Outside providers in nursery settings

[Rudieshoes]

Hi all, I have recently started a pre school group which is story based STEAM activities. I would like to go into nurseries either as a one off session or on a more regular basis but I have no idea what is a reasonable price to charge. I have to charge £6 per child to cover costs of materials and room rental for my own group. Any help would be very much appreciated! I should mention that I am a very experienced primary school teacher with an MA in education, so I am properly qualified to teach!

I'm not sure what your activity is, tbh, but here goes.....

Calculate your baseline figure as that which covers your costs (allowing for the fact that the nursery is the venue, so no room hire fees) plus whatever profit you need to make in order for it to be worth your while. Then approach nursery managers with that as a starting point.

You might need to be prepared for a few refusals.

There's a risk you may end up charging nearly as much as (or very possibly more than) the nursery is taking in fees for the time you're there. You have to remember that about 50% of nurseries (and most private outfits) are operating at or below break-even point, so they really won't want an additional cost.

They might take you on, on the basis that the parents pay your charge as an optional extra. Then you're dependent on mums and dads wanting to pay out more for their childcare costs.

It's possible some nurseries may reasonably argue they're doing you a favour by providing a venue and helping you promote your other sessions. They might feel there's no reason to pay you at all.

Though I'd hope a few nurseries would like this sort of thing if it's doing something they don't do already

Hi itsaboojum, thanks for the help that's much appreciated! It's such a tricky one I know. So many nurseries are already struggling to meet the gap left by the government's "free" childcare hours. However I guess I just have to give it a go and see what happens!

I have emailed lots of local nurseries so I will see whether there is any interest. I am at pains to say that I will try to work out a cost with them that will work for both parties. Unfortunately I can't work for free but I have considered offering a free first session to give them an idea of what I do.

£6 per child is too much
We pay £20-£40 per 30 minutes and we don’t charge parents for this
This can be groups of up to 26 children

We had a dance teacher and a storyteller at my children’s nursery. I assume they were paid but not much as no cost passed onto parents. No way will a nursery pay you per child. I’m think £20-30 for half an hour and that’s in London, term time only.

Thanks. Maybe I didn't explain properly. I don't want to charge per child, I just wanted to know what an hour session for a nursery setting might cost.

Are your sessions normally an hour long?
You might have to rethink that if you are going into settings
An hour is too long
Your session would be an extra curricular activity not the main teaching activity

Yes normally an hour but I could easily do half a session if that works best. Good tip thank you.

Sorry I haven't quite understood- are you expecting the nursery to pay and the kids to get it free, or the parents of participating children to be charged? My friend teaches languages to nursery children and she does the latter.

Every session ours held was free and whoever was holding the session got to have an advert/leaflet put in every child’s bag. So it was a win win. Children got a free taster and parents would potentially sign up for further classes. I wouldn’t be happy having to pay extra for any of these

No idea what you could charge the nurseries, if they would even be willing to pay

What is STEAM?

What is steam?

Oops cross posts!

All good to know, I am new to nurseries so interested to see what is possible. STEAM is science technology engineering art and math

Not STEAM based activity but my dd's nursery has a guy come in once a week term time to do an hour of music with them. We pay £3.75 a session or you can pay in blocks if 10 sessions. It's optional but I don't think they exclude children for not paying (we're always late paying but they always let our dd take part).

For the older kids they do languages once a week at a cost to the parents. It's common around my area for extras like this to be at cost to the parents in addition to fees.

I can’t see that a nursery would pay for you to come in. It would be an extra that participating children would pay privately so your numbers would be based on which parents are willing to pay on top of nursery fees.

A nursery might be willing to give you weekend space though and you could book children in for an hour on a Saturday morning for example.

Great tips everyone thank you very much.

I looked at a private nursery (north east) a couple of weeks ago and they have someone come in to teach the kids football once a week which the nursery pay for. Fees are about £45 for a full day at nursery. We do live in a fairly low income area so that may be why the nursery pay.
Not sure if that helps. Maybe work out a few options so the nursery can decide what works best.

I think nurseries in affluent areas might very well pay. I know of a couple of private nurseries that have "artists in residence".