Nursery World - By the clock

All nurseries have them, but they devise different ways of managing them. Mary Evans considers the late pick-up On a cold, dark, wet winter's night as the minute hand inches towards six o'clock and everyone is longing to go home, nursery managers and their staff will be able to predict with a high degree of accuracy which parents will be late.

On a cold, dark, wet winter's night as the minute hand inches towards six o'clock and everyone is longing to go home, nursery managers and their staff will be able to predict with a high degree of accuracy which parents will be late.

For some people punctuality is a matter of pride. But there are just as many others who are consistently late. A perennial personnel problem facing nursery managers is how to cope effectively with such parents while preventing their long-suffering staff from becoming resentful.

One way to deal with the situation is to set up a system of charges for latecomers (see box below). A payments scheme was introduced last year at the Oakfield Nursery School in Altrincham and its founder, Finola Barr, says it has had a dramatic impact and almost eradicated the problem. To limit the bureaucracy for the nursery management, the parents pay the staff member who has waited with their children directly.

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