To refuse to pay nursery notice period fee in these circumstances?

[rsarw]

Posted a week ago about my 12 month old DS' nursery, which we're pulling him out of after a week after seening evidence of substandard care (examples listed below).

Their usual notice period is 2 months, for which we'd be liable for fees, but as we're pulling him out after 1 week becuase we're concerned the care is substandard surely we should only pay for the sessions he's actually had.

Keen to hear thoughts.

Examples of poor care:

babies being left to it/ not picked up or comforted when crying, multiple times - I’ve had to resist the urge to comfort them myself. It’s possible they were eventually picked up after I left but it went on for a good 5 mins and staff seemed to completely ignore it.

Very little staff interaction with babies, staff are rarely on the floor playing or interacting with them. Babies are desperate for attention so swarm me when I come in.

little girl fell off a bike toy badly, hitting her head. Member of staff didn’t know what to do and had to be told by another multiple times to apply a cold compress. She then picked DS up and put him on the same toy
despite the fact he’s not old enough and his key worker had to take him off it.

staff heating milk too hot for babies, and other staff member noticing and reminding them they needed to check it. Baby could presumably have burnt mouth if other staff hadn’t stepped in.

DS incredibly thirsty on return from first proper day, hadn’t had his milk, assuming also hadn’t had water.

staff expressing slight contempt for babies eg X does that for attention, ‘they throw themselves at the floor to getus to come over’

my son’s key worker hardly interacting with him at his settling sessions, not noticing/ leaving him to cry on the floor when upset (when I was there).

communication with me not good, when asking how the day/ session was or calling for an update they will just say ‘he seems ok’ or ‘he’s doing well’, then when I ask if he’s been crying it turns out he has.

staff seem very focussed on completing tasks eg nappies and meals and naps and app updates but not on general engagement with the babies. I get nursery is 3:1 and will inevitably be less attentive but it feels like the staff actively avoid the babies to try and get them to expect less and be more self sufficient.

I won't comment on the ofsted/complaint/paying stuff as others have already covered that above...but, two things I noticed from your posts which make me think I don't think nursery, any nursery, will be right for your ds.
You called them during the day for updates. Both parents went to settling in sessions.
I think both those things are highly unusual.

Those of you who said call the poiice- why? What laws have been broken by this nursery?
Staff supervsing other staff (the hot milk and bike incident)so the children were kept safe?
Not responding immediately to a crying baby, but being busy with nappies and food instead? Sounds right, keeping them clean and healthy comes before swooping in to immediately cuddle a child who is sad, but not in immediate danger or distress. Of course, if 1-1 you would ideally offer comfort immediately, but that's not possible 1:3 especially if you are in the middle of a nappy change or feeding another child.

I don't think there is anything for the police or ofsted here at all.

And if the OP, or the nursery tells ofsted that she doesn't want to pay her notice, it would immediately be filed as a vexatious complaint.
The worst that would happen would be a log is made and it would be mentioned at their next routine inspection.

The nursery don't seem to have broken thier contract with you at all. - even if the level of care you saw of other children was bad (which I don't think not was) you have not mentioned a single thing that showed they didn't care for your child correctly, so your contract is not affected by the care of other children.

YANBU
Sounds like a baby mill. However, I suppose they could take you to small claims court, but would be worth any fine to get my child out.

Legally you need to argue as follows-

1. Under s.49 CRA15 there is an implied term in your contract that the services contracted for will be carried out with reasonable care and skill.
2. They have breached this term by doing [examples].
3. This breach goes to the heart of the contract and is so serious that it constitutes a repudiatory breach, which entitles you to terminate without notice (and to claim damages if, for example you've incurred extra costs as a result).

That's the legal argument. Whether your examples are actually serious enough that a court would treat this as repudiatory breach, I have no idea. Remember that you would have to prove that the breach occurred (on the balance of probabilities) which is hard to do if it is simply your word against theirs and you have no additional evidence- you need to show both that the things in question happened and that they constitute a serious breach of the term as to reasonable care and skill.

Agree with PP that it may be that nursery isn't the right choice for you.

The difficulty that the OP would have in arguing that the breach was serious enough to be treated as a repudiatory breach is that, after reportedly witnessing most of the relevant evidence for any breach during the two settling in sessions, she clearly didn't feel that the lack of care and/or skill was serious enough to prevent her from sending her child back for two further unaccompanied sessions. If she had genuinely seen evidence of a concerning lack of care, it is hard to believe that she would have been willing to risk this.

Yes, agreed.

I would have thought you would have a better legal case if

1. You had withdrawn after the settling in sessions

2. After a couple of months and witnessing more issues

I suspect that you waited to find somewhere else before withdrawing your child.

@rsarw we had something similar a few years ago. We paid a deposit and then in tbr settling in sessions it just wasn't safe. Babies running around with pencils, (might as well be holding a knife at 12 months old) kids picking up stuff and putting in their mouths and no one noticing. Water spilt and no one cleaning it up. Dirty toys (a giant spider crawled out of the train track toys) and little interaction from staff.

I asked for my deposit back and they said no. I took legal advice from my house insurance and they said that tbr nursery had broken the contract first by failing to provide a safe environment. I sent a before action letter and they returned my deposit pretty quickly.

It sounds like they have broken tbr contract first - I would go with that and hopefully they willl let it go .

@wot3va The difference being, of course, that you withdrew your child and did not then send him to sessions in an environment you believed was unsafe.

Hello, my query is with regard to my experience at my child's nursery. She attends a 38 week nursery and I gave them a notice of leaving two weeks after spring term started. They are asking us to pay ONE ENTIRE FULL TERMs NOTICE. Which seems only right. However, to my shock they want me to pay both spring and summer terms fees. The reason stated is since I didn't give the notice at the start of spring term it can't be counted as an entire term of notice served. Thus they need us to pay both spring and summer terms fees. Problem is the contract is very ambiguous. It says a full terms notice must be served in case of termination but doesn't mention what is the protocol if we serve it mid term. Is there any hope for me? Or am I bound by it?

Thanks in advance

You might be better starting your own thread. A term's notice is typically a Full Term , so can only be issued prior to the term starting to finish that term, otherwise it is as you describe , effective from the start of next term and you are liable to pay for both.

I agree - YANBU. As a nursery manager myself, I would not be asking you to pay the notice period.

If the manager/nursery is good they'd be too embarrassed to get you to pay. If they're not good they wouldn't want you dropping off for a couple of months and talking to the other parents about what you saw.

All the behaviour seems typical of the bad nurseries I've been in. They're focussed on tasks because it's obvious if they don't do them. Just being kind will only get spotted if a manager who cares is actually in the room.