Being charged for taking 4 yr old son on holiday!!

[Lallypops55]

Hi all
Am after some advice. We took our son on a family holiday so he missed a week of nursery. When I took him back I received a invoice for the days he didn't attend!
We have the 30 hours free funding for working parents. As the council didn't fund the week he had off they passed it on to us!
Apparently I am paying to keep his place open. What confuses me is I only use 18 of my 30 hours but when I put him on an additional day due to work, they would only take him if another child was on holiday but also charge me for the day! So they are being paid twice for the same place! They wouldn't take the additional day from my free hours as it was "a one off". Has anyone else experienced this? Do i pay it or investigate it further? Any advice welcome.
Thank u for reading x

Your best bet is contacting the council to find out why they didn't pay. When paying for nursery yourself you have to pay all year round in my experience, so no use bringing it up with the nursery but I would think the council should still pay the 30 hours if he's entitled to it even if he has days off, I had the 16 hours free funding when DD was at nursery and they paid that all year round even if she wasn't in, and I just paid the top up amount once she was in preschool, though had to pay whether or not she was in.

I think the nursery is trying it on - with DD we stretched her hours year round (so 15 hours/week in term time = 11.5 hours/week all year). We certainly weren't charged when we went on holiday!

We were warned that if her attendance was poor, we might lose the funding, but that's not what you're describing.

How do the council know you were on holiday? Surely they don't have the resources to track all the funding by the week?! (not quite to the funded stage yet so genuinely don't know how it works)

I filled in an absence form for the nursery with the dates for the holiday and reason, I'm guessing they informed the council. His attendance has been spot on previous to the holiday so no problem there. I just can't get my head round the fact that i don't pay for my son to attend nursery but they are charging me for him not being there! Only having the one child I'm completely new to the whole nursery/ school thing and it's all a little confusing. I was informed that to take your child on holiday in term time whilst they in nursery is acceptable and no charge or fine would apply! Thank u xx

What??? That's ridiculous. I have never heard of this happening. Even if this is the local authority policy, they should have warned you beforehand. They can't expect you to pay after the event. Unless it is in your contract?

Some councils have refused to pay for any absence. The nursery still have staff to pay, so they have to charge you.

It's always worth a chat, to make sure it's right though.

This is pretty standard. If the council won't pay (and why should they pay for your child to receive an education that you've chosen not to make him available for?) then the nursery shouldn't have to miss out on money.

How would you have felt about it if you'd got back from holiday and they told you they'd given your child's place to someone else and he could no longer attend? They are well within their rights to expect you to pay to keep his place open for you.

They new we were going on holiday for one week! If he had been ill for that one week I wouldn't of been charged so what's the difference? He wasn't using their facilities or staff and they could of used his space whilst he was away as I explained in my first post, my son took a place of a child on holiday for ONE day and they got paid twice for that. If they new I was going to be charged when I informed them of the holiday I feel they should of told me then so at least I would of had options x