15 free hours

[Kafri]

I understand ds will be entitled to 15 hours from the term after he turns 3?? This will be January next year.

He currently has a full time nursery place - I'm a student and my timetable changes each semester and quite often during a semester so I have to have a full time place booked for him.
I can't get my head around how much I'll save once he gets his free hours. I pay a day rate rather than hourly and I've also heard people mention that they don't count meal times and that I have to pay the difference between what the gvt pay and the nursery charge. I'm just trying to work out my finances for the coming year so could do to understand it a little more.

Thanks, and apologies - I'm sure it's been asked many a time.

[Notfastjustfurious]

Well they're not 'free' hours that's for sure. My dd gets this from next week and it has basically equated to £12 per session ie £24 a day so I still have £20 to pay on a full day and I can have 5 sessions which is 2.5 days and it's only term time. It's not really as good as it's made out to be.

[SnozzberryPie]

Check with your nursery but the 15 hours is only during term time, and averaged over the year it works out around ten hours. Mine does the free hours as half day sessions, and you have to pay a top up fee to make two sessions into one full day.

[FusionChefGeoff]

I think different nurseries calculate it differently but agree that in a 51 week a year nursery, 15 hours on term time equates to 11 hours all year. But if you are a student do you have a term time only place? ours takes the day rate which covers 8am - 6pm, divides by 10 to give an hourly cost, multiplies this by 11 then deducts this figure from our weekly cost.

[insancerre]

I'm a nursery manager and in our area, the funding equates to a discount of about £200 a month for a full-time place, spread over 12 monrhs

[Kafri]

Brilliant thank you ladies.

The nursery he's at don't do term time only places so it's year round - he was due to start at a childminder term time only but I was let down and given just 3 weeks to find a full time childcare place or not go back to uni last year. Luckily I found a nursery I liked with a full time place available but they only do year round places.

I'm just a little worried that with the way student finance works I'll end up not getting enough to pay for nursery. If my childcare bill falls below a certain amount I don't get the childcare element of my student loans I my 'free' hours could end up costing me more than I'm saving if that makes sense.

[valerie66]

The 15 hours HAVE to be free, but can be offered in different ways to suit the nursery. Most do it in sessions, so you may have to pay for the gap between sessions if you need more than the funded session. Some charge for lunch -they can charge for the time if its outside of their funded session, but if they charge for food during a funded session they must offer parents the choice of supplying their own food.
Often the nursery/childminder doesn't receive the full amount per hour that they usually charge, but they are NOT allowed to charge a top up.
So everyone claiming the 15 hours should see a reduction in their bill of the hourly rate x 15 per week. or x 11 if its stretched over the year and not just term time.