, and putting parents’ interests and jobs first when they are overstretched… there is no free lunch, you really get what you pay for and sadly, paying childcare professionals 25k on average will just generate an exodus of anyone with any common sense and ambition from that sector. In my view, this is one of the main reasons why OP is having the experience she has…

Also why would it be 480 on utilities per worker, when the media meeps telling us an average family’s energy bill will now exceed 4k.
Surely with water, energy, internet, phone lines a nursery is looking at over 4k in utilities per annum.
This is just bad maths - clearly it’s not as easy as you’d like to make out.
and by the way, none of the nurseries I’ve ever sent my children to charged for food on top. It’s usually included in the fees…

Yes the average wage may be 33k but lots of people will earn less, even nurses etc won't be on that kind of wage for quite a few years.

Lets just say a childcare worker is on £25k per year that leaves approx another £25k per year for share towards rent, bills, etc.

Tell me you've never employed someone or been involved in payroll or budgets without telling me you've never employed someone or been involved in payroll or budgets.

National insurance is covered by small business relief so isn’t really an actual cost until you exceed the relief amount.

Average UK wage is £33k in London but not across the UK… if was average wage for a childcare worker then think I’m in the wrong industry..

Also I’m not arguing that the role doesn’t come with its trials and tribulations as like any other position , merely demonstrating on the original statement of there needs to be help from the government to cover costs is false if the business is managed correctly is self sustaining.

In response to your reply on utilities, even if we do match your quoted figures were only talking an extra £400 per annum.