Nursery are threatening to remove my child as I questioned fees

[Girlmum1984]

My daughter turns 3 in a few weeks and we will be able to claim 30 free hours. When this happens, my consumables fee will increase from £12 a day to £29. have questioned this with management and asked for a breakdown of what this fee includes. They have listed food, nappies etc as well as a few activities (baking, PE classes, music classes). The activities listed take place twice month and so far haven’t been on the day that my child attends. All of this would never add up to £29 daily.

Unsatisfied with the response, I emailed the local council to understand how consumables fees can be issued to parents and it there were any regulations. As a result, they contacted the nursery manager and investigated. They were satisfied with the findings and basically said there are no regulations they need to follow when it comes to consumables fees and they can charge what they like. Annoying, but fine.
I have now had an official looking email from my nursery to say I have impacted the staffs mental health by making this enquiry and they are going to discuss whether our contact will be terminated as a result!
I’ve never had any issues with staff in the past and we’ve always been on friendly terms. My daughter enjoys the setting and the care they provide isn’t in question.

can they kick her out as their manager has an issue with me contacting the council about them? Thanks

You could try clarifying that it was the council’s and government’s policy that you were questioning, depending how you worded your query.

Well compared to the price you'd pay without the funded hours it's not a lot.

Now that is a fair point. It is badly described and people like the OP who don't do their research, fall for it.

It's not meant to be free hours.

I'm sure you won't find a single person working in childcare/early years education who disagreed with you that the Government shouldn't call them free hours but as I said just because they do doesn't mean the hours are free.

The age old MN quote: you sound like hard work .

I think it's completely petty of them, OP, and you were not in the wrong to question a large rise, but yes they can legally do it.

Contrary to other posters, I don’t think you’re being unreasonable OP. If you ever see a charge you aren’t familiar with on any invoice, of course you should query it. You’d have to be a braindead idiot not to. You don’t just blindly pay hundreds of pounds a month because you don’t want to ruffle feathers. It could have been a mistake at their end.

It’s a completely valid question, and the nursery should have answered in a composed and professional way. “Impacted the staffs mental health by making this enquiry” is absolutely absurd.

Unfortunately I’ve found staff at my child’s nursery to be a bit like this too (petty, immature, unprofessional).

Can't think of any other circumstance where it would be frowned upon to question where 600 quid a month was going. For already funded hours..??

I completely agree. As a lawyer I'd also have challenged it.

Some people get all huffy about someone being politely assertive.

Are you really surprised they're threatening to deregister your child?
You've just trashed your relationship with them

You can also leave them a Google review, of course.

I'd be worried about anyone looking after my children who had a dislike for me.

Saying what I queried the fees and they responded politely and in detail outlining them but I thought they were lying so I got the council to investigate them?

Yabu.

There's no way you didn't know that the government funding for the free hours doesn't cover them, no way whatsoever

So your email was purely designed to get them in trouble.

I run a business op, I have 'sorry I am fully booked' ready for customers who I sense will be more trouble than others.

I also thought it was a lot. If you can afford to drop hours for a school nursery it will be a LOT cheaper. Depends what hours you work though.

I think questioning it is ok... but contacting the council about it is quite a big escalation isn’t it.

If you really just wanted some input from the council why did you inform them of which nursery you're using? You did it because you hoped that they'd get some sort of comeback from the council.

Like others have said you have shot yourself in the foot and this is on you.

How would you feel if someone did this to you? There are proper ways of handling things and throwing your toys out by going over their heads to the council is disrespectful and entitled.

You need to speak to the nursery manager directly and apologise and say you want to stay. Maybe in future yiu will consider your actions and how they make others feel and the consequences of your actions on your daughter.

£29 a day is extortionate! My sons nursery was £7.50 a half day and £11 a full day, and it wasn't a cheap nursery. These rates would've cost me an EXTRA £360 a month so I'd be questioning it too. I can see lots of people disagree though.

Also OP - where do you think the money comes from to fund the difference, if not the parents of that child?

Fees for young children (and unfunded children) just go up and up - should those parents be paying even more to subsidise your child? Or should you?

It quite clearly needs to be the latter.

Saying this I wouldn't have gone straight to the council. That's not very cool.

Whether its a "reasonable" charge depends on how long the day is, whether its time term or year round, what the food is like, what the cost for an unfunded child is...

However you need to trust your childcare, Nd they need to trust you. You've shown you don't trust them basically.

They are a business, they can refuse you service.
Unfair and shame its impacting your child but did you think they would thank you for reporting them to The Council?

I don't know much about this but I feel like increasing a consumables fee isn't the way to do it when the money is clearly not for consumables and causes confusion. It also means they're down on money should their consumables costs actually increase. Surely unfunded children are also paying a consumables cost, so then how do you justify charging them less for it, or are unfunded children just paying for funded children as well.

Can't they list it separately as a service charge or maintenance cost or something generic?