Nursery closing early almost every single Friday

[Meklk]

Hi everyone,
Our nursery closing earlier on Friday almost every single week.. they'll just give a call-" oh please pick up your child by 3pm".
Reasons for closing:
Winter/autumn/early spring- heavy raining, windy, cold, boiler doesn't work properly
Summer- too hot

I don't think our workplaces sending us home because of bad weather and I'm quite fed up to ask my boss to leave earlier almost every single Friday (my husband works in other city). I just received an email this evening that tomorrow they are asking to pick up all kids earlier DUE TO HOT WEATHER, I'm boiling inside... I'm paying a lot for that nursery and I believe unless it's hurricane, flooding or something else SERIOUS, they should be open full day!

Seriously? I would be looking for a new nursery

Yep you need to change nursery.

That's mad, I'd look elsewhere. Our nursery has never closed early!

Defo switch nursery. Do they deduct the hours from your invoice? I would be telling them you want a refund for the hours. They should be able to claim on their insurance for the lost income IF the reason is genuine.

Bizarre

Sounds completely unprofessional. Are you being refunded those hours? If not is it worth seeking legal advice in case they are in breach of contract? That threat might sort things out!

Thank you for your messages, it's my first child in UK so I'm not really sure how to react... I understand sh*t happens, like broken boiler, but I simply can't ask my boss to send me home 3 hours earlier every second Friday. I'm just thinking what to do about tomorrow, I don't think I can"disagree" to pick up my child earlier, they'll treat it like I'm not a responsible....

Have you pushed back and said that it’s unacceptable to keep closing and you can’t collect early? I’d be pushing for a part refund for the day every time they shut, they’ll soon stop.

Childminder. X

They NEVER refunded. They were closed more than a month (long story) and I was fighting with emails more than two weeks to get refund.

Thank you!
But can they report me to social services or something if I'll say no?
They know very well that I'm alone during the week, I don't have any family here.

Neither of our nurseries have ever done this. One closed early one day because the boiler was broken but it was December so that's fair enough.

If it's always a Friday afternoon then I'd guess they don't have as many kids in then so not as profitable/worth their while?

Friday afternoon is prime pub time.

likelihood is they do close to save money but you have a contract and shouldn’t be expected to pay for hours they are refusing to provide

I would say that as one offs, you do what you can because these people look after your DC and you want to get on with them. But this is taking the piss.

In three years at nursery, we've once been asked to pick up early if we could during the awful winds earlier this year to enable the staff to get away early and to negotiate the issues on public transport.

I strongly believe it's because they are short of staff, I know they are desperately looking for a staff now, advertising on every single website.

That’s mad!

our nursery has only closed early once for the massive storm earlier this year - to be fair there were trees coming down everywhere so it was completely reasonable for them to close.

i’d look for a new nursery. And you should definitely get a partial refund for days they close early due to fairly normal weather conditions

Lol they are proper taking the piss!!! Tell them no! As a one off - ok. But it sounds to me like the nursery is trying to get out of paying the staff so is sending them home if they can get parents to collect but still take the money and funding for the full day.

If your child is not ill then there is no reason to collect. If it's too hot then the kids can be inside playing with ice water. This is a Them problem. Not a you problem.

Fwiw my child's nursery tried something along these lines years ago but said that he had a temperature and was unwell. I asked what the temperate was - 37.9 🙄. I came in and gave some Calpol and left him there. He wasn't ill. He was absolutely fine. They weren't overly happy but there is no way I'm taking a day off work for that. Amazingly he managed the entire day and was absolutely fine.

The only one reason we are still attending that nursery- my child loves it and has lots of friends there...

They were closed couple of weeks last October, then re-opened November, then closed December. Then from January-issues with weather and boilers. Me and my husband used all our holidays and took unpaid leaves to stay at home... And Friday is the busiest day at work for me...
I'll drop him tomorrow morning and I'll ask to speak with Manager, I'll simply tell her I don't have any other choice and I can't collect my child earlier.

We had this at dds old nursery.

Bad weather (heavy rain), staff night out, team building weekend, etc.

Sent too early.

No refund offered or earlier drop off. We moved her.

The only time DD's nursery closed early was when the road was flooded in both directions and they were (legitimately) concerned it would soon become impassible for cars.

I felt like that was an acceptable reason!

If road would be flooded they would close our nursery for the whole year I believe:))))
I "love"when they closing earlier that staff could come back home safely- they are all local, we all live 10-15mins walk from nursery.....

That's crazy. The only reason DD's nursery has closed unexpectedly was due to a Covid outbreak that took out most of the staff. Even when we had Storm Arwen up here in the north of Scotland and it was absolutely wild outside it was open - their door got blown off its hinges when we arrived to collect DD though!

I work in a nursery and we would never do that, we stay until the last child leaves.

This sounds awful. I'd look for another nursery. And press for a refund. How can they justify charging full rates and not provide what you're paying for!