Paid nursery inset days

[Zombiefluff]

So yesterday our private nursery announced 6 inset days in their calendar from 1st of September. This is a paid, private full time nursery, not linked to a school.

I currently pay about 2k for a 1 year old with 15 hours and 1k for a 3 year old with 30.
Bank holidays are obviously paid for and now 6 additional inset days out of nowhere.
AIBU it is this nuts?
If I wanted to deal with inset days and random time off I would do a school nursery!!

Those 3 comments are saying different things.
You clearly have some weird vendetta here, the vast majority of parents with babies and toddlers pay for childcare and it’s has literally nothing to do with private schooling. No idea why you’re repeatedly bringing that up.

But you're still making a false link between someone using a private nursery and private school. There's no connection. Anyone who uses a nursery that isn't one attached to a school is using a private nursery and it doesn't come with any suggestion they are planning to send the child to private school.

OP I'd be annoyed too. I get paying bank holidays, that's fine and part of the deal but closing for 6 extra days means finding 6 more days of childcare as they are otherwise normal working days

This is frustrating, and you’re well within your right to be annoyed about it. No one is making you send your child there, so if you’re not happy with their policies and the fees, choose another nursery?!

None of the nurseries I used for any of my kids had Inset days until DD, who's at a school nursery, and they don't charge us anything. Inset days are a school thing. You certainly shouldn't be funding these "Inset" days and having to cover the childcare yourself for the privilege, that's a total joke.

Training days are presumably to teach their staff things they need to know in order to be caring for/teaching your children, therefore they have to do them to remain open. If they can't charge for them, then they can't afford to pay the staff to do them, then how do they continue to care for and teach your child?

Mine doesn't have inset days. Just bank holidays and other holidays. That seems like too many. YANBU.

You expect that many inset days with school. It is expected. Not at a non school nursery though.

I would be furious! Nursery is already SO expensive so to pay for days I am looking after my own kid and not working or paying twice for alternative childcare would be extremely frustrating. I pay about £75 per day for my DD so that’s £450 per year down the drain for the inset days.

Ignore all the pps saying they need to train staff and deep clean etc etc - do it outside the opening hours or train staff in shifts to cover the childcare too and deep clean at night/weekends! If my nursery can manage without inset days and be perfectly clean with great staff and yours did for the last 3 years, there must be a way yours can going forward!

Likely its yet another way to try and top up their income because the government doesn’t properly subsidise nurseries and the free hours they offer are underfunded.

Either way you'll get charged the cost.

Nurseries that send staff on training at weekends - staff need time back in lieu so cover is added. This will be factored into business cost so you will be paying for it.

Nurseries that send staff on training during working hours - staff cover is needed so again this will be factored into business costs and you will be paying for it.

Nurseries that have insets - no cover needed but closure needed. You pay for it.

Nurseries that have insets that are 'not paid for'. Costs are factored into daily rates to cover this absence.

Any way they do it your child benefits. Having staff that are qualified in first aid, food hygiene, safeguarding, curriculum updates etc all impact on your child.

I'd be really annoyed by this. We used two different nurseries for DS, neither of which had an inset day. They did very occasionally ask us to pick up by 5pm for parents evening or for a twilight training. One of closed for deep cleaning on one day because nearly every child and half the staff came down with a vomiting bug in the space of a morning.

I'd be concerned about something going on if they suddenly need 6 full days of training that required a nursery closure.

It is normal to have lots of training through the year. You just don't usually see it as in some settings they work over the weekend and have no break to ensure it is done.

That is more of a concern than staff being paid to train and have rest days as required by law.

@Fetaface Any way they do it your child benefits. Having staff that are qualified in first aid, food hygiene, safeguarding, curriculum updates etc all impact on your child.

This justification is only used for childcare though, in no other sector is the customer expected to pay extra and directly for the staff to have basic training like health and safety and safeguarding on top of the service charge.
It just seems utterly crazy to charge someone £X per month and then charge additional days on top when not only do you need to pay the nursery fee but also lose out on pay from work.

This is pretty common. Six is a lot in my experience - ours has just four and they give a lot of notice. We take leave or juggle between us xx

Do you apply this logic to any other job/service?

If you had a cleaning company send a cleaner and they said “your cleaner isn’t coming this week because she’s on training but you still need to pay” would you go “yeah, that’s fair, don’t want an untrained cleaner”?

If you had a dog walker and they said “sorry, not coming, I’m going on my annual dog training course, you still have to pay” then that’d fine?

If you paid to have your hair cut and were told that your appointment is cancelled but you have to pay anyway because your hairdresser is training, you’d be ok?

A private tutor? Nail tech? Window cleaner?

Can you name any other profession where you pay per session where you’re still expected to pay when they don’t provide the service? Everyone one of them still needs paying by an employer, none of those businesses charge for non-performance.

I’ve realised days I will now pay for full service while nursery is closed amounts to 20 on an average year. That’s the equivalent of a full time month!

None of the private nurseries I used had inset days. Yes the school nursery did but that was to be expected.

and especially annoying if this hasn’t been the approach up until now.

You are paying for a service. You are paying to have trained staff care for your kids. If you dont value the importance of training then by all means that is your entitlement. If you think it is bad to pay to have staff working for you then Jesus Christ no wonder it is so low pay when people dont appreciate they are caring for peoples most valuable thing but are treated as if they shouldn't get a scrap of money for that.

All workers are entitled to pay when they work. It isnt new or unique to nurseries. If they dont pay them then they will get fined for not paying NMW to staff. Not sure why we think staff should work for nothing.

Childcare and education is always the same. People think they can snap fingers and staff do as they are told for no money. Absolutely not.

It’s vitally important that nurses are trained but if I pay to have my ear syringed then I expect to have them actually syringed, not have the nurse off on training.

It’s vitally important that dentists are trained but if I get charged for a check up, I expect my dentist there and not on training.

Swimming instructors, security guards, football coaches all need to be trained - none of them charge for a session that they won’t actually provide.

No one, literally not one person, has not “valued” training. The complaint isn’t that they’re trained 🙄 The problem is saying “we charge £X per session and still charge £X even if we refuse to do the session”.

Name any other service where you pay per session and still have to pay if you don’t get a session. Any. Just one will do.

You pay for the nurses to have their training and for your ears waxing! You pay your taxes, right? That money goes to pay for additional training for nurses during the course of the year.

So ask the gov for some tax back now you are pissed you had to pay for your ears waxing AND training! Gutted for you mate!

How do you propose the nursery pay the staff if they cannot use client's money? Ask the government? Have a fun day and ask parent to donate?

They can take it out of profits which are......guess what? Profits from parents money!

So, no, you can’t provide one single other example of this practice? Not one. Cool.

Is this new...dd never had a day off nursery due to onset and she was there for 3 and a half years...ok part time but still

No actually childcare is the anomaly here.
I pay for a service I’m not getting.
I don’t expect to pay towards my architect’s degree on top of the fee for their service, nor do i pay on top of my meal for the staff to complete food safety training.
It’s not normal in any other industry to pay for 20 days of full service (only when you are signed up to Mondays by the way!) and not receive anything.

I didn’t know this about not allocating free hours on those days - Thankyou for bringing that up.

Our nursery is a small chain and they have 5 inset days spread through the year, on different days of the week. I get all the people saying “when do you expect them to do training etc?”, BUT, I have friends with kids in other very good nurseries that don’t have inset days. So how do some nurseries manage it and others don’t?

I don’t think you’re being unreasonable. I work in a customer facing role and we don’t shut to manage our staff training, we work around our customers. There must be other ways to make it work in a nursery setting?

Having said that, I’ve never worked in a nursery and understand there may be a very good reason that I haven’t considered. Very happy to hear and learn!

We pay for inset days. All the staff seem happy, the nursery doesn't have a high turnover of staff, they are well trained. It is what it is! Good thing imo.

Do you get paid to do training for your job? Then so should nursery staff - hence the need to pay for that day.

I did! I used your ear waxing one! You pay for the NHS service. Some days that nurse you want is not in as they are on training. You paid for that so cannot attend when you want. You have to attend a different day. You paid for both the training and the ear waxing. Did you not read what I wrote?

Not my fault if you didn't understand. So yes I gave one. Cool.