AnonyMouse_4820 Posted July 26, 2006 Posted July 26, 2006 (edited) This is a question for any of you who are based in private day care settings. We invoice our parents monthly and up until recently we did not charge parents for bank holidays. However, we have always paid our staff on these days although they do not attend work. We have recently amended our fee structure and have decided to charge parents for these bank holidays (apart from the ones between xmas and new year) We have had a number of irate parents enquiring about this new implementation and very unhappy to pay it. Do your settings charge for bank holidays? OR are you open on bank holidays??? Advice appreciated Rebecca Edited July 26, 2006 by becsltd
AnonyMouse_1490 Posted July 26, 2006 Posted July 26, 2006 I don't charge parents for bank holidays. A have a large number of funded children so I receive funding for bank holidays that is enough to pay staff. I don't offer funded children a day in lieu of bank hols and don't pay rent for the days that I don't use the hall. If I had a lot of non-funded children I think I would increase the fees overall to include shortfalls like this, rather than make one group of parents pay for something that they don't have. It would be mostly the Monday parents that would suffer
Guest Posted July 26, 2006 Posted July 26, 2006 Staff are paid for bankholidays, if that is their day in.even though they had a day off We do not charge parents for a day they dident have Rosina
AnonyMouse_3975 Posted July 26, 2006 Posted July 26, 2006 We are not paid for bank holidays. Do we receive funding for bank holidays then? Smiles
Guest Posted July 26, 2006 Posted July 26, 2006 I private day care i used to work at charged parents for bank holidays and then offered parents a day in lieu.
AnonyMouse_2732 Posted July 26, 2006 Posted July 26, 2006 DN, me- We offer parents with children who normally have a day we're closed a day/session in lieu. I'm part time - if my normal day in coincides with a BH, I work another day that week. FT staff have BH paid (what a lot of abbreviations! ) Sue
AnonyMouse_3735 Posted July 26, 2006 Posted July 26, 2006 We are not paid for bank holidays. Do we receive funding for bank holidays then?Smiles not in most areas...we dont get it , funding is only for days open with children, (causes havoc with mayday having to open 1 day in a week to make up the day to get the funding or else open 1 week less!) ...need to check for your own area. Inge
AnonyMouse_1490 Posted July 26, 2006 Posted July 26, 2006 We get funding for the number of weeks we are open and are not expected to make the time up if things are out of control. i.e. bank holidays,staff training that we all need to do. We aren't returning untill Tuesday 5th September because I am away till monday p.m. so in that case I will open an extra day at the end of term and we shall do our nativity play.
AnonyMouse_4820 Posted July 26, 2006 Author Posted July 26, 2006 (edited) What a nightmare of a day!! I telephoned trading standards to check on the legality of charging parents and it seemed as though one of our parents had already been on the phone to them. so trading standards are now investigating us and therefore could not give us advice!!!!!!!!!!!! The duty officer at trading standards asked us what was said in our terms and conditions for parents. I explained that we have a parental agreement rather than a terms and conditions. However, each year parents recieve an updated fee structure with accompnaying letter. He was shocked that we did not have terms and conditions and was very patronising. I've looked at our parental agreement and it mentions nothing about fees in there.It is more that the parents will abide by; e.g. telephoning if your child is absent, ensuring that we have notification of any persons collecting children, sickness etc..... If we gave parents a day in lieu - it would not work as we are full on most days for our under 3's. Anyway what would happen to the full time children. They wouldn't be able to take a day in lieu. I really am despairing tonight and feeling that this managers job is too much!!! The responsibility it so huge. The trading standards man said that we could be 'in breach of contract and could be sued by parents.' AAGGGHHH!!!! What do parents sign in your settings? Edited July 26, 2006 by becsltd
Guest Posted July 26, 2006 Posted July 26, 2006 Why not get in touch with your Early Years advice officer tomorrow and ask them for help and advice? Rosina
Guest Posted July 26, 2006 Posted July 26, 2006 My terms and conditions are basically that parents abide by our policies, and hopefully they include all the finer details ( I say hopefully because there is always something that crops up that we haven't thought of or changes are required due to new legislation). If we change anything in our policies, we now ask parents views first, thus getting an indication of what their response willl be before implimenting the changes. Parents all recieve any updated policies. I am private preschool, I get funding for 195 days per year, in line with schools, we can close for 5 staff development days, which are funded. Therefore parents actually only get 190 funded days per year, they pay for any additional sessions. We charge by the session, so we only charge for sessions we are open, I think this is where trading standards would deem you unable to charge for a service that is not being provided - ie: closed sessions. if parents choose not to send their children ie: holidays etc, then they still pay. We close Bank Holidays ( so no fees to pay). Staff don't work, so they don't get paid, they do get their statutory holiday pay though. Are you a member of PLA or NDNA?, maybe you could contact them for advice? If you have already made these charges, and trading standards say you shouldn't have, I would truly hope that parents would not 'sue' you, but would accept a short letter of apology, stating that your intentions were not dishonerable and that you will refund the extra fees charged. We are all human and all make mistakes, you are doing the right thing by contacting Trading standards for advice as soon as you became aware that an error of judgement had occured. Good luck, let us know how things go. Peggy
Guest cathy m Posted July 26, 2006 Posted July 26, 2006 I am a reistered childminder and if a child would normally attend on for example a monday then when bank holidays come along all my parents know that they will have to pay as usual. This is made very clear at the initial meeting and parents sign contracts with this stipulation. Cathy
Guest Posted July 26, 2006 Posted July 26, 2006 i am in a provate day nursery, and we charge parents for bank holiday's, all staff are also paid for bank holiday's. one parent doesn't like this fact (that we charge bank holiday's) and the okd manager used to let her take a day back when her children missed a session due to bank holiday. I feel that unfair on the parents that have children who attend full time.. so the next bank holiday this parent will be told that she can not swap sessions.... im sure it won't go down well... but all parents sign a contract acknowledging that fees are charged for bank holiday's. Dawn
Guest Posted July 26, 2006 Posted July 26, 2006 Dawn, are you closed on bank holidays? What is the charge for? I don't understand the rationalle for charging if bank holidays are closed. Are staff paid bank holidays as a part of their annual entitlement for holiday pay? How does that work if staff don't normally work on a bank holiday day? Peggy
AnonyMouse_4820 Posted July 26, 2006 Author Posted July 26, 2006 We sound exactly the same as Dawn I actually think that we should charge for bank holiday's rather than backtracking to parents. We are a private day nursery and take children from 3 months to when they start school. We only have around 15 children that have the nursery education grant. We are registered for 54 at any one time. Our staff have 23 days holiday a year and 3 of those days have to be used between xmas and new year when the nursery completely shuts down. PARENTS ARE NOT CHARGED FOR THIS WEEK!! We have just moved from Brighton and my son's nursery charged for bank holiday as well as closing the nursery for 2 INSET days per year once again charging the parents as the staff were still being paid. I can understand the difference in opinion especially for sessional nurseries. The August invoice (charging for the August bank holiday) has only just gone out and there have only been 3 queries about the charge. Is this because a) parents have not realised the charge has been implemented (even though a letter went out a few months ago explaining this) or they accept that as we have to pay the staff they also pay the fees on this day. We are unable to do a day in lieu as we are full each day except a Friday. Trading standards issue is that we have not got a terms and conditions document that parents sign (other than our standard parental agreement document) Maybe we should incorporate it into this document. I do believe this is a very ambiguous issue. I am very keen to know what private day nurseries like us do regarding bank holidays. Anyone else out there??
Guest Posted July 27, 2006 Posted July 27, 2006 Hi, I run a pre school and all my staff get paid for bank holidays and teacher training days. They get 4 weeks paid holiday a year, holiday time only. We are only open 38 weeks and staff are allowed as well a weeks holiday unpaid term time. Since just walking into this convo I must say that I feel it very unfair that nurseries are charging for bank holidays. If you were open on these days than I can fully understand but how can you charge, if a parent doesn't have the choice to send their child in on those days. If I had to pay for a bank holiday, I would want my child to be attending. - My kids are 13 and 8 so past nursery age. Net x
Guest Posted July 27, 2006 Posted July 27, 2006 (edited) At the baby unit I used to work in, and my daughter attended, it was stipulated in the contracts, first meetings, show rounds etc, that bank holidays were to be paid for in order to keep the child's place. Parents were also charged for the two weeks off we had in the summer but this was later refunded, again to keep the child's place. The refund was made at the end of the month or, by parents request, taken off of the following months fees. Staff were paid for bank holidays if it was within their normal contracted hours. During the two week holiday, we were not paid, unless we took it out of our holiday entitlement or provided cover at one of our other nurseries. Parents were also charged for the xmas and new year break, again to secure the child's place (got fed up with hearing that line!). Staff holiday entitlement is worked out, taking this break into consideration so we did get paid over this time (although it was usually wrong, or given to us by cheque on xmas eve!) Edited July 27, 2006 by Clare
Guest Posted July 27, 2006 Posted July 27, 2006 Hi peggy, yes we are closed on bank holiday's. our annual holiday entitlement for staff (full time) is 20 days. not including bank holiday's. All our staff work at least half a day every day in the week or full time... so the staff that do half day only get half day pay on bank holiday, and staff who work fulltime get full day pay on bank holiday we open between christmas and new year ... how crap is that LOL Dawn, are you closed on bank holidays? What is the charge for? I don't understand the rationalle for charging if bank holidays are closed. Are staff paid bank holidays as a part of their annual entitlement for holiday pay? How does that work if staff don't normally work on a bank holiday day? Peggy
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