Do you pay your nursery's essentials and extras fee?

I think a better question is why do some nurseries charge more than £100 per day.

If a nursery is able to run on £60 a child per day then yes, they can afford the "free hours". But if it does genuinely cost £100 (I'm guessing mainly due to rent/mortgage) then its obvious they can't if the council doesn't give them enough money.

(Can nurseries still only offer the funding between certain times?)

To the poster asking how some places can provide a service without charging. The staff are only trained to apprenticeship level, if fact the manager will probably only hold a level 3, some staff will be untrained, reliance on apprentices/ students as they are cheap, higher staff turnover as there is no investment in them as individuals, all training will be the minimal required, they will provide adequate care but nothing more and nothing for kids with any additional needs - by law they have to offer this but they won’t have the staff, knowledge or skills for this, the parents get to do more admin around sorting out funding codes etc because they won’t have an admin worker, the activities will be much more limited eg no trips off site as they won’t have the staff for them, limited new resources, limited updates to parents about what they are doing with your child all day- your getting a basic service which is great if that’s what you want.

If you want anything more than this it has to be paid for and this has been done through the resource charge/private fees which parents knew and agreed to when they placed their children.

The council has an obligation to find a free place for your child if you demand one but it has no obligation for it to be near your house, fit your work hours etc

I don’t understand why you can’t provide packed lunches? My daughter takes one to nursery as do all the children there. No nuts, like at school, and it’s fine.

I would at least pay a proportion of it.

I personally do pay the voluntary charge (always been voluntary where I am) but they’re cheap and outstanding rated so I just feel very blessed we have a place there and my child is treated so well. Plus we can afford it.

Sadly the reality is that many nurseries will close if enough parents choose not to pay these extra charges.

I don't think they'll close because parents will still need childcare. But many will refuse to offer the funded hours, I suspect, so it will be harder and harder for parents to find a setting that offers them. Settings that don't offer the funded hours will be able to offer a more competitive rate to parents who don't qualify with them, because those parents will no longer have to cross-subsidize the funded hours for others. So they'll offer a better rate and better service for parents paying the full amount.

I understand that it's difficult, money is tight for so many families. Sadly the reality is that many nurseries will close if enough parents choose not to pay these extra charges.

Not only are the government underfunding these 'free' spaces, they've just released an advert for school based nurseries (even though only a very small amount of schools have actually signed up for the scheme) giving the impression that it'll be a better start for their child than other settings such as private nursery or childminder. After all the hard work that these staff do to care for and educate children, being paid an insultingly low wage to do so- more undervalued than ever!

Wow. I came to see the thread to also try and understand but OP you’ve had a tough time! I can’t believe the assumptions people have made based on this conversation.

Cheaper rents/other bills and utilities.

Younger children enrolled which soak up some of the shortfall.

Smaller wage bills.

Fundraising by PTAs to aid buying of resources, equipment or trips out.

Yes, this is an issue. It's cheaper for some parents if their nursery doesn't offer the funded hours.

This is what I can’t understand- why do some nurseries manage it without charging?

Then parents need the option to bring in food, nappies so that isn’t a cost to the nursery? They would be purely accessing the funded place which is what the intention was.

The funded hours is for the care only, if you want your child to do activities and all the other bits that come with attending a private nursery then you have to pay for it, even if it is technically optional.

At ours the normal daily rate has increased to cover the funding shortfall, min wage increases etc, and then the consumables charges cover all the activities and fun stuff they do on those funded days. It’s still a discount on full price for us so it’s a win, even if it’s not entirely free.

To be fair, my understanding is that the government hasn’t changed the rules, just told childcare providers to actually start following them. Technically they were never allowed to have mandatory charges for funded hours. My DDs’ nursery never has, but my understanding from MN is that this is fairly unusual.

The nursery have sent that because of the government changes two weeks ago which have given nurseries no chance to really work out their finances.

The funding covers only the educational side of the EYFS it doesn’t cover meals and consumables. Consider if your nursery offers extra on top of the basic EYFS - such as trips out that might need enhanced ratio/transport, things such as music or sport sessions that require a separate teacher to come in. Forest schools. Events they might do such as Christmas parties, parent evenings, inviting parents in for shows etc. These all involve extra cost to the nursery in paying for the sessions, extra staffing, resources etc. This is the type of thing the consumable charge goes towards. Admin hours for SEN plan and taking on the role of speech and language etc that parents have a long wait for and nursery staff help with.

In regards to meals, consider if your child is there all day and might need a decent hot meal at some point. It may have to be cold food all day if the nursery has no way to heat food and you’ll have to consider how to keep the food cool all day if they have no storage space. Can you easily provide potentially three meals plus snacks that will need preparing each night/morning after a long day. Staff will be too busy to prepare potentially several different meals. Are you willing to look at the ingredients so you know what allergens are in the food if your child has an allergic class mate? Nursery meal times are very sociable occasions and they learn to try different tastes and textures and use a knife and fork. They learn to sit still and enjoy eating at the table in a way a packed lunch can’t replicate.

Childcare isn’t cheap but you are outsourcing all this learning that are the fundamental bedrock of social skills, it is worth the cost if you are unable to be there yourself to teach it.

I imagine that if enough people choose not to pay then the setting will stop accepting funded children

Did the email literally just say that it is no longer mandatory or was there anything else?

Because they don’t want people realising they are massively under funding the whole thing.
It’s like this silly breakfast club thing. It’s not funded properly so schools are already pulling out.

Although I don't see the relevance of SAHM because if you don't provide it no one else will feed them whereas you can either the nursery feed them or provide a packed lunch yourself but nurseries aren't giving you that choice.

They’re attempting to force your hand by refusing to allow you to send food in because of allergies. Really they should tell you what foods are and aren’t allowed (I’d put money on it just being a general no nuts rule if you actually looked at what they are serving the children) and let you send in a packed lunch that meets that criteria. That’s what our nursery does if you don’t pay for lunch.

I don't to be fair. However you should be able to choose between lunch cooked on site or a packed lunch. My child's nursery you don't have a choice.

I’m really surprised by posters aggression and telling op to research areas of her city that have cheaper nurseries and move there?! Just because she’s asked if other people pay an extra 4K a year (on top of the fees she’s actually paying for a service) to their nursery, basically just out of good will. Can’t imagine doing that for any other business. Do people give the school 2k per child too to help with resources? They’re underfunded as well.

@IVFmumoftwoof course, the point is you shouldn’t expect for someone else to pay for your child’s lunch

I think it just depends on the nursery, we can choose to provide our own if we want but most don't.