"Free" 15 hours child care for 3 year olds, and my nursery

[Littlemoocow]

Dd has started going to a nursery, only a baby so this isn't relevant yet. However I noticed on the nursery payment info, that when a child is 3, the daily fees go down from £56 to £54. Now I do understand that the 15 hours is only for term time, so for a private nursery operating over the whole year, it's more like 10 hours free. I also understand that a private nursery is a business like any other that has to make money and that they can work out their fees how they wish to, but is this unreasonable in your opinions? I haven't asked them for a breakdown but I'm guessing that they could only justify it by saying that the cost of food etc is high, and the free hours only app,y to direct care costs (which they must be saying are actually very cheap then!), but I can't help feeling that this is a blatant rip off, in an already fairly expensive setting.

Most nurseries charge more for baby care. Ours had three tiers and as they get older it gets cheaper.

Well that sounds illegal. My DD went to a private nursery from three and they used to get me to sign something and it took the whole 15 hours off my bill

I was stung with this with my 1st. They still have to charge for meals, snacks, activities etc. My bill went down by about a third but I just didn't think about it until they gave me a breakdown of the costs.

Do they even offer the free hours? They don't have to. The fees might go down because the ratios of carers to children change, for example, it might have nothing to do with the free hours.

I think all nurseries are different with this 15 hour policy. Ours was excellent.... dd still did 6 hours three days a week and they just billed us for 3 hours per week when she became eligible.

With my nursery, the bill showed the full cost of her care, and then the 15 hours per week was deducted. It was just the way they did the accounts.

The daily fees may well be £54 for a 3 year old - it is usual for a 3 year old to be cheaper than a baby due to staff ratios required - but, that doesn't mean you will be billed for 5 days every week at £54 per day.

For example: DD goes to the pre-school class of the local private nursery from 9-3 on a Tuesday & Thursday and 9-12 on a Friday. She only does 15 hours & we are only billed for her lunch (£2.75 per day).

However, if we wanted DD to do an additional day on a Monday or Wednesday or an afternoon on a Friday, we would be charged the going rate for that time. So, if the daily rate was £54 and we wanted DD to go for a full day on a Monday, we would be charged £54.

They still need to have a daily rate in order to work out the pricing for anything over and above the 15 hours. Hope that makes sense!

I'm not sure I understand the question/problem.
Are you sure the change in fees refers to the free 15 hours? Is it not just a change of fees dependants on the age regardless of free hours. Quite a few nurseries near me charge more for an under three than over as they require different care

Ah santas I hope it what you suggest that would sound much fairer to me.

My son has just left private nursery to go to school and they nursery knocked about £150 off the bill as that was the equivalent in hours.

Childcare costs are horrendous.

I would think so Little. That's definitely the way it works at our nursery .

fatima maybe you're right. I know several mums using several different nurseries and I've never come across one that charges less for 3 year olds so I hadn't even thought it might be that. Hopefully it is that, as otherwise the 15 free hours aren't free at all really.

You are confusing 2 things here.

The cost of childcare when your child is 3 often goes down at nurseries becuase a lower staff/child ratio is required. I suspect this is the slight reduction you are seeing.

The 15 hours free will come off this bill - the nursery is unlikely to take it off the headline figure for 3 year olds as it's not payable to all three year olds (e.g. it's from the term after your 3rd birthday, not the day, which the nursery's published cost will be and some children may not satisfy other requirements). IME nurseries don't prorata this over the year (would leave them with issues if you leave mid year, but simply take if off for the months that it is payable meaning your bill goes up and down.

Thanks for all your perspectives. I think I need to query the breakdown with the nursery, I hadn't even thought the costs would be lower depending on age. I just assumed it was down to the "free" hours

I know childcare costs seem high, but work out the hourly rate per child - say 8 hours a day (many children will actually be there for more hours than that) and it works out about about 7 per hour - not a huge amount to pay staff, costs (food etc.) and the cost of property/rental particularly in the South must be enormous.

The price they quote is not including the free 15 hours.
Ours charges more for the babies, once they are over 3 staff ratios go up so it is cheaper to provide care and the fees reduce. Think its £42 a day under 3 , £39 over 3 etc
In addition once they are over 3 you get the free 15 hours as well , worth nothing this does not kick in immediately they turn 3 but for the term after they turn 3 so for a June born baby we had to wait til September to get the free hours and it is term time only and you do need to pay for lunch, dinner etc

It's to the radio of staff to child higher with children under 3 so cost should be more. Talk to your nursery if unsure

That price has mouthing to do with with the free hours.
They have to publish a price for 3 year olds
The free 15 hours will be taken off the total bill.
That's if they offer it- most nurseries do. It can be a bit convoluted the way they calculate it. I vaguely remember it being over 38 weeks and not a full year, but that might have changed now

Yes like others said, the drop is not the free hours coming off, it is because of change in staff ratios for over 3s. I have had a hell of a job getting the free hours sometimes - both mine used private nursery initially part time then full time due to work hours not being within the laughable periods offered by school nurseries. I've had one nursery say they weren't allowed to do the free provision (because of council, though they claimed it was 'the cuts' ffs), but then got a form from same place for free hours, and they took some off bill, but only for one month. Other places said they did free hours but would only take off 3h per day regardless how many days you used, so if child was in 3 days they would get 9h free, not 15, and so on. It is a complete shambles and the govt should be embarrassed tbh.

The cost will be the cost of having a 3 year old for the day.

You get 15 hours of funded childcare a week during termtime.

The way my DS's nursery did it was divide it across the whole year so that took 10 hours, say, off each week.

The bill was presented as the total cost, minus the funded childcare, minus the sibling discount, leaving us the remainder to pay.

Technically you might not claim your free hours or might not be eligible, so they can't include that in the price of 3 year olds, but will when you get there and pay your bill.

www.gov.uk/free-early-education