"30 free hours"

[BlueRaincoat1]

My 3 year old DS attends pre-school, has done since he was one. He is entitled to the "30 free hours". He attends 3 days a week, from around 8.45 til 5.30, so taking that as being billed 8-6, it is literally 30 hours per week.

My bill this month was £389.70, reduced to £292.27 after the 25% tax free element which we use. We can afford it and our childcare bill is SO much less than it used to be when we had two in nursery/pre-school, with limited entitled to "free" hours.

But I really think the title of "30 free hours" is ridiculous, when my DS attends for 30 hours and the bill is still nearly £300 per month.

Ours is similar, very popular Montessori with no need to stretch funding, so we pay full price in the holidays and around the same as you in term time and DS on paper attends 8-6 twice a week but really it's 8:45 - 5:20/5:30. We have Montessori charge twice per day morning and afternoon session, lunch is £10 now, plus forest school fees termly. However they are very well resourced and staffed, including nursery nurses in the playschool room, he has dance lesson and Spanish lesson included once a week in those fees.

The cheaper nurseries around here are only open 9-3 and to be honest aren't great, two shut down recently due to repeated Ofsted concerns around health and safety and safeguarding. We're lucky we can afford to pay for better provision but it really is a two tier system

Some nurseries charge and arm and a leg for extras when the child reaches funded age.

When my eldest was about to turn 3 I was told I would have to pay about £27 for lunch and I could only use 6 hours a day even if I only wanted to do 3 days a week. I started looking around for new nurseries and found a really good one.

The one he used and the one my youngest goes to lets me use my 30 hours however I want. I choose to spread it over the year so I get 22 hours free. Any hours over that I get charged at their rate. I pay for meals to in my case now I pay for one snack and one breakfast. I now also pay for an extra day because I'm working more so I end up paying between £250-£300 a month for 4 days at nursery 8.30-3.45.

I have definitely never had this explained to me.

The daily rate at mine is still around £50 with a discount applied to 6 hours. A full fay is £80. I honestly don’t know how some settings manage to run on the subsidiary alone. It’s full for the next 18m so they clearly don’t have an issue filling the spaces.

We'll pay £875 a month for 4 days a week once we get the 30hr free. We currently pay £1255 a month with out.

The nursery restrict the free hours to school hours in term time. Then we have to pay £42 to top it up to a full day in term time at £72.50 for the full day out of term time. They then pro rota that across the year.

I currently have two in nursery for £2500 a month. I have to earn over £45k a year in order to break even (self employed).

Luckily it'll only be that way for a year. Then free hours will kick in and my £45k will give me around £350 a month. But it'll be worth it in the long run because I'm in an industry where you can't really take a career break and then go back at the same level.