Good afternoon
Just hoping for some advice please.
We had a disagreement with nursery regarding their illness policies. It's a private nursery so I understand they make their own policies, however they seem to have multiple policies for the same thing and then pick and choose which to refer to based on what suits the current circumstance. Their policies are not in line with NHS guidance, for example they exclude for viral illnesses that both NHS and public health guidance advise there is no need for children to stay home from nursery/school from if they are well within themselves. There have been occasions when they have told us one of our children has a temperature and when we've collected them they've been absolutely fine with no temperature.
Last week we were confused as to why they were excluding one of our children for a viral illness that even their own policy they sent us a few months stated that there is no exclusion period for that (my child was absolutely fine within themselves). They then referred me to a different policy and told me that was the relevant one and just stated that they reserve the right to exclude for any contagious illnesses to which our response was even a cold is contagious but surely young children catch seasonal illnesses all the time.
Anyway, based on the ridiculousness of their policies (we have been unhappy for a while) we gave them notice that we will be removing the children from the nursery. Notice period is one month. To which the manager launched into a tirade about how we are rude and have been rude to staff and actually don't even bother bringing the children back next week. Whilst the conversation prior to that may have been tense (purely because their staff were repeating the same lines over and over about policies but weren't actually listening to anything I was saying), it was never rude from my end and it was always on topic, not personal at all.
The manager agreed over the phone she would provide a refund for the month but refused to put it in writing. The same day we realised they had suspended access to our children's online learning journals, so we have been unable to save photos and videos of them. We sent an email asking for her to issue the refund and either give us access back to the learning journeys so that we can save the photos and videos or to download it as a PDF and email it to us. We have heard nothing since, radio silence. The money we had paid for the whole months fees + deposit when they first started (it is supposed to be refundable) equates to approx £2000. We have been left without any childcare and have had to take time off work to look for other nurseries that have spaces available for two children.
Any advice at all for next steps would be greatly appreciated, thanks.