Nursery e-mails me 5 pm...

[Friendshipissue]

To announce that they are closing the room DS is attending with immediate effect. No advance notice or indication. Just a brief note about staffing challenges, recruitment issues and how sorry they are.
I'm really sorry childcare providers are struggling I really am because of the shitty circumstances they are left in.
I don't know what to expect from this thread apart from getting it off my chest. I wish we had a bit more notice to at least to get into waiting lists, organize our meetings with DH, cancel our medical appointments etc.

coz they're flush with resource of course ....

Government urgently needs to get a grip on this

This is the same government that decided it was more important to tackle Brexit than the UKs response to a global pandemic.

Not quite sure what you are expecting ? Thoughts and prayers probably.

No it's likely that the contract has language around reasonable notice, reasonable steps etc.

I'm very sorry you have been put in such a stressful position OP, but people are rightly pointing out that this is the tip of an iceberg.
I left my nursery job last week because I simply can't afford to do it anymore. As an experienced L3 senior practitioner and SENDCo I earned less than 22k for at least a 40 hour week and tons of stress and responsibility.
I love working in early years and once I have sold my house and moved 200 miles north where I can buy a smaller house mortgage free I hope to return to it in some capacity. Qualified practitioners, especially in the Southeast are leaving in droves for the same reasons as me but it's not making the headlines like nurses and teachers (who I totally support) because we are not unionised so can't strike to get the crisis recognised.
It needs parents to lobby their MPs for a proper debate about early years provision before the whole sector collapses.

No practical help but more sympathy from me, OP. This happened to a nursery near us but in that case the whole setting was closed. The staff were told at 2pm and the parents at 3pm. It was awful.

OMG, my dc are teens now, but that would be my worst nightmare!

A wrap around club my dc attended went bust because they had so many parents not pay their bills, that they could not pay their staff.

Or they can’t pay the wages, rent, electricity.
Really bad giving no notice.

Hi work at a nursery, we've had had to close early a few times as no staff to cover till 6. Our deputy manager and manager both have left in the last few months. Staff leaving every other month. People not coming for interviews. It's my daughter's sports day tomorrow and I won't be able to attend for the first time in 4 years as there's nobody to cover me. It's actually really really bad. ...

Contracts like this always have clauses about emergency closure due to unforeseen or unavoidable causes.

Do you pay fees in advance, in which case they have already been paid for a service they are not providing to you so whilst I’d expect notice, you must also be a refund?
If short of staff, surely they could reorganise the staff they have and perhaps take on extra help as well as working with all parents to reduce their child’s hours rather than place the whole burden on one lot of parents.
Funded place will have already been paid for by the government so this money should also be returned.
Really poor management of a business but not sure what you can do!

Hi, I work in a nursery and it is so unbelievablely stressful. The sector is massively under staffed because of the poor pay. It's really hard work at the minute.
I'm really sorry this has happened. It's such a shame.

Think with the free Nursery provision parents are signing their children up for nursery or increasing their hours i think nursery owners are finding it hard to get more staff to cope with the ratios/numbers. As an ex-nursery nurse we had to cope with more children than we had staff for and just had to get on with it - some of the nurseries I e worked in were small - only 2 rooms and about 10 members of staff or less. Plus with NMW/Real Living Wage going up owners are feeling pinch.

The owners of the hall that our local preschool was using put its rent up massively overnight and made the business simply unviable to run-its not always something the preschools can see coming

This recently happened to me with my child who has asd. We had been notified that they were closing in July so wasn't too stressed about it but then a few weeks later they closed my child's room with immediate effect. My understanding was they had issues with finances but also staffing problems. Since then I've not secured a new setting. I contacted several places including 1 which said they had spaces and were going to contact me back to answer questions and send application form but 3 days later a fellow parent said she went to collect her children and all parents were told they were closing with immediate effect. I'm aware of 2 other places closing nearby and everywhere is full. Its absolutely going to get worse especially with the new funding scheme. Unless the government pays the going rate many more places will close.

I work in a nursery and am also a mum so i understand your frustration and I know it's hard with such little notice for parents.
Unfortunately sometimes nursery staff have no option but to give short notice as we have strict staffing levels we must adhere to and we are not always notified of staff absence until late.
We are not legally allowed to open without adequate staff to look after the children even if we wanted to or was over even by one child.
They may have had a staff hand notice in at the end of the working day and then they know they will be unable to open for you tomorrow.

The answer is simple. A lot of parents do not pay fees! That was a problem in my child's nursery. They constantly messaged about paying fees etc.

This happened to us though the nursery was changing the ages that they provided care for. We were given 7 months notice.

So sorry this happened @Friendshipissue

I've heard about this happening more and more recently. Shit for you, shit for the nursery owners and the remaining staff.

Oh dear, you don't have a clue do you

How would they get away with not paying fees?

Thank you for all your kind messages.
We are in a very fortunate situation with our jobs - I work from home and DH has a very understanding and family friendly employer, so we reshuffled our core hours temporarily to find a solution.
At the same time we are frantically looking for a new nursery.
I recognise how fortunate we are with our jobs, but how about single parents or people who get paid on a contract basis - they would lose out on income because of this, and times are hard for everyone...

Oooo I wonder if we're in the same area. We got an email yesterday evening too!

Our after school club did this a while back. Email went out on a Friday saying they would not be reopening the following week. I have had to change jobs and work fewer hours because the childcare I need does not exist.

The same happened to my sister. She was employed as a nursery nurse at a nearby nursery and had over 10 years service there. The setting was sold to a nursery group during covid. New owners shut the doors during the following summer holidays. Staff and parents told by email that setting would close for good at the end of the day so to collect any belongings. Sister was term-time only so wasn't in, but also wasn't nearby to collect belongings. Company tried to claim she wasn't TUPE over and told Government she wasn't entitled to redundancy.
I felt so angry for all the staff and parents. People had already paid in full for the following month.. not sure if they got their money back.

In my setting when we had to close a room at short notice. We combined rooms and asked parents in other rooms if they were able to volunteer to have their children off on that day in order to give those who needed it, just untill they could fine an alternative. (As some parents weren't working but just needed that time for themselves) this worked out fine and we were able to get spaces for those that really needed it.