To say nursery should have given more notice?

[Bluey124]

Informed that the hours will be dropped from 7.30AM-6.30PM to 8AM-5PM.
From next week.
Absolutely screwed.

Ideally yes they should absolutely. Is there a reason for it though? Sudden staff leaving or anything?

What? That's crazy with no notice!

Most people cannot pick up at 5 if they work till 5 / 5:30

I assume it’s staffing related but that’s totally unacceptable!

Lack of qualified staff apparently as they are not able to meet legal guidelines.

Should definitely have given more notice if possible, it's probably a month in your contract.

But if someone has suddenly quit, there is probably not much they can do. There's a huge recruitment crisis in early years especially for qualified staff.
Several nurseries near me have had NO applicants for recent roles.

I assume they have desperately trying to avoid this but awful for the parents too.

The will wish they could have given more notice (or not had to do it at all)

Chances are they will lose a lot of children because of it and ultimately close down if they cannot recruit staff soon to up the hours again.

YANBU to think it, but they already know it!

Horrible. I hope you can sort it out somehow.

Ours gave us similar notice that hours were dropped from 8-6 to 1-6 (also a staffing crisis). You have my sympathies!

If you can find alternate provision, I would argue that you have no ongoing financial obligation to the nursery. They changed the terms of service so dramatically that they effectively stopped providing the service. You shouldn’t be held to a contractual notice period.

I know you likely can’t find alternative care in such short notice. Just if you can, I wouldn’t worry about paying for two places.

Is it temporary or a permanent thing?

I'd have had no choice but to change nursery if this happened when DD was little.

I assume they're dropping the fees to reflect the change though I doubt it will make much difference to them overall as parents will vote woth their feet.

YANBU OP. I'd have been sunk

You can only change nursery if you can find another nursery with enough staff to have spaces and offer extended hours.

What's your working hours op? And also your DH if you have one? Or the child's dad?

Holy shit I doubt you'll be the only one screwed so you'll also have the added stress of trying to scramble a new place whilst others do the same.

Is this a temporary measure? I can appreciate they are struggling with staff but I'd imagine most parents wouldn't be able to accommodate those hours so will be looking to move.

Unfortunately a lot of childcare services are really struggling, there's a huge recruitment crisis. Lots went elsewhere during the covid closures and never came back.

I suspect that they have no choice

Yanbu

I hope that they are waving notice period fees.

if other parents take their kids out and go somewhere else is there any chance they will have enough staff to own longer hours again for less children??

can you offer any staff ££ to bring your kids home and watch them til 7ish? They might be grateful for extra cash?

sympathies, this is the stuff of nightmares.

This is dreadful OP, a lot of people will be rightly fecked.