Early opens, late closes and the ratios that decide your day
Nursery hours start before parents’ working days and end after them, so somebody opens at seven and somebody closes at six. Staffing ratios mean a colleague being off changes the rota immediately, and many childcare workers are arranging their own childcare around it.
The schedules this actually has to cope with
Freeish is built around these, not around a nine-to-five with the occasional exception.
Opens and closes
In before seven, or out after six, on a rota across the team.
Ratio cover
Somebody off means the rota changes today, not next week.
Term-time and holiday club
A different pattern entirely during school holidays.
Training days
Fixed, occasional and easy to forget until the week they arrive.
What it sounds like at home
- “I open at seven and my own childcare does not start until eight.”
- “The rota changes on the day when somebody calls in sick.”
- “Holiday club weeks look nothing like term-time.”
- “Everyone assumes my hours are the same as the nursery’s.”
- “I finish after the school I need to collect from.”
Where Freeish fits
Import the rota rather than copying it, including the holiday-club weeks.
A same-day change is one edit and everyone sees it.
Your own childcare arrangements sit alongside your shifts in the same view.
Family see actual start and finish times rather than nursery opening hours.
One week, start to finish
Nadia, nursery practitioner
- Nadia photographs the fortnight’s rota from the staffroom.
- Her mother, who has her son on early days, can see which they are.
- A colleague calls in sick and the change goes in that morning.
- Holiday club weeks import separately when they are set.
- Nobody assumes she works the nursery’s advertised hours.
Questions nursery and childcare workers ask
Can I import the staffroom rota?
What about same-day changes?
Can I keep my own family arrangements private?
Stop being the schedule. Start sharing it.
Now on iPhone — Android coming soon. Free to start. Import a photo of your next schedule and see who stops asking.