Nursery fees terms and conditions - legal clarification

[mattmatt]

Hi,

Hopefully this is posted in the right place! I would be grateful if someone could give me their legal view on the following extract from our child's nursery terms and conditions. I'm questioning whether we have to pay for bank/public holidays as the nursery is not open at these times.

"The nursery is open Monday – Friday 51 weeks throughout the year excluding Bank and Public holidays. Fees are payable on these days and also for any absences.

Unfortunately we are unable to offer any days in lieu of absences or public holidays.

Fees are based on 51 weeks per year and then divided by 12 to support your budgets at home."

Now, to me this reads as fees are payable on the days that the nursery is open. i.e. Mon-Fri, 51 weeks but no bank/public holidays.
Am I understanding this correctly? Over the year financially it makes a fair difference.

Many Thanks
Matt

[des8]

Re: Nursery fees terms and conditions - legal clarification

Hi and welcome.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but I thinks you will be paying for 51 weeks of the year, and there is no credit for absences or public holidays.
This seems to be standard for nurseries (or it is here in West Wales according to my daughters

[EXC]

Re: Nursery fees terms and conditions - legal clarification

You'll find that most nurseries effectively charge for bank holidays. It's the same with private schools except that rather than paying per term you pay weekly/monthly which is a pro-rata figure of the year. Any nursery's main outgoing is staff costs for which they still have to pay. I used to own day nurseries and to change direct debit amounts for the weeks/months that bank holidays fell in would have been a nightmare.