Paying notice period at nursery when they set terms on continued attendance

[FacePalm123]

Hi, looking for advice about a situation with nursery.

There's a long back-story but in brief I raised concerns about them using a nappy on my (dry day and night at home) child without my permission. They responded with reference to a "regression" that has occurred recently at nursery (I had noticed some days of several wet pants - with dry days in between - and had asked staff at handover if all was ok and they didn't raise any concerns then).

Anyway, as part of their response to my complaint they said that they would only allow DD to return if she came in nappies full-time. If we were not happy with this they said we should terminate the contract.

Now, termination of contract according to the nurseries T&Cs carries with it a 4-week notice period (and associated fees). What I would like to know is whether this still applies in a circumstance where they have set additional terms on my DD coming to nursery? I.e. it was not the case that I, unprompted, chose to take her out but rather that they gave me the choice between sending her in wearing nappies or terminating.

Well, with the MASSIVE caveat that I have no legal qualifications whatsoever, I would have thought that they would be on dodgy ground pursuing you for fees when they had imposed conditions that were 'not reasonable'.

Is the Manager, the owner ? Or is there someone higher you can raise the issue with ? I would go to the local authority and ask them if they knew that the Nursery were trying to impose such a condition.

I mean, if you have been using a Nursery, and you take them out with immediate effect, where will they then go ?

You don’t say how old dd is, but potty training is a standard service offered by nurseries so refusing to deal with a dc that has already been trained would seem unusual.

@OneEpisode DD is 22 months which is on the "young" end. On the other hand she just woke up reluctantly from a deep sleep and requested the potty so... yeah, she knows her body and knows it goes in the potty.

You might want to bump the thread in the morning for more legal bods and check this nurseries t&cs, eg if if specifies when potty training happens, but in the real world giving a dc of that age access to a potty seems a reasonable thing for a nursery to offer. In which case their conditions are surely unreasonable?

I would flip it around.

Continue to send your DD to nursery without nappies. If they want her to stop coming they have to terminate the contract.

@OneEpisode

Thanks for the advice re. bumping.

Their T and C's don't say anything about potty training. They sent me their nappy be toileting policy yesterday (which was undated, and which when I looked at the document info was only created yesterday...) and claimed this had been available to request at any time. One bit from the document which manager repeated was that training was primarily the responsibility of the parents not the nursery (which it has been for us, but I see no way we can teach her to be dry at nursery if they make her wear a nappy - it goes against everything I've read about potty training!)

I have no advice but how awful of them and I really hope this all goes your way. How confusing for your poor daughter.

which it has been for us, but I see no way we can teach her to be dry at nursery if they make her wear a nappy - it goes against everything I've read about potty training

How is she with the potty outside of the home in general? What the nursery is saying is that bar the occasional accident they should be reliably potty trained or in nappies, not in-between where having fairly regular accidents and it requires additional 'training' from them. If she is fully trained then she wouldn't be having them, unless there's something amiss at nursery. Is she maybe not as confident telling them when she needs to go? Distracted by playing (which can be common)?

This is a nursery not a school. In between would be quite reasonable for a nursery, surely? But this dc isn’t in between, they are trained, and the nursery saw they were trained and then something happened “to regress”. Perhaps staff change and less attentive?

My dd was dry day and night at around that age (well before her 2nd birthday) and I would never have put her back in nappies although accidents could happen as she couldn’t hang on too long.

So I wonder if the nursery can’t cope with the supervision needed to avoid accidents and have decided it’s better for them for her to be in nappies.

Is she as good at using the potty when she’s busy and playing?

I’d get some pull-ups and send her in them as a compromise. If she’s nailed potty training she won’t use them for long. If she hasn’t then they will be useful.

Thanks to everyone for the responses!

I didn't include the full story because it's a complicated mess and I'm really just looking for advice on whether, legally, they could pursue us for the fees for 4-week notice period or whether we wouldn't be within our rights to refuse to pay, since they effectively added extra terms to her attendance. I'd be really grateful for any legal advice on this!

She is certainly not going back because whatever the reasons the situation is the result of a failure of communication on their part and it has damaged our trust.

The terms they are imposing aren’t that onerous. If she keeps wetting herself then it’s reasonable for them to say she needs to wear nappies / pull-ups in a room with numerous other children and H&S considerations. You’re choosing not to comply with their request and choosing to withdraw her.

I assume you paid a deposit - they will likely keep that or take you to the small claims court if there’s no deposit to keep.

@LittleBearPad I'd agree if she'd been consistently wet at nursery since she started potty training in January. However after the first couple of weeks she was doing really well and by their reports taking herself to the potty independently. A couple of weeks things started to go very odd, only in the nursery setting, and I gave nursery staff lots of opportunities at handover to talk about it but they said they weren't worried. Now they've turned around and set these terms (and that was the language they used, not me - it wasn't a request, they said these were their terms and if we didn't agree we could terminate the contract) without any interim discussion with us about potential solutions (even just trying to figure out what had made things go backwards at nursery). To me it does seem unreasonable to insist on nappies when she has previously demonstrated independence in that setting and is dry day and night at home (which is why we didn't agree to their terms).

Legally speaking though does the reasonable or unreasonableness matter when they have in their own language framed it as setting a term which we did not originally agree to in our contract with them?

Third sentence should read "A couple of weeks ago". Hate typing on phone!

I would imagine their T&Cs allow them to insist on certain things to meet H&S etc.

Pull-ups would solve this issue. The reusable ones look quite similar to pants.

If she’s settled at nursery and you were previously happy, other than potty training, is there a risk you are cutting your nose off to spite your face.

My own DD wore pull ups to nursery but not when she was with me. It worked ok.

@LittleBearPad Like I said I didn't want this thread to get into the whole messy story, but the way things have gone down there is no way we are sending her back, and that's not us cutting our noses off to spite our face.

The nursery we are now looking at sending her to has no problem with supporting her without nappies. [don't know how to do a shrug emoticon on my laptop ]