Funded pre school for 2year olds

[mrsballack]

So in the absence of anything better to do I've been looking into pre schools for the little ones.

My understanding is that LAC receive the entitlement from 2 instead of three but from September that will change to include children adopted from care. Have I grasped this correctly? So then if we obtain the Adoption Order before September we will then lose the 15 free hours?

Also do we apply for this through our local borough or is it provided by the borough who we applied through?

Not being tight, but we're going to have plenty of expenses so any help with pre school would be great.

My understanding is that any child who was a LAC qualifies, whether the adoption order has gone through or not. You can apply from the term after your child turns 2. You would apply through the LA where you live. Hope that's right!

Thanks. It's a bit confusing.

I'm not sure about your entitlement post order, but I think the child's placing borough have to pay. A friend of mine tried to get the 15 hours for her 2 year old, and the LA we live in refused it because her DS was placed from another LA. I think it's currently discretionary, but will become compulsory from September, but I'm not 100% sure on that. Sorry, I'm not helping much. I will watch more knowledgeable replies with interest as my DS is 2 and I will want to introduce him to nursery well before I go back to work late this year. Best of luck.

I will be watching this thread with interest as we applied for our 2 yo (placed from a different LA) and got turned down......
The manager at our local childrens centre was furious and is going to fill the form in with me........

I got this for ds. When he turned 2 the adoption order hadn't gone through yet so he was still lac.
My council were also doing a pilot study.

We got funding for our 2 year old.....she has just started and our adoption was finalised last June. My understanding is it is available now for any child that has ever been in care. Might differ by local authority. Our local childrens centre helped as we adopted through another city.

Also we were told that it might be completed because of it being an adoption. From another lac but we just needed someone to refer us and a family support worker from our local childrens centre did this....we had been attending her playgroup. We were amazed how straight forward it was.....!

We have just found out we are eligible for a place on this scheme. I rang a telephone number on our LA website, left details and the following day informed we fit the criteria. Within an hour we received a call from local childrens centre with an offer on their new scheme.
We are still waiting for adoption order as previous hearing was adjourned and lo has health issues so not sure if this helped.
I think it depends on LA and availability of places.
Having said all this I feel so anxious about letting LO out of my sight ........