Admission Policy

[Guest]

Help please! We need to redo our admission policy in our pre-school and I would be very grateful if anyone would mind sharing one with me. We need to tighten up on who gets priority on more sessions, new or exisiting children etc Also, what do you do about giving refunds if you close because of bad weather?

Hope the new term is going well for everyone! Rose

[Beau]

Hi,

 

Heres ours - hope it helps. There may be others in the resources too.

ADMISSIONS_AND_SETTLING_IN_POLICY.doc

[Guest]

In answer to your question re: refunds for bad weather, I don't give monetary refunds, I give a 'voucher' for the parent to use, in the near future, which is equivalent to the number of sessions closed. Parents are happy with this. I do this because I have available sessions and money is so tight and budgeted for, also if closure happens at the end of term the fees income may have already been spent on resources etc.

 

I do need to consider this in my business plan under financial contingencies.

 

Pegy

[Guest]

Thank you for your replies, they have certainly helped. Have a good weekend Rose

[Guest]

Hey Rose, I've only just joined the forum & recognise that this is an 'old' issue but would like to say something on the subject. I recently had a number of parents tell me that I had over-charged by 1 session as we were shut for the bank holiday. I explained that I had a duty to pay the staff as part of their holiday entitlement but had to let them have a refund, as it wasn't in our terms & conditions. Our logo states that we are 'working towards changing the face of early years'. We, as professionals are all doing just that. However, we cannot continue to do the work we do, whilst we are expected to charge peanuts for the first rate service for childcare, education & family support we are providing to our community. It is absolutely right that as employers we pay staff professionally & legally which means that we make contributions to their N.I & pay holiday pay as stipulated by the Dep. of works & pensions.

 

Government is doing a wonderful thing in paying the grant for children over 3 but it in no way covers the costs of running our settings. We have seen the closure of 3 top quality settings in our area in just 12 months. Does anyone have any ideas as to how we can become more viable financially? Thanks for listening to my rant! xx

[HappyMaz]

Thanks for listening to my rant! xx

That's what we're here for! We don't pay staff for bank holidays. Wonder if we should?

 

Presumably you've changed your ts&cs now - I've just had to do the same to tighten up what we charge when people accept a very late place at school in order to make up for the lost income.

 

Maz

[Guest]

Of course staff should be paid for bank holidays and sick pay and pensions and holiday pay and paid training days and paid overtime and receive regular breaks in fact all the things that most employees take for granted. But for early years staff they are seen unachievable and even worse not to be expected. Higher and higher standards are expected (rightly so!) but on the back of people's goodwill. It just is not right but there does not now seem a way out!