Susan Posted April 28, 2005 Posted April 28, 2005 What do you do when a child's parents do not pay for him/her to take part in an an activity that is provided as an extra during the session? I know what would happen in a school but but happens in a day nursery or other pre-school setting?
Guest Posted April 28, 2005 Posted April 28, 2005 Can't help with what happens in a day nursery or other pre-school setting Susan but did you know schools can claim the VAT back. This means you have 17.5% to cover any shortfall. I use this to pay for adults and any children who do not pay the full amount when we go on trips. Trouble is with cooking food doesn't have VAT on it. We use fund raising usually a dressing up day to cover cookery items for all children for the term, these parents don't seem to mind popping in a £1 donation on these occasions.
Guest Posted April 28, 2005 Posted April 28, 2005 What do you do when a child's parents do not pay for him/her to take part in an an activity that is provided as an extra during the session? 30377[/snapback] I personally would feel uncomfortable asking parents to pay extra for French or dance 'lessons' which happen during the session. There are lots of issues raised by your question: do you withdraw children from activities which parents have not paid for (with implications for equality of opportunity) and if you don't withdraw these children, where is the incentive for those parents who do pay? I might even go further and say that if the activities you want to provide are worth the extra charge, (and improve the quality of your service) why not incorporate this in your fees? Having said that we charge a 'top up' fee to cover the extra half hour and extra weeks not covered by the NEG, but parents are made aware of this at the outset. I'll be very interested to see how many of us provide these 'extras' and charge parents a supplementary fee! Maz
Sue R Posted April 28, 2005 Posted April 28, 2005 I'm in a private day nursery. Anything we provide for the children is available to all of them (in the appropriate unit!) if they are in on the day and at the time it happens. There is no such thing as 'extras', except for trips. These are booked and costed, then a small subsidy is made (depending on take-up and expense) and the result passed on to parents as a cost, if they want their child to participate. Normal service is available for children remaining at 'base'. We provide a packed lunch for the child if it is required, and they would normally have had lunch in the setting. Regular trips such as library visits do not come under this consideration as they are not considered as 'extras'. Interestingly, some parents do not want their children to leave the nursery at all, and sometimes ask that their child does not participate in Dance, Drama or Spanish. (our current 'add-ons') Sue
Susan Posted April 29, 2005 Author Posted April 29, 2005 Well your answers are reassuring me! I wonder what others do?
Guest Posted April 29, 2005 Posted April 29, 2005 I cannot really help - as I run a sessional group - therefore any special outings/events which we organise - we organise for the child and the parent - we then do not charge for that session but parents pay for the outing if they want to go on it - i.e. visit to the farm. We used to have a computer bus come in but found exactly the same thing - if parents are paying for the session then they should not be expected to pay for extras and it became too complicated as you say - where's the inclusion. So to date anything that we organise in the sessional times is not charged, hence we do not offer anything TOO special - just our wit, sense of humour and expertise and who could put a price on that - although after our nature walk today I was sadly lacking all of those!!!! Nikki
Susan Posted April 29, 2005 Author Posted April 29, 2005 oh nikki, that bad? And its been such a glorious day weather wise today, or at least it has here!
Guest Posted April 29, 2005 Posted April 29, 2005 Fabulous weather here too! We don't charge any extra for baking etc. which we consider to be part of our normal activities. If we have a party and the children do not normally attend on that day then we charge a normal session fee. I have not had any problems in the past with this. As for trips it depends on the cost. If it is more than the normal fee then we would charge the extra and full price for those children who do not normally come in on that day and any parents coming with us. If we had a parent who came and said that they couldn't afford it but wanted their child to go on the trip I would certainly look to helping the family out. But I suppose that if there were too many the trip wouldn't take place-just the same as in schools really. Linda
Guest Posted April 30, 2005 Posted April 30, 2005 We have just been on a nursery trip and i had one very unhappy parent who would not let her child attend on the trip Basically what happend was all the children who attended on the particular day had to pay an added cost on top of their session.If the parents wanted to come they had to pay for themselves which we had no complaints about. We then had to ask other parents whose children didn't attend on that particular day if they would like to come to fill up spaces on the coach to cover the cost! This particular parent thought tht this was very unfair in the sense that those extra children who didn't attend on that day didn't have to pay for the daily session but because her child did she had to pay for the daily session and the extra session!! I can see her point and will definately be taking that into consideration the next trip we go on!! what are people's views on this? Starlight
Rea Posted April 30, 2005 Posted April 30, 2005 We always ask for a donation towards the cost of visitors to the setting, zoolab, farm people, etc. We havent done a trip out for ages because of the costs being passed onto parents, our chair and committee dont think parents would want to pay extra, so its never put to them. Not all pay a donation but we wouldnt exclude a child whose parent didnt pay.
Guest Posted May 1, 2005 Posted May 1, 2005 That is a shame that you don't go on trips! as a nursery we love taking the children out as it gives us a chance to get to know some of the parents who prehaps don't get to spend time with us as they are in a hurry to get to work! I think asking for a donation for visitors is a great idea. We ask parents to come in and do something with the children depending on the topics e.g we have parents who are doctors and health visitors and we invited them in and the children and staff gained so much knowledge from them it was very successful Have you heard of soccer squirts? you can choose from a range of sport activities in our case we chose football and they sent out a proffessional coach who does 14 sessions of football over a term. The parents pay a certain amount of money and of course permission forms. The parents and children were delighted with this idea and were more than happy to pay the extra cost! It also helped us boost the nursery numbers. starlight
Guest Posted May 5, 2005 Posted May 5, 2005 Hello I manage a pre-school which is part of a private nursery. We have a creative dance session once a week with a qualified dance teacher, if parents want their child to take part in this they do have to pay. The morning for those children who do not dance carries on as normal. If we didn't have the seperate space for the dance sessions I'm not sure we would have them. Sarah
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