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Arrrrgh! Day nursery threat!


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Just found out that an Out of School care company is about to open a Day Nursery in our little village!!

 

How Dare they!!! Obviously junping on the 30 hours free funding malarky! Grrrrrrr

 

To be fair we have had no 'competition' for over 20 years and have stayed afloat because we are good, friendly, and 'everybodys' children attend before starting village school - now on second generation!

 

Nothing lasts for ever but feeling really miffed that this might just force my retirement!!!

 

We wont be able to extend our hours - can we survive ?

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Just found out that an Out of School care company is about to open a Day Nursery in our little village!!

 

How Dare they!!! Obviously junping on the 30 hours free funding malarky! Grrrrrrr

 

To be fair we have had no 'competition' for over 20 years and have stayed afloat because we are good, friendly, and 'everybodys' children attend before starting village school - now on second generation!

 

Nothing lasts for ever but feeling really miffed that this might just force my retirement!!!

 

We wont be able to extend our hours - can we survive ?

Survive - probably but you need to also thrive - work out how many children's hours you need to survive would be a good start and then begin the offensive - high profile stuff in the village if you can - photos in local press etc., of great thing you have done with the children before this lot muscle in, get some brand loyalty!!!

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Great suggestions from Panders as always:). Unfortunately the small settings are generally unable to compete with the larger chains. But you can only hope your great reputation will help sustain you in some way.

Celebrate your achievements with the wider public can only be a good thing too.

Keeping my fingers crossed this will be so in your case.:)

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We are a preschool with loads of day nurseries surrounding us. They do cater for a different market. We are term time, have well qualified mature staff, high ratios and are cheap. Low rent and charity status means we can plough money back in. Day nurseries don't generally have any of this, 15 free hours is very expensive, where's ours is free.

 

Be ready but don't give up.

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I agree with Diesel10 - we are a village preschool although we do open 0800 - 1600 - and we have quite a lot of parents move from the local nursery as soon as their child is 2 because they like the fact that our team have been with the setting for over 8 years and are 'mature'!! We also offer very competitive rates, high ratios and all 'profit' goes back into resources etc.

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Ahhh thanks so much - I have been lifted!!!! Your right we have SO much to offer, thanks for reminding me! : )

 

Bring it on.........will let you know what happens! A bit scared but now feel revitalised! It will serve to make us better.

 

Thanks again....I love this forum :)

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I work at a village pre school too , there is a Day Nursery not far to us ,in the past we have had children leave Nursery and come to us !

As a parent myself none of my children went to a day nursery they went to the local play group as someone else said some parents prefer the smaller settings .

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We have a day nursery not too far away; parents seem to use them when they are at work and need full day care but if they are part time the other days they come to us as "we are cheaper"

The good thing is our fees are now more than what we get paid for funding, most parents will use their funded hours at the nursery meaning they pay us which is a win situation for us!

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We too have had parents who use the local day-care until they are old enough for us.

To be honest we do not have that many working parents, and those that do are part-time.

 

For us the pattern seems to be;

Parent works, has 1st child goes back to work child baby goes to daycare......... parent has 2nd child and gives up work- by which time the 1st child is the right age for us... we then get the sibling too when old enough.

 

Hope it works out well for you.

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Most of our parents do return to us inspite of new pre-schools and nurseries opening up nearby. We are on 2nd & 3rd generation children now. The nurseries near us charge extortionate rates. We have very good partnerships with local childminders who pick up and collect from us when we cannot complete with the opening hours of full day care.

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