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!!

Some nurseries ask staff to train unpaid on their days off so the staff there will may be doing it over the weekend and then back in on the Monday.

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

I don’t, no, in fact I have to log a minimum of 35 CPD hours a year to maintain professional accreditation, made up from lunchtime or after work talks.

I can’t say I know very many industries where employees are paid for training. Many times it’s people taking this own time to pay for qualifications.

No one should be working unpaid. Your boss is not treating you well.

Our son’s nursery also provided wraparound care for primary school children. We found they were charging for inset days but not coinciding these with the local primary - so they’d be shut on their inset days but also not need to provide care on school’s inset days, while still charging us for these days as well. A few of us parents got together and complained - we didn’t mind paying for the school inset days even though we didn’t need the childcare, but we did mind paying twice AND having to arrange alternative childcare on the days school was open but nursery/wraparound was having an inset day. They were taking the piss.

Evenings and weekends, they are running a business.

I’m not working for my boss I’m maintaining a professional accreditation, it’s standard across several professional industries.

I paid for 4 years of private nursery without a sodding inset day, they are taking the piss @Zombiefluff but I expect they will all be at it.

Our nursery paid overtime in the evenings and weekends for training and they also closed for a week at Easter and Christmas. They manage without inset days.

Yes it is a difficult sector to operate in, yes they work very hard and the pay is poor. But the people running them are not paupers. My friend does the accounts for several nurseries, they are not on the breadline. The same day out nursery announced it’s latest fee increase the owner turned up in an £85k car leased on the business. They don’t require any sympathy (unlike the staff).

😂😂😂😂😂
No. If you pay to have your ears syringed, you don’t pay unless the nurse is actually there to syringe your ears. Do you really think that’s what happens? You pay for the appointment and if they’re on training then you just lose out? 😂

I read what you wrote. You said nurse training is paid for from overhead costs not for individual session payments (i.e. the same way energy and insurance are paid for) - which would be perfectly reasonable. That’s what nurseries should do - and many do do.

The difference is:

1. Charging when no service is provided is charging for costs and profit, not just costs.
2. Charging when a service is not provided unfairly impacts parents of children in on that day or that time of the year, when all children benefit from the training.

I’ll ask again. Can you name any other situation where you pay per session for a service and still pay for that session when they refuse to provide the service?

Absolutely ridiculous. Check your contract. If this wasn't agreed or there's not a clause for it then it shouldn't be charged for.

Surely the other parents are also annoyed about it? Maybe get together and argue against it.

It’s telling I’ve used the nursery for 3 years and it’s never been a thing, but that it’s starting when the “funded” hours are extending. It’s just further proof that parents are the main ones being f’d over by these free hours. Our hourly fee has already gone up 45% in 3 years, plus all these additional costs now. I truly believe with the amount I’m now paying outside of the funded hours that the nursery is actually making a profit vs if the funded hours hadn’t been extended.

I do feel the OP has had a bit of a hard time here. My children are grown up now but I never had a situation when they were at nursery/ preschool when the setting was closed for training. I know this happens in schools - but have not encountered it in nurseries at all. Had to pay for child minder holidays - but never inset days. I’d be looking for another setting as that is a lot of leave to lose if you need to cover the days.

My kids go to two nurseries rated outstanding. Neither has ever had any inset days yet managed to be rated as outstanding. I'd look for another setting if I were you - or gather a group of fellow parents to request they change back to the previous approach.

Or they could do it in an inset day and not piss off their employees 🤷‍♀️

Childminders follow exactly the same EYFS as nurseries & they seem to manage without inset days.

In reality its probably to help their own staff manage childcare when their own children in local schools have inset days.

If you are on a funded term time only 30 hour place i think the funding paid matches school terms so typically assumes there are inset days.

Oh and how they train staff is they need to have enough staff to rota in training days without closing the whole nursery at once, if they are running as a business and want to offer the service customers need.

That's awful.

I work in a private nursery.
all training is done after work or on a Saturday.
it’s awful for the staff as sometimes we are there for 14 hours.
But 6 inset days is crazy and an absolute rip off

I hope they at least spread the training days over the week with none on Mondays. Monday users are in many nurseries already unfairly treated by having to pay for bank holidays when no care is given.

Yes this is nuts. Most nurseries train their staff in non-contact time by rotating staff, not closing the whole nursery.

That's true. The funded hours are properly funded. The parents who just take the "funded hours" are a drain on the nursery as a whole. Nurseries should be able to choose whether or not they offer it.

The nurseries are hardly struggling like some posters here seem to think.

I personally know two separate people who own nurseries and they both have huge houses in North London, both drive Teslas and their kids go to prestigious private schools,and they are on luxury holidays 5 times a year. They are also looking at purchasing more nurseries because it's so lucrative and the profit margins are great.

There is a common sense correlation between very high nursery costs that many people struggle to afford and profit.

Do you seriously think that the minimum wage workers and wholesale purchased food and same old toys and paid off site mortgage costs £100 per day per child? Nope.

It’s normal and would have been outlined in your contract with the nursery. Not the specific dates, but that they happen.

Doesn’t actually seem to be all that normal based on the comments!

Weekends, evenings,

The economy doesn't stop at 4pm

Haha 4pm - you really want training outside nursery times - well that means a morning session that finishes at 7am or at evening session that starts at 7pm. You really think workers should do a more that 12 hour shift to do their training? Plus stuff like H+S training or deep cleaning often take several hours so 7-10pm or 4-7am?