Kicked out?!

[Sarah12hge]

Hi all, desperately looking for advice.
my son attends a nationwide nursery provider. They’ve recently introduced additional fees for extras. I challenged them with the amount as I felt it was extortionate and did not match the care he was given. Basically we had to pay £200 for a month when he does 2.5 days, term time only. This was a jump from £50 we were paying for meals. He’s in preschool so receives the 30 hours.

The local manager has advised that I need to look for another nursery as he is no longer welcome basically? In my last email I said I felt the charges were unclear and steep for what he receives and I was considering contacting the local council for advice. Can they do this? Can they kick him out because I challenged the fees? Thanks all, very stressed!

Well then it's not a pre school.

There are loads of pre-schools that take from 2. Most of them do, here. They are free for core hours, but PP is right that if you want 8:30 - 5:30 or anything beyond 2:45, really, you're going to have to pay for breakfast and homework club, which both have costs.

@Sarah12hge they agree that they’re breaking the most recent legislation.

Did they explain how? It seems lots of nurseries will be doing this, if that's the case...

They ate free for the core hours. Not extended ones... or for food!

So my local school...

8-8.45... £3 (including breakfast)
8.45-11.45... free (if funded)
11.45-12.30... £3 (for the lunch)
12.30-3pm free if funded
3.30-5 30pm... £5

£200 a month for 10-12 days of nursery care including food/consumables seems really reasonable to me. Nurseries here are £80 a day don't stretch funding, charge extras on top, but they're great and well worth the cost

Have you recently gone from 15 funded hours and the rest self pay to 30 funded hours?

Unless you thought there was an error with the fees you were basically saying their fees are too high. I think they were a bit quick just to terminate your contract. But perhaps they thought you were challenging the legality of what they were charging. What exactly did you want them to do?

They provided you with information on what the increase covered, you found that information confusing and unclear. So your next step - rather than ask for further clarity - was to threaten (because I am pretty sure you intended it to be a threat) to seek advice from your local council.

Not too surprisingly, the nursery chain decided that they would like you to go elsewhere rather than deal with this.

If they raised fees without a month's notice (if this is what the contract specifies) or have asked you not to come to nursery without the contractual notice, then they are in breach of contract. But otherwise, they can terminate the contract - they are not really 'kicking your son out' as the contract is with you and the nursery's action is not to do with eg challenging behaviour by the child.

If the nursery can’t meet its costs through charging for extras, it will have to close down.

Then you will have no childcare at all.

You are quite fortunate to be able to access 2.5 days term time only to be honest - my local nurseries will only allow people to use them if they sign up for 4 days a week, all year round!

The nursery were quick to terminate the agreement but £200 per month really isn't a lot. You can't expect businesses to lose out with how much the government is paying them. Threatening them with being reported to the council has definitely burned any bridges. It's unlikely you'll find another term time contract. I always paid the extra my childminder asked as I didn't expect her to lose out.

You advised them you found their fees unjustified and steep, and that you’d take action against them via the council - of course they don’t want you or your child at their nursery anymore. Any threat to get the council involved is going to be met with hostility in return.

I think this is pretty standard in nurseries, they charge on top of the funded hours as they don’t receive enough money to run. So my child gets 15 free hours, which basically works out at one day a week when spread out over the year. Then on this ‘free’ day we still need to pay £25.
Most pre schools will charge on top too but probably less. One near me is free with a voluntary donation. I think ‘free childcare’ needs to be rebranded.

£200 for extras on top of nursery fees does sound a lot to me. You are making my preschool sound very cheap. (down south) I’m paying less than half that per half term. But it’s packed lunches only here so maybe the cost of food is a big part of the difference.

Whatever the government rules are around funding, the reality is that the money they give the nursery does not come close to covering costs, let alone any sort of profit or reinvestment into the facilities.

A private nursery is a private business and they can reject anyone they want without stating a reason. As pp above have said, many are just not offering the funded hours any more if parents are making too much of a fuss about extras as they are saved from the admin hassle.

We paid £300 extra per month top up for a child attending 30hours per week term time only for private nursery with full 30 hours funding up until Summer 2022 - costs have certainly risen since. That was the true cost to the nursery, didn’t occur to me to question it - I knew there were school nurseries available if I wanted it to be fully free

Exactly. People always think businesses can do what they like v individual customers when at the very least there is consumer rights legislation to consider.

😂 I think you need to find another hobby.

The bill is up to date and has already been paid for October too.

If it went from 50 to 200 because they started charging for extras then the extras are still 150 a month. So still quite close to twice as much as I am currently being charged for a whole half term. Unless I am completely misunderstanding this post.

Lots of people have talked about being charged on top of the free hours. If someone is only using free hours I’d of thought the nursery would have to justify what extras the money is being used for.

The nursery have called and advised that they have revised my fees and it was actually incorrect 🙃 no bridges were ever burnt, it was with a head office and I simply wanted to discuss how the maths didn’t add up! He will be returning to nursery tomorrow as usual.

I had asked them for clarity a number of times but it was not adding up. I explained this but they could never provide me with an answer as to why.

It was in no way to ‘threaten’ to was simply advising that I would be speaking to the local council which I was well within my rights to do so.

😂 why would I just make it up? The whole issue was that it didn’t add up and now it does. It was a mistake, they’ve admitted fault so we move on.