Nursery closing early Xmas eve and still paying

[purplehairrinse]

Aibu for being annoyed they are charging the whole day but we have to collect before 12?

I don’t even understand what you’re getting at here but your tone is so unpleasant.
Childcare workers are mostly undervalued in pay and status . Nurseries aren’t the big money maker you think , the overheads are brutal .
If you can reframe it as a payment to keep your child’s place , which it is essentially it might sit better with you .
The alternative is to find another provider .

The analogy is to schools, not hairdressers. Or extra-curricular sports clubs or stables or nannies. Nurseries do more than “provide a service”.

I feel sorry for nursery kids whose parents think they’re paying for a “service”. What a low bar for your child.

I think it’s fine, but you shouldn’t be charged. We have a business. Our employees have the whole week of Christmas off. They also leave at 12 every Friday (all year round).

But that’s a business decision. We pay for it from the business. We don’t expect our customers to subsidise those costs for us.

Ah, there we have it.

Is school childcare, too?

I always think this is cheeky. If the nursery wants to give a perk to their employees it should be at their cost, not the customers'.

No - school is education.

Regardless, you can't compare something you get for free with something you're paying through the nose for - (although I suspect MN will do their best).

Why are you bothered then if he wont be at nursery anyway?

Well they have to cover their staff's holidays somehow. 🤷‍♀️

They could structure payments differently and charge more per hour, would that be preferable?

Bottom line, nursery is expensive and there is little you can do beyond sucking it up.

It isn't right no. You pay for a service and once of the conditions with childcare is hours.
As to whether the work is hard, or staffing issues, whatever, it isn't what you paid for ! If they want to go home or cannot care for your child for the time charged, then close early, but don't charge.
It isn't a sort of voluntary service. You pay for it.

It is a service. It's a business providing a service. Just like a hairdresser, or nail salon, or dog walker.

It's not something special just because there are children involved.

You pay via your taxes.

I would personally prefer to pay more per hour to cover holidays, time off etc.

It makes things more transparent.

And as such you can take or leave the terms.

No one is forcing the OP to have her child in this nursery.

I think it matters exactly how the payment you make is calculated.

Do you pay per day or per hour, so that each month’s bill flexes up and down depending on Bank Holidays, exactly where weekends fall, exact number of days per month etc? Or if per hour, those children booked in until 5 pay less per month than those attending until 6?

(My children’s after school club billed like this - paid only for days and hours booked, variable per month)

If that is the case, then asking you to pay a full day / full number of hours for a day when the nursery is closed is unreasonable, and you should subtract that amount from what you are billed.

On the other hand, if you pay 12 identical monthly instalments, or 3 termly or 6 half termly, then that seems to me to be reasonable - you are paying ‘the annual cost of the use of nursery when it is open’, divided into equal instalments for convenience, and that annual charge will be for ‘when nursery is normally open’, taking into account BH and other occasional closures or reduced hours.

Not the same thing though, is it?

Well you might. Would all the other parents? I expect the nursery understands that better than you do. Anyway. Their business, their call.

Many people have no choice - we don't all live in areas with multiple nurseries with multiple sets of terms.

The bottom line is no one works for free. They all need paying somehow.

Why ask if you're just going to give a sneery response?

Tough shit then 🤷‍♀️

Nobody is saying otherwise 🙄

If this is very short notice closure, causing additional expense for everyone who was relying on the service for the usual hours, you could ask them to reconsider?

No one is forcing anyone to use this service. They set the terms. You decide whether to buy in or not. That's how private sector services work.

It must be nice to live in your black and white world.

Except you're objecting to how they go about paying their staff. Fine, take your business elsewhere if you feel so strongly.