Busy Bees fee increase

[Chester1980]

My sons nursery fees have increased by 10% in the last 4 months. This is over two occasions. The nursery didn’t get amazing results in its care inspectorate report (Scotland). He will be going to a new nursery in August (on a waiting list) which has great reports and is £7 cheaper each day.

Also, I only received 3 weeks notice of the change, while the terms and conditions say you should get a months notice. Would you fight the short notice

Also, what updates do you get on your child? We had to really push to get access to an online diary and it’s only had one post a month with a few photos. Each time I pick him up I ask what he’s eaten, nappies and sleep, otherwise I wouldn’t know.

Hello, my dd goes to a Busy Bees in SE England. The fees went up at the start of the year about £12 per week for full time care which worked out to be about 5% increase.

We have access to an online diary and have done for about 1.5 years now. They are very good at updating everyday and I can see how much my dd has eaten at every meal and how many nappies she's had changed and whether they were wet/dry/soiled. Also they add how long she slept for after lunch. We are very happy with the level of detail that gets uploaded.

Occasionally, maybe 3-4 times a month there will be pictures of dd and activities she has undertaken being uploaded too.

Yep, this sounds like Busy Bees!

With regards to fees, the difference between them and a smaller chain or a stand—alone independent nursery is how many people they have as employees that you never see. Head Office, Area Managers, Regional Managers, Health and Safety team, Auditors, ICT people, people who’s role is essentially to go round and nit pick everything the staff do.....(sorry I used to work for them. Not saying their nurseries are bad, TBH it comes down to each individual nursery and their manager, which can be said for all)

That’s why your fees are probably rocketing at a higher rate then many others. A bit too many chiefs and not enough Indians - the chiefs have big pay packets and the Indians don’t - that’s what you’re paying for really which is a shame.

Sorry, my post sounded a bit negative, what I said above doesn’t mean that all the nurseries belonging to the chain are bad! But that is essentially why the fees rocket so much and sadly the money doesn’t present at the nursery as much as it should IMO.

You should definately be getting more of a journal and feedback then you’ve said - what the poster above me said sounds like a good expected quantity. Your nursery is slacking somewhat with updates. Could be a blip, but you should have more entries than that! It sounds like they are struggling. A nursery is dependent most on good staff and management.