How to persuade school nursery to offer full days?

[3duracellbunnies]

Our school nursery refuses to offer full days, despite lots of parents requesting it. They argue that the children are too young. Whilst I can understand that a child who has just turned 3 is still little, I feel that my sept born boy, with older siblings would probably manage one full day (8:45-3:30). After all if he was 4 weeks older they would be jumping up and down if he wasn't in 5 days a week.

From my perspective I would be happy if he could do 1 full day plus 2/3 other half day sessions a week in the year before he starts school. This would enable him to access funding, and for me to enjoy a few days a week to chill out with him, go swimming, day out etc. A typical day for us with him in nursery would be walk to school, drop off siblings and him, walk home (15min), manic house work for 2.5hrs, walk or drive to collect him (15 min); extract him, get home, by which time it is 12:15, there is only 2.5 hrs before have to leave to collect siblings.

As a result we don't take up our 15hrs, those who do spend their days bouncing back and forward. There are children there all the time as there is a lunch club (which they charge extra for), so in theory could have 3 free hours, lunch club and then another 3 free hours, but they don't allow it. Anyone had any success in changing this sort of policy?

I should say that I wouldn't want it to be a situation that parents had to have one full day, but that is an available option, even if parents were allowed to trade am/pm, with someone else to minimise staff effort in timetabling.

Answer is change school!!
Why should they provide more hours? If you don't like it move him. He is very young and surely you knew the hours of opening when you put him in there.

Also you can ask for your 15 hours to be used against lunch club if your bit using them all

our school nursery you can do.....

mon/tues all day + wed morning
thurs/fri all day + wed afternoon
5 mornings per week
5 afternoons per week

if they go all day you pay £1.50 per day and they have to take packed lunch

the wrap around breakfast and after school club also offers half days on wednesdays and will take them from 3 years old

once you accept a place the days are fixed but it's brilliant for working parents

this happened through a group of parents directly approaching the board of govenors rather than the nursery itself on the basis that it provided consistency for the children of working parents so they weren't going to the private nursery accross the road for breakfast, then to school nursery, then back to the private nursery again

good luck with persuading them :)

Our pre school only does mornings as they think it's far better for the child. Does mean that most children there have a stay at home parent though?

Lisad123 The reason I want him to go there is because he will be on the same site as his sisters, he will make friends with his future classmates, and he will get consistency as it shares the garden with reception and yr1. The same nursery kept pushing to have dd2 five sessions a week instead of 3, so they want them to take up the funding, without consideration to the disruption to the day. I don't need him to be in all day, but I would like him to access 4 sessions a week, with two days off - one for swimming lessons etc, one to have fun together. Over half of the children in the nursery have siblings at the school all their parents moan about the constant trips. It also makes it very difficult to access things like swimming lessons etc, by the time you get them home feed them take them to the pool, get changed, swim, get changed, get back to school.

Thanks for the tip on governors workshy, and no I don't think they will accept hours against the lunch club.

No, you 'have' to have a mixture of mornings and afternoons, and yes it is all SAHP or nannies. Tbh I feel more sorry for the children whose parents work 3/4 days a week, then on parent's day off they are still away from them half the day. Obviously it is the parent's choice that they go 5 sessions, but they were definitely keen to get them doing all the sessions. Dd2 has settled in well despite only doing 3 sessions.

My pre-school offers any combination of mornings, afternoons or full days. The only stipulation is you have to do two sessions (2 x 3 hrs) as one session is not that helpful for a child when settling in (we are still flexible on this rule in exceptional circumstances).

We have many two year olds who do more than one full day, we have special toddler mattreses they sleep on if need be.

Since offering this kind of flexibiliy the pre-school has becoming a lot more popular which in term means the privsion has got better (more money, more staff etc etc).

They are entitled to do as they please at the nursery but it doesn't stop you using somewhere else which is what a lot of people do.

Seems odd that they have the idea that they are too young for a full day... many children are at full-time daycare from when they are a year-old.

Where I am, the nurseries attached to schools do a full-day and then the local private nursery picks the children up at 3.15 and looks after them till 6pm. None of the children I see look that exhausted when I pick DD up at 4pm.

Out our nursery those in the nursery class have to go every morning, then you can either stick with morning, morning + 5 afternoons, 3 afternoons + mornings or 2 afternoons + mornings. They go from 9:00 till three.

I don't think they are too young for a full day and many nurseries obviously don't think so, but if you can't persuade them then you should probably goes to a different nursery that is more convenient for you.