Contingency Plan

[Guest]

Does anyone have a written Contingency Plan that I could look at, for if staff are off sick, etc?

 

We discussed it at our staff meeting tonight but wanted to put something into writing.

 

Thanks

[Guest]

Sorry I dont have one but would be very interested to see an example too.

[Guest]

Hmmmmm contingency plans, don't you just love em!

 

One day i was showing a potential parent round when he asked what we would do in event of staff sickness and ratio's being compremmmised it was an interesting question..... so of i went in search of the policy file ('the bible' LOL) and in it it says something like.....

 

In the even of staff sickness which comprimeses the overall ratio's of the nursery the manager in the first instance will contact part time staff members to see if they can work, if they can not work then the manager will contact the other nurseries in the chain to see if they have any staff available to work. If no additional staff can be found then the manager will arrange for parents/carers to collect children until enough children have left so that ratios can be met.

 

This leaves it open to a few interpritations:

firstly 'comprimises overall ratio's of nursery' ~ most of the time you can jig children around to roughly meet ratio's overall for the whole nursery (and althoulgh not ideal we have sometimes worked one or two over ratio in the event of staff illness)

 

secondly, how do you decide which children to send home and which to keep?, we kind of said that we would have to send the children of parents who do not work home first (and obviously refund their fees) ...

 

but again that's not ideal.....

 

so yes, our contingency plan is pretty crap really,

 

will be interested to see what others have

 

 

Dawn

[AnonyMouse_4495]

I think our procedure was similar to that of Dawn's when I was in nursery. We also had a list of agencies to call if part time staff were not available.

 

I remember having an outbreak of the upset tummies in nursery and the manager called parents - it became apparent early on that we were going to be under ratio, so she contacted parents of afternoon children and those that had not arrived, then babies parents as they are the most 'draining' on resources i.e. 1:3 ratio. Three babies didn't come in or went home and we 'gained' another member of staff.

 

I don't have a policy though - sorry!

[Guest]

Ours is as follows:

Contingency Arrangements

Staff may be asked to work extra sessions to cover for sickness etc. when supply staff are unavailable. Where there is a problem with staff cover which affects ratios, i.e. if more than one member of staff is absent at the same time, parents will be informed of this and asked to keep their child away. This will be done on a rota basis the initial quota of children being drawn out of a hat. In such cases a full refund will be given.

 

I find the only problem with selecting just those children whose parents do not work would be one of equal opportunities. The fairest way is to randomly select children, out of a hat etc., and then those children can attend the next day and another group of children be drawn until all the children have stayed away or staffing is back to normal.

Linda

[Guest]

Hi,

I went through our policies/procedures and operarional plan and found the following.

 

 

 

Hope this helps

 

Net x

 

Sos forgot to delete my assistant deputy's name, have ok'ed it with her and just pretend you haven't seen it.

 

Net x

[Guest]

Thanks for that example - there are certainly a few bits in it that I will use (not your deputy's name though!!!). It's important that parents see it, so that they are aware that they could be called to take their child home. Hopefully it would never happen, but at least there would be some backup, if it's written in black and white and they've had a copy.

[Guest]

No prob, I got bits and pieces from other policies I have seen and mismatched them into a suitable one for my setting

 

Net xx