No staff at nursery

[catlady1234]

Hi,

My DC (10 months old) has just started nursery, this should be their 3rd week. They go 3 days a week.
Last weds they were sent home with upset tummy as they are teething. Had to have Thursday off too as per their policy.

They should have gone in today but at 7:30pm last night we get a message via the app saying they have no staff and they can't go in.

Is this common?

I'm worried they have staff issues and also the last min communication is a huge issue for us! We don't have easy solutions and it gave us no time to find any options.

"upset tummy as they are teething" by that do you mean they had sickness and/or diarrhoea and had to stay off 48 hours?

It is rare but getting more common. There are just not enough childcare workers. Is it very cheap?

Recruitment is becoming more and more of an issue in low paid jobs I’m afraid. Nursery staff are on poor wages and it’s hard work.

I've had weekly emails from my nursery since January this year saying they're short staffed and can anyone keep their kids at home.

Totally normal unfortunately. Most nursery’s rely on agency staff to make up numbers.

It’s underpaid for long hours, rubbish holiday entitlement and no breaks. no one wants to do it anymore.

Wow, obviously fairly common then.

It's our first child and it's their first month in nursery.

Everyone had been telling me to expect lots of sickness and being sent home. But I wasn't expecting the nursery to refuse to have them because of staff issues.

How do you manage the late notice lack of childcare?

I’ve just been accepted to work in a Nursery. I love working with children. However the pay is £10 an hour for an 8-5pm day or 9-6pm. Of which an hour I won’t get paid because that’s my lunch. It’s the only break I’m allowed.
I’ve got to pay £50 for my own DBS. I have to photograph development and annotate at least twice for each child in my group (there’s 16 of them ) in addition to the daily recording of nappy changes, naps and what they ate. Plus accidents of course some of which will also require a phone call. I have to be outside in the rain and the cold for at least 3 hours a day.
I’m saying “ thank you “ I can’t do it.
Frankly I think you’ll be better off finding a nanny or childminder and making sure they get a few groups for socialisation.

Unfortunately that’s the downfall of private nurseries. They are screaming out for qualified staff but due to work loads, paperwork, pressure, long hours and minimum wage people are leaving to find better paid jobs, either for local councils or jobs out with early years that pay better with much less stress.

I left my private nursery job 2 months ago and 3 staff have also left since then and probably 10 have left in the last 6 months, private nurseries work to the bare minimum of staff so as soon as one staff member is off on holiday or sick then it means they need to find agency cover,

I'd say no. My kids were never sent home if they had loose stool when teething. They don't send a child home unless there is more than one instance but jot sure if that's the case for ur little one.

They have issues retaining staff like they all do with the poor pay but they must have plenty of cover. Even when staff were off with covid etc they never asked if anyone cld keep children at home or said they weren't able to take them.

You just get on with it and either look after your own kid or pay for alternative care

@ThatGirlInACountrySong

Is not really that easy though is it?

We both have jobs that we can't just not show up to at short notice. It causes big problems for both of us if we just take a random day off. I'm especially feeling the pressure as iv just returned from maternity leave to a high position job.

And when the nursery emails you at 7:30pm how are we meant to find alternative cover for the next day? We don't have family who can help at the drop of a hat.

Obviously we are new to this situation but I didn't expect to provide so much childcare ourselves on the days we have booked and paid for them to go to nursery

The solution is to find a nursery that pays it's staff very well and has good working conditions. They'll be able to attract and retain staff. Should be quite easy to find as they'll be the ones with the highest fees.

There's another thread going about people bringing their children in sick and causing staffing issues as the staff catch the bug.

Also so many people have left childcare, myself included.

Never happened in my children’s nursery - I send two. One has been going three years. Our nursery is full with a waiting list for the baby room. They seem to have good staff retention and a number of staff who are PT and work between different sites.

Nail on the head. You aren't going to get five star service on a budget. Nurseries are expensive to run, and labour intensive. The only way to make them work these days is to charge more, so that there's money in the kitty for enough staff (extras to cover sickness & holidays etc) along with the ever increasing overheads of interest, power, rent and literally every other overhead - even little things like accounting software subscriptions have increased by 25/50% recently - lots of little things add up. Nurseries simply can't afford to have "spare" staff anymore as staffing is their biggest overhead.

The more affordable (I.e. bargain basement) ones are inevitably going to struggle at times with staff absences. Pay more and they'll have more flexibility in the budget to have better staff coverage.

It is common at the moment as nurseries are struggling to recruit/ hold on to staff. Why would you want all that stress for minimum wage when you could earn more in Aldi?

I was a nursery nurse twenty years ago. Loved it but so much stress with planning, assessments, ofsted, parents and so on plus poor pay. No sick pay so if staff are off it’s a valid reason, we were made to feel so bad when sick even though they weren’t paid. To this day I still feel so guilty when I take sick days. Nursery never refused children tho. Management had to help or staff from the chain elsewhere. Children were also shuffled around to different rooms so it must be bad. If nursery tell you not to go in do they give a refund?

I believe that nurseries are finding it harder to recruit and retain, I know now I’d work In somewhere less stressful and with responsibility for minimum wage or just over!

So as I said then....you need to find an alternative option!

Nurseries are not reliable these days. Been going steadily downhill for some years did your research not throw up this issue?

Your High position' job might stand a better chance if you hired a nanny? Then you could pay a good decent wage and get reliable, quality childcare

I agree there are lots of staffing issues but we've never had our nursery shut because of lack of staff and I think that is quite unusual. Our nursery definitely uses some agency staff but if they're really stuck, then the manager / admin person will ensue ratios are maintained so they can stay open and they'll shuffle staff around so that there are at least some more experienced staff in each room.

You clearly have a VERY poor understanding of what it’s like to have to juggle young children and work with no outside support. Lucky you.

This is unfortunately a growing problem. Only the most expensive nurseries can afford to retain good staff. The pay has always been poor, but the underfunding of the "free" hours combined with increased costs due to the rising cost of living and the pandemic has decimated nursery budgets.

Staff are leaving in their droves. Those staying in childcare are working as private nannies where they get similar money for looking after far fewer children. Others are moving to work in supermarkets which pay more, for less responsibility and a discount on your weekly food shop.

Meanwhile also school TA jobs that used to be like gold dust aren't getting a single application either. People are following the money, and too many vital jobs are vastly underpaid.

It's a horrible situation which will mostly affect working mothers.

This never ever happened when our 2 were at nursery (2011-2018). Even in a blizzard they stayed open (the schools opted to shut). Can see how situation could have greatly changed since then. Pretty sure that nursery should not be charging for the days when service is refused due to lack of staff or facilities. Did they offer any reassurance? Don't know if you should give them another month or just start looking for alternative provision ASAP. The whole point of using a day nursery is that they should always organise cover no matter what, otherwise you are far better off with a child minder or nanny. You have my sympathy.

If your baby had sickness it's possible it was a bug and staff now have it and are off which is why they are short staffed. We've just had a horrible run of flu like virus and stomach bugs around staff and children and only just managed to keep all the rooms open because other staff were willing to do extra hours.

The best way to keep nurseries open for everyone is to keep your children off when they are poorly and not rush them back the next day packed with calpol in the hope staff dont notice. Your children will still get sent home when the medicine wears off but they will have infected their friends and staff in the meantime. We know parents need to work, but so do nursery staff. We have bills to pay too and it is frustrating to be nursing sick children knowing the parents knew before arrival they were unwell and now you might be taking it home to your own family and risk ended up on SSP for a week.

It is not the OP’s fault there’s not a contingency plan for staff sickness. Many bugs are transmitted before any symptoms are present unfortunately.

Nurseries are in the main so woefully underfunded and the staff underpaid and undervalued, yet more and more parents need them because very few people that I know could get by on one household income.

Ours just about functions on moving staff around between rooms to cover ratios, pulling the managers in to cover and sometimes agency staff.

I work in a nursery.
We have never closed in 30 years.
They pay well and have a good staff ratio to children and 3 extra staff in each building to cover if needed.
It does cost £££ but we don't have a problem filling spaces.

This happened a lot at the end of my DC2’s preschool year, Jan 22- June 22. National chain. Not the most nurturing nursery we’ve used but it was a needs-must situation. Didn’t bother withdrawing him as he was off to school in a few months.
For DC3 I’ve chosen a nursery which runs as a charity and is run but older ladies who have all been there 20ish years which bodes much much better as I assume they do it for the passion rather than the money. Unfortunately we don’t pay the people looking after our precious children enough! (We being society - we all know childcare costs as stronomical!)
Maybe a nanny might work out better? Reliability worth the extra money?