Free nursery hours, is it just me or is purposefully confusing?!

[user1479136681]

So I am a smart person but I'm baffled by the nursery hours rules and how to apply!

Do both partners have to be in work to qualify? I'd like to work part time or possibly stay at home but we'd still like him to get some nursery time for meeting other children (also okay I have dreams of writing my novel while he's at nursery and striking it rich, I can dream!).

And why do the free hours only need to be in term time?!

He'll be eligible for the April term so I need to start applying asap and talk to work. It's that age old conundrum of I don't want to put him full time in nursery, and it would be pointless anyway because I don't earn much myself so I'd just be working to cover nursery fees. Ideally I'll just go back to work part time and put him in the nursery near my office.

Of course he might not cope with nursery but I feel like I need to try, but I'd like to try it before I go back to work.

All 3 year old are entitled to 15 hours funded the term after their third birthday. If you work I think 16 hours a week or more and earn at least minimum wage for those hours you can apply for 30 hours a week funding. Funding is paid for 38 weeks of the year. Some childcare providers will "stretch" the funding so it is weekly all year round. I think this works out at about 20-22 hours a week.

Ask your preferred childcare setting how they work their funded hours. A lot of places do it differently. Some you will only get the funding between the hours of 9-3 and have to pay for the hours before and after. You may also need to pay a consumables charge for the funded hours. This childcare funding is so underfunded by the government that a lot of providers are struggling so have to charge a consumable charge or they will go under.

Are you asking about two year old funding? Former lac children are entitled to 15 hours.

It does take a bit of working out.

My lo's were 2 and 3 when we started to look at nursery earlier this year. Both were entitled to 15 hours funding as previously LAC.

My 3 year old was entitled to the 30 hours funding as both parents working more than 16 hours at minimum wage. He would get this instead of the 15 hours not in addition to.

We spread the 30 hours over the year and originally planned to send them to nursery for 3 days per week. The 30 hours did not pay for meals or I think fully cover the 3 days so we had approx £42 per month to pay on top of this for the 3 year old. However, I think different nurseries have a different approach to this - I'm sure that one we looked at would only use the 30 hours for the core hours 9-3 and anything outside of this was paid for in addition. So our 3 days would have been quite a bit more costly.

As we are both working we are also entitled to support from the government via tax free childcare. You have to apply for this and the 30 hours funding online. An account is then set up and we pay into the account monthly and set up standard payments to come out of the account to the nursery. The government pay 20% so for every £100 bill we only have to pay in £80.

Hope this helps

If you're adopting and still awaiting the adoption certificate, your sw can get you a 30 hour code as a interim measure as a Foster carer (it's what classed as while legal is progressing) and it covers you for a full term.

It is purposefully confusing I feel. I've just been through this and what makes it worse is the govt talks in terms of hours and then nursery fees are always based on daily or weekly rates, then you have the tax free childcare thing and there's no transparent way of working out exactly what you'll pay! I've found it a minefield!

Basically if adopted your child can get 15 hours free at 2 and 30 hours at 3. The amount of hours available equates to 38 weeks of funding throughout the year but in fact many nurseries do what they call stretch funding which is stretching it out to apply through the whole year by giving you slightly less free hours each week but for 52 weeks. Others offer term time only funding so you will have a few months where you are paying the more expensive rate. It's worth asking this question when visiting. To set this up you need to go to your.local authority's govt portal and make an online application and then if you are eligible you will receive a code that you just need to provide to your nursery to help them claim. This part was actually fairly easily I got a msg online the next day with the code and that was that

Then there is the govt tax free childcare. Up to £2000/year they will pay 20% of your fees and you pay the other 80%. To do this you set up a tax free childcare account online and my understanding is you deposit your 80% of the money did nursery bill in and then they top it up with the other 20% a bit like a bank account (tho I've not had to do this in practice yet)

Hope this helps somewhat