To find nurseries charging on bank holidays unfair?

[Revoltingpheasants]

Is it just me who finds the system at most nurseries so unfair and frustrating? DD attends on Mondays and Fridays which means that for the Easter holiday she will only go once at the start of the holiday and once at the end.

It seems so unfair as it would be different if she attended Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Private workplaces still need to pay staff on holidays like bank holidays, so you either get “charged” for those days - or they’ll have to up the rate on other days to cover it.

Unless you work on bank holidays then what’s the issue? Nurseries have costs that still have to be paid eg staff costs.

I sent DC to a nursery attached to a school - not a school nursery, it had provision from 0 months - 4 years but it was linked to the academy. They charged extra for provision during school holidays! Just really needed a nursery place and that was the only one with space at the time.

It's always been the way a d would have been in T and Cs

Well presumably you also want paying for the Monday and Friday you're not at work in the same way the staff do.

It's very obvious why they still charge and will have been made clear to you at the time of enrolling her in the nursery.

Because statutorily nursery staff have to be paid for bank holidays, just like the rent and utilities.

Unless they hid their Ts&Cs from you before you signed up, they can do what they like. No one forced you to choose that nursery or to choose Mon & Fri as your child's nursery days. Nursery employees still need to eat the same amount of food, pay the same amount of rent & bills etc in weeks with a bank holiday so they need their income to be the same every week. Except for a fractional difference for lighting and heating the costs of running the building are the same in week ordinary weeks and bank holiday weeks. But nursery that charges differently for different cuatomers depending on what their specific weekday choices are and how many bank holidays fall on those days is going to have to do a lot more ccomplex accounting than a nursery that keeps it simple, and that will lead to higher staffing costs raising prices for everyone. Why should all the other nursery customers have to pay more just to facilitate the tiny number of customers that choose such an unusual pattern?

The thing with the payment of staff is that this should be a cost that’s shared evenly amongst clients, not only the clients who use it Mondays (mostly.) I can’t really think of any other setting where this happens. I don’t begrudge the staff the day off; that’s not what I’m saying.

Even if they were "free" and not charged for, you'd still get end up paying for it another way because the overheads associated with that "free" day would be accounted for in their overall pricing structure.

mine shuts at Xmas for 2 weeks and a week at Easter and we still pay 🤷‍♀️

it is what it is - written in the ts and cs and made very clear several times before you join

place is always full - wait list long and people dying to get a place - so I guess they can do what they want !

might feel unfair but what can you do about it

But that at least would be shared and not solely on the Monday (and to a lesser extent Friday) children.

This is always weird to me as our nursery doesn’t close for bank holidays in the first place. They are open every weekday bar two weeks at Christmas (we don’t pay for those weeks although obviously it’s covered by the fees generally). Both mine have done Mondays and Fridays so this would be very annoying! And I don’t ‘get’ bank holidays either, those days are added to my holiday allowance for me to take when I choose, same as for the nursery staff.

It would make more sense IMO for the fees for all kids to cover the costs of bank holidays and then not charge individuals for days the nursery isn’t open.

I know what you’re saying and agree with you.

I can see what you mean but it’s been this way for a very long time and you knew it’d be the case when you picked your days, no point being annoyed by it.

One reason monday and Friday were my days off when I had little kids

It's disgusting

we don't charge closed days

nurseries make staff use holidays so they don't have wages to pay on those days, it's really unfair in my opinion!

no other business charges for a service that isn't available!

It would be ideal if I had total choice and autonomy over those days but I don’t unfortunately - they are DHs WFH days! So I work then because he’s away the rest of the week and we have a school aged child.

I think the Easter one really does sting because I’m being hit twice - once can just about swallow but twice feels almost personal 😂

Yes, it’s annoying. Our son used to do Mondays and Fridays and we felt the same. But it’s just how it works, they still have to pay staff for bank holidays.

If they didn’t do it this way, they’d be putting up fees for everyone to cover the expenses. Which would be fairer, but would impact more people (Mondays and Fridays are the least busy days at most nurseries as anyone working part time tends to avoid one or both).

Presumably you work Monday and Friday. Will you get holiday pay for Easter Monday and Good Friday?

Most businesses cover operating costs that don't generate income (like holiday pay, admin, stationery etc.) by adding a margin to the direct costs when they charge, which then spreads those costs across their customers according to use. Nurseries for some reason don't include public holidays in that margin.
Since public holidays in the UK disproportionately fall on Mondays, this impacts some customers more than others, and it's not unreasonable for them to be annoyed about being charged for services they don't receive when other families aren't.
After all, busy nurseries often offer places only for particular days when you join, depending on when which days they have space, so sometimes it's not even the parents' choice to use Monday!

@Soontobe60 I’m not proposing that they open, or that they don’t pay the staff for those days. My annoyance is around the fact that only the people who use those days have to pay for something that they don’t actually receive, rather than petulantly saying the staff shouldn’t have the day off.

It would be fairer to spread the cost of the closure amongst all parents, not only the Monday ones. That, or offer days in lieu.

And it is a bit annoying because it totals five days for us across the year - Easter Monday, Good Friday, two May bank holidays and the August one.

So it is a lot. And while in an ideal world I would not have to use Mondays the fact is that a) if everyone did that the nursery would be in a difficult position! and b) life just isn’t that straightforward: I’m very curtailed in both how much I can work and when I can work at the moment and I know I’m not alone!

What days does you DC attend nursery ? Our nursery used to allow us to swap to a different day when there was a bank holiday but it was first come first serve.

I think that would be the fairest solution @lalalalalala2024 , to be honest. It would be enormously helpful if I could break up the Easter holiday with a couple of nursery days! But they don’t offer it; I really think they should, though.

To be fair, when Christmas and Boxing Day fall on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays you get the benefit of other people still having to pay for those days.