School nursery attendance

MCMP13 · 2025-09-05T19:44:05+00:00

My just turned 3 year old is in school nursery, he will be there for 2 years as he is a September baby. The school have said they expect him to be in 5 mornings a week. Does anyone know were parents stand regarding ‘attendance’ in school nursery. Will I get into trouble for keeping my child off now and then? Or is the worst that can happen - he lose his place? Just curious. Thanks

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holachicatita · 05/09/2025 21:32

Effectively he's taking the place of another child, so yes if he doesn't attend regularly they would offer the place to another child! I don't think you can accept a place and then pick and choose when he goes.

CaptainMyCaptain · 05/09/2025 21:35

holachicatita · 05/09/2025 21:32

Effectively he's taking the place of another child, so yes if he doesn't attend regularly they would offer the place to another child! I don't think you can accept a place and then pick and choose when he goes.

This.

Papadulo · 05/09/2025 21:53

You’ll lose your early years funding if you don’t attend for the sessions booked using the funding.

Luxio · 05/09/2025 21:55

No it's not compulsory but it's pretty standard when you choose to use a school nursery that they have attendance expectations.

I have known some children lose their places due to lack of attendance though and it can affect the funding the school receives.

Fizhy · 06/09/2025 07:53

I think it depends on the nursery. My DDs school nursery were really flexible. They said that if they had a full time place then ideally they need to at least either attend the morning or afternoon session each day but they also said they knew that sometimes there would be days where we might want to do something with the kids and that was fine. They said they couldn’t enforce attendance but that attending at least 1 session a day was the preference. I think so long as you don’t take the mick it should be fine. DDs nursery used to let us just decide on the day if she was doing a morning, afternoon or all session which was great for us as DH works shifts and im part time so it gave us the flexibility we needed.

Original poster

MCMP13 · 06/09/2025 09:40

Fair enough. Thank you.

I kept him off to take him out for the day for his birthday and we do like to go on holidays during term time while we still can so will speak to them about this on Monday.

OP posts:

CaptainMyCaptain · 06/09/2025 14:08

Fizhy · 06/09/2025 07:53

I think it depends on the nursery. My DDs school nursery were really flexible. They said that if they had a full time place then ideally they need to at least either attend the morning or afternoon session each day but they also said they knew that sometimes there would be days where we might want to do something with the kids and that was fine. They said they couldn’t enforce attendance but that attending at least 1 session a day was the preference. I think so long as you don’t take the mick it should be fine. DDs nursery used to let us just decide on the day if she was doing a morning, afternoon or all session which was great for us as DH works shifts and im part time so it gave us the flexibility we needed.

They must have had spare places to be able to do that. When I was a school Nursery teacher we were always full morning and afternoon with a waiting list. We wouldn't have wanted to waste a place but would be amenable to sharing a place 3/2.

Fizhy · 06/09/2025 14:41

When she started in the sept there was only 17 kids in the nursery so they did have a lot of spaces to be fair (and probably why they were happy to claim for the 30hrs even if we weren’t always using it). Throughout the year it did fill up. But they just said that once they had a place it was upto us how we used the hours to suit us. A lot of parents at the nursery did what we did and sometimes the kids stayed all day and sometimes they did just 1 session depending on the days plans. I think if parents consistently didn’t send the kids then it would be an issue but otherwise they were fine with being flexible.