To disagree with 3/4 year old children having more childcare paid for

[ReallyTired]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24199711

I feel the goverment should pay for education rather than childcare. 15 hours a week is enough to meet a child's educational needs for pre school. At a time of austerity, I feel there are bigger spending priorities. (Providing enough school places for children who are of complusory school age!)

If you choose to have chidlren then you should pay to look after them. I feel that labour's set of proposals are totally unaffordable and making the "banks" pay will damage the UK financial sector long term.

All these election bribes do not help the UK in the long term.

Our DC are 18, 16 and 9. I suggest we talk when yours are a bit older about the realities of after school care

Why? 7.30- 6 clubs here go up to age 15?

School isn't out until 6pm here but when parents aren't home until 9 or 10 pm, that still leaves a lot of evening supervision.

Up to a point bwp , but day nurseries are quite keen on keeping the lunchtime sleep much later than they might otherwise so they can get by on less at night. like dcs in main land Europe.

Yeah dh and I work round that as I work over the 7 days I have flexibility so between that and the club its fine. However as I say plenty use childminders to pick up and they will do overnights if you want.

7.30- 6 clubs here go up to age 15?

If all schools did that it would make things so much easier.

Its not school its private. There are lots round here its a mainly minimum wage area so they have to do it really.

I'm still here. The thread has gone a bit off topic.

I feel 25 hours at the present rate would make make nusery provision fall apart. We need to either allow nusery settings to top up like they used to in 2003 when the early years funding started or increase funding to match costs. Different nurseries offer different levels of luxury. If parents want a nursery with French and a gormet chef they should be allowed to pay for it with a top up.

The private nursery that my daughter went to used to charge £6 an hour for additional hours on top of the basic 15 hours. In affect the full working parents were subsidising the parents who were only part time. (The free hours are paid at a rate of £3.40) If nurseries have to provide more free hours at 3.40 then they will put up the costs for babies and toddlers. It will become uneconomic for more people with a baby to go to work.

The early years are incredibly expensive whatever career choices you make. It is tough financially having a one year old whether you go to work or staty at home.

Actually, I'm not sure that nurseries should be allowed to offer luxury for higher prices. Private nursery owners are always going to want their business to be more profitable and the easiest way to increase profits is by selling more non-essential products and services to existing customers. But do we want nurseries to be profit-driven or do we want them to provide value for money, safe, essential care for small DC?

Surely if nurseries are offering different levels of luxury then it wont benefit young children as some are still then seen as better off than others? Especially if it is in the same care setting. 3 year olds would wonder why such and such has a different option for food etc. Sorry if I missed the point there im tired :)
To be honest I doubt these extra hours will happen, you know what the bloody government are like!

Sorry I just re read and saw you stated different nurseries for different levels of luxury. Im not sureni agree with this concept though. It drives a division amongst young children and when thry go to school the standard will be the same for all of them anyway.

"But do we want nurseries to be profit-driven or do we want them to provide value for money, safe, essential care for small DC?"

The majority of nurseries in the UK are private and that is not going to change overnight. Different businesses offer difference services at present. for example my daughter's old nursery charged a premium if you wanted to drop your child off at 7.30am.

"Surely if nurseries are offering different levels of luxury then it wont benefit young children as some are still then seen as better off than others? "

It is impossible to make life uniform for three year olds across the country. Some children live in a grotty council flat with one room and other children live in beautiful house with lovely gardens, books and toys.

As far as I know the children in the local pre school do not know that the kids at the shiny day nursery have better toys. Both groups of children follow the EYFS and make good progress. Access to a large garden is less of an issue when you can take a pre schooler to the park after the nursery session.

Nurseries are private businesses and each nursery is individual. If you want your child to have nothing but organic food and a large garden with new equipment then it will add to the cost. Very few parents opt for the cheapest nursery in the area because invariably it is very basic.

I choose a nursery that cooked all its meals from scratch and had lovely menus. The children at the local pre school (which is excellent educationally) take packed lunch. The pre school hours were unsuitable for me as I was working at the time. When a child is in a setting for ten hours then the enviroment that the children are in matters more.

I think its a great idea and exactly what this country needs more of.

It's interesting. Of course being a Yank I don't even get 15 hours. Or CB, as such anyway. :)

I think it will be lovely for people who can't work otherwise. And as a SAHM myself I can't see why it would penalize SAH parents or paint them as lazy. I have the odd person tell me I'm lazy, sure, or that I should be "contributing" or whatever, but frankly I give no fucks. I live my life the way it suits me and am glad I'm able to make that choice. I also have friends who work all the hours God sends and have young children, and people are judgy to them as well! Moms are damned if they do in any case, IMO.

There will be a situation soon where some nurseries will take children on the free place scheme, but to do so will have to cut back so they can still make a profit at the £3.40 rate. That means reducing quality of resources, food, and particularly staff.

The other nurseries will have to start refusing the free places. Nurseries are £750 a year down with 15 'free' hours, and make it back from full time children's other 35 hours. Those nurseries will be less cost restricted and will offer a better service with better staff.

There will be a 2 tier system.

For all those worried that nurseries will offer different amounts of luxury...They all ready do. I work supply in a wide range. One nursery has banned backing paper on display boards to save money, another used to have the thermostat set on 14 degrees and made the children wear coats indoors. On the other end of the scale are nurseries that insist on all natural wooden furniture (hard to clean), wooden floors, and all organic food.
Funnily enough good staff want good wages. Good wages have to come from fees, so the higher the fees the better the staff USUALLY.

25 hours of free childcare will not make me vote for Labour. I can either afford childcare myself or I can't in which case I should seriously think about how many children I can afford to have.

This only happens in London, where I am they can cope fine on what the government gives them per hour. Its about average anyway as its 4 quid an hr if you pay privately at most settings.

GermanGirl - you are not responsible for the exorbitant cost if childcare in the UK, though.

There is definitely a two tier system where we live (rural North).

You can pay London prices for nursery and get 7 acres, a farm, lots of extravagant toys, excellent food and staff. Or you can pay a lot less and get a cramped building with a small courtyard outdoors, lots of broken toys, high turnover of staff.

Why can't more nurseries be state run?

When mine were small, I looked at lots of places and the local school had by far the best facilities and the best staff. The private places were cramped and noisy, even the most expensive ones.

The staff ratio was always much higher than the norm because children often stayed at home with parents when they were ill, or when parents wanted it. They weren't penalised for staying at home occasionally.

Private nurseries should be the exception, not the norm.

Could someone just tell me how the current free hours (15?) works? I remember the top up mentioned before so when our children went to a morning nursery school 9 - 12 off the expensive private school's fee we got a voucher from the Labour party amazingly of about £600 a term off the fees. That was the "free hours". It certainly would not cover their 9 - 12 5 days a week at nursery school and not the £30k gross cost of the nanny who worked 8am to after 6 taking and collecting from nursery so we could work full time.

How does it work now? Presumably the rules changed and that morning nursery school which I cannot imagine could provide anything for £3.40 an hour would simply not take the children and there would be no nursery locally providing these free hours? Is that so or if I were looking today could I find a day nursery for 7.5 hours on two days which would take the chidlren totally free and then just have to fund the other 2 days and wrap around on the 7.5 hours?

"For all those worried that nurseries will offer different amounts of luxury...They all ready do. I work supply in a wide range. One nursery has banned backing paper on display boards to save money, another used to have the thermostat set on 14 degrees and made the children wear coats indoors. On the other end of the scale are nurseries that insist on all natural wooden furniture (hard to clean), wooden floors, and all organic food."

Somethings are important than others. It is not that important whether a nursery chooses to ban backing paper on a notice board. It matters little to a child whether the furniture is wooden or plastic. Choosing whether to feed a child organic or halal food is a lifestyle choice. I think its reasonable for these parents to have these choices and pay a supplement. However setting the thermostat to 14 degress is child abuse.

Choice on how parents spend their money is a fact of life. Communists countries where every one has the same are less pleasent places to live than the UK.

I feel that nurseries should be able to ask parents to top up the fees. Prehaps there could be a pupil premium equivalent for low income families to help with the top ups so that children can access the free hours at present.

Hat to sidetrack a bit, but...

If a nursery bans backing paper good staff will think it looks shit. Good staff do not want to work somewhere where they are told to do their job in a shit way. The quality of staff goes down. It will affect the children.

"Choosing whether to feed a child organic or halal food is a lifestyle choice. I think its reasonable for these parents to have these choices and pay a supplement. However setting the thermostat to 14 degrees is child abuse."

LOL. There's a Swedish nursery where we live. The DC spend all morning outside in the park whatever the weather. They wear appropriate clothing to keep warm. I really don't think you can qualify a lack of heating as child abuse. Very uncomfortable, perhaps...