Nursery room regularly closely or delaying entry

[Tobebythesea]

Hello. I wanted to see if anyone else is experiencing this. My child is 2 and attends one of the big name nursery groups. Since moving up to his current room at nursery two months ago, we have received on seven separate occasions, texts in the morning stating that due to staff shortages, not to bring your child in until 9am or not at all.

This is obviously far from ideal but unavoidable due to legal minimum staff requirements. We have been mostly WFH up until this point but come September, this will change (and for a lot of other people) and I’m worried. I’ve expressed concern to Head Office but got a bog standard cut and paste response about legal requirements which I understand.

I know recruitment in this area was challenging before Covid and dire now but I feel trapped in a unreliable situation. In our area you cannot easily change childcare due to demand. Even if we could change provider, I wonder if the situation would just be the same there. Has anyone else been experiencing something similar?

*Closing

Yikes! That is completely unacceptable in my view. My daughter has been in daycare for 2.5 years and that thankfully hasn’t happened to us a single time. It never even occurred to me as something that COULD happen. When we were debating daycare vs nanny, the reliability of daycare was one of the main things that persuaded us in its favour!

I'm lucky that we have had this on the same day but sometimes we've had a day's notice that nursery will be closing early- a night mare to sort out last minute changes at work!
To me this is a breach of contract and should be good reason to leave but I'm sure there is some crafty wording somewhere that allows them to get away with it.

I had two children in nursery for a total of 6 years and this never happened to me. Are they still expecting you to pay full fees? I'm a teacher and couldn't just not come in at the last minute because the nursery said so. Our nursery used to have bank staff who would come in if there were shortages, or use agency staff.

Are there any other options nearby? I would seriously consider leaving over this.

Many places near us (not sure about childcare as no longer need it) are having to close/change hours due to staff shortages. I assume down to COVID. Absolutely rife here at the moment especially among younger age groups. So assume this is the issue with your nursery. I assume when they are asking you to come in later, they are desperately trying to find additional agency staff etc so they can make up the ratios.

I've had two children in childcare for three years. I've never had this. Ours is a nursery with several branches in the county, but not a big name nationwide.
Our nursery have general 'floating' staff to cover absences/delays etc.
If our nursery was unreliable in that way, I'd be taking my child out and moving them somewhere reliable.

I’ve worked in nurseries for over 20 years and have never ever worked anywhere that asked parents not to bring their children in
Where I work we have extra staff who are not included in ratio so we are covered in the event of staff illness or having to self isolate or care for family members
I don’t think our parents would be happy if we didn’t provide the care they were paying for. Even during lockdown we were open
I would complain and very loudly, that's an awful way to treat customers

@insancerre some areas are now being hit much harder with cases than they were early in the pandemic. Some areas near me are now twice the national level, whereas before they didn't really register at all, so it might be that they have been caught being complacent, or they genuinely can't get staff

@toomuchlaundry
I get that
But 7 times in 2 months is pretty poor organisation

I'm guessing if recruitment is hard too, then it is a bit of a perfect storm situation

They need bank staff not closing! That's terrible!

I wonder if they are struggling due to the massive shortage of trained early years staff. I know several nursery managers who dread a level 3 member of staff handing their notice in as they just can not replace them. Unfortunately, government funding is so poor and the government/council make it so hard for settings to make enough money, settings are struggling to pay qualified staff the rates they deserve, the difference in pay between a level 2 and 3 is tiny, yet the difference in responsibility is massive.

If the setting do not have enough level 3s, they can not open.

Add in covid to that problem, it’s no wonder settings are struggling.

Are they advertising for staff? (Check local job pages?) or are they blaming covid? I would want to know why they are struggling for staff, are they bad employers And staff leave due to bullying in the workplace or similar or have they just been unlucky with See Arab staff getting pregnant/retiring All at the same time? (Unlucky for management/business plans I mean, obviously lovely for the staff).