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30 hours FEL for 3 and 4 year olds

5 replies

climbingtrees · 27/04/2018 14:45

Can anyone advise regarding the 30 hours free nursery for 3 and 4 year olds?

My child currently goes to a lovely nursery and will be eligible for the 30 FEL hours in January 2019. The nursery have sent a letter home this week stating that the free hours must be taken on a MAXIMUM of 3 days between the hours of 8am-6pm. This sounds ok until you read further on and realise that ONLY the 5 hours between 9-12pm and 1-3pm are actually free. We are then expected to pay £2.75 per hour for 8-9am, 12-1pm and 3-6pm, plus lunch at £3 per meal. Does this sound unreasonable? Are other nurseries also putting restrictions and added costs in place? How are they allowed to charge an additional £2.75 per hour? What is it for? We're really flexible in how to claim the 30 hours, we'd be happy for 5 days 9-3pm or 3 days 8-6pm (although we would probably pick up at 4pm at the latest and chose to miss out on a few hours each day). When our other child was entitiled to 15 hours FEL at the same nursery setting we were able to claim these easily and just paid for the lunch hour and lunch money so didn't expect this nor think they were able to do this. How are other nurseries offering the FEL hours?

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TheDisreputableDog · 27/04/2018 15:02

That doesn't make sense, you are only getting 15 hours not 30?
At our nursery it's spread across the whole year and we get 4.38 hours credited per day, but we're there FT. Not sure what happens if people only go for the 30 hours.

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HSMMaCM · 28/04/2018 13:14

They're offering sessional care, with additional hours available, which is quite normal. However, are they saying they can't offer the whole 30 hours?

They've probably found a way to make it work, given that the government have underfunded the scheme.

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MollyDaydream · 28/04/2018 13:55

Nurseries generally make a loss on offering the funded hours as they get paid less than they would charge, so offering sessions and fees for lunches, snacks, materials, additional hours is a way of making it workable.

It sounds like your nursery are only offering 15 hours, not 30 hours though? They don't have to offer the additional 15.

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lulalalala · 29/05/2018 20:11

Are they offering the 30 hours as term time only (i.e. 38 weeks)? Or is this all year round? The 30 hours only covers term time otherwise it is a 'stretched' offer so works out about 20 hours a week for a full year.

As a pp said nurseries have being really unfunded re 30 hours (look up champagne nurseries, lemonade funding).

They can charge for extra hours (and £2.75 per hour seems quite reasonable) but it shouldn't be a condition of taking a 30 hours place. Also they shouldn't be offering it as a split session so they could offer it was 9-3 pm and charge the other hours. They can also charge for lunch and any other costs (nappies, consumables). The

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insancerre · 30/05/2018 07:00

It's 18 hours a week all year round by the sound of it, so that is the 30 hours
Please watch this video
It helps to explain why nurseries are doing this
m.youtube.com/watch?v=0Zm-mYA6XpQ

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