Nursery sundries fee

[lizzlebizzle33]

Hi, so my son goes to nursery for 4 sessions a week (20 hours) and we pay £32 a month for his meals.

Last week I received a confusing letter which stated that the fees would be going up and a chart so you could see how many hours your child goes for and what the price increase will be.

It appeared it was going to go from £32 to £76 which I thought can't be right as that's more than double.

I have just dropped DS off and had a word with the nursery manager and it is right!! From £32 to £76 Just like that.

AIBU to be fuming? For myself and all other parents. I will really struggle to afford this but what other choice do I have but to pay it?

Just to point out what has been said:
This isn’t really a food charge it is a means to make up the under funding of the govt funded “ free “ hours.

The nursery has to pay the staff minimum wage and this is going up.

Yes you can protest etc and generally be unhappy but you risk the nursery saying “ stuff this we won’t take the free hours kids at all “ which many already do. They will fill their places with full price kids easily enough.

out of interest, how can you find out what the gov funding actually is in your area, or is it a set amount nationally?

bonjour some nurseries charge for the lunchtime hour or ask you to pick them up for that hour as they have morning and afternoon sessions. They do not have to provide free childcare over the lunchtime session.

The nursery still needs staffing over the lunchtime period.

The government keep putting up NMW and pension contributions for these businesses but have not put up the funding in line with that. This is why they are struggling.

I still do not know why they dont put x amount in your government childcare account a month and the parent uses that at the provider of their choice and if it needs a top up then the parents top the funding up. It makes more sense than the system we have now. Providers can charge what they need to stay afloat and parents can choose where they go.

I would contact your Local Authority Children's Team and/or OFSTED..

I pay £5.50 a morning for a snack and cooked lunch. I thought that was really good considering the care is completely free!

trafalger

I totally understand why theyre doing it, and tbh I think nursery workers aren't paid nearly enough as It is...

I do think the way the government funding works is an issue, and it needs to more clear that it is not free which is what they advertise it as.

I think your idea would work better to be honest..

How much do you pay in nursery fees?
Ours is all in one cost so I’m not sure on how much food would have gone up by. We have just had our fees increased

HelenluvsRob going back to @Bonjourfreddie’s comment about “if they didn’t do free hours I wouldn’t send him there”, is it really a risk that all nurseries in a given area would stop doing free hours altogether? The 15 free hours are not means-tested and the 100k per individual parent earnings threshold for the 30 free hours is so high that, outside London, very few families are not going to be eligible for the 30 hours. So there is no incentive for parents to pay full fees unless there are literally no free hours nurseries within reasonable travelling distance for them.

We don’t qualify for 30 hours so we are obviously comfortably-off, but we’re not going to turn down our 15 free hours just to make a political point! So who would be these full fee paying families who will fill all the spaces if nurseries who withdraw from the scheme?

Maybe I’m missing something?

I don't think our nursery would stop offering the hours as its a sure start in a deprived area on the edge of a "naice" area, so theres plenty parents paying FT for their 1-3 year olds, but also plenty kids who get funded hours from 2. They would lose a lot of kids if they didn't offer the hours, but being a sure start I don't think that's the stance they want to take tbh!

A lot of childcare providers have stopped offering the 30 hours funding round our way. They offer the 15 hours still. It's one way to save losses.

It has been advertised wrong from the start. It should always have been advertised as 30 hours funded not free. I still do not understand why they don't allow top ups and we have this farcical situation of food and consumables etc... just allow top ups and have it all out in the open.

Come to think of it, I wonder if school nurseries are obliged to offer the 30 hours?

Over here in N.Ireland we don't get any free hours at all to use in private nursery when your child is 3 they can go to preschool but it's a set session 5 days per week and its only 12.5 hours over those 5 days so if you are in work and need full time daycare or even 3 full days a week or 5 hours a time etc you have to pay full price with no discounts to the private nursery which in my area is an average of £40 a day so there's effectively never a reduction in childcare costs for working parents until the children go to school so I think £70 odd a month for 80 hours of childcare is an absolute bargain !

Bloody hell, I pay £750 a month for 30 hours a week.

Nurseries are struggling and closing all the time. For less than £100 a month I wouldn’t be complaining in the slightest. The government funding isn’t enough to cover costs, let alone actually make any money. You topping up keeps the nursery open. I really wouldn’t moan about that.

If parents start contacting MP’s as well as the nurseries then maybe they would do something about the funding rate.

The funding rate has been frozen, each area gets a different rate and the council can keep some of the allocated money back for themselves as ‘admin’ costs so many nurseries don’t even get the full rate.

Minimum wage has gone up, small businesses now need to pay staff pensions. Private nurseries pay business rates and VAT which school nurseries are exempt from.

The nursery probably should have given more notice of their rate increase but they have likely been number crunching over the summer and worked out they can’t afford their staff, or pens and paper, or food and have to increase prices somewhere to stay open.

For the amount of work expected the wages are terrible. Nursery staff have to ensure each child is meeting expected education targets, keep parents updated on progress, go to SEN meetings, talk to social workers, do two year progress checks, training courses and a whole host of other things that isn’t just ‘playing with children’. Rewarding work but there is definitely a lack of understanding and acknowledgement that done well this is an essential part of the education and safe guarding system for the youngest children.

namechanger0987 - Unfortunately it's what nurseries are doing to try and claw back some extra money.... I wouldn't quite believe all nurseries are out of pocket though exactly. More dependent on area but our local nurseries charge £35-40 a day (including meals) and government funding is £4.15 an hour in our area (£5 for 2 yr olds) so therefore £40 odd for a ten hour day. Then they are allowed to add money for food etc when it's funded hours so actually probably making money.

Is the £4.15 the amount the government pays or the amount that the providers receive? Local Authorities are allowed to retain some of the funding for their own Admin costs

woah mustard that must be a really expensive nursery?!

I paid just under a grand FT when I didn't get the free hours?!

For those saying OP could provide packed meals. Of course, but breakfast, lunch, dinner and two snacks for £4? I really don't think they're being unreasonable at all.

whybird no I don't think its an unreasonable price, I just meant legally there has to be an alternative!

Roughly 80 hours of care over 4 weeks for £76?

Count yourself lucky.

@MustardScreams is your child old enough to be eligible for the 15 or 30 free hours? If not, will your nursery do them when he/she turns 3?

Just to be clear...

You were getting your child professionally cared for, educated and fed meals for 40p an hour.

You will henceforth be getting your child professionally cared for, educated and fed meals for 95p an hour.

You genuinely believe you are hard done by?

I’m speechless.

itsaboojum that's not the point op was making and really its irrelevant how much she's paying an hour because that's not actually what she's paying for, or what shes complaining about is it?

I think that OP’s point is that she had planned her finances around the previous charge and now it has more than doubled, with no warning and no explanation from the nursery. Unfortunately she will struggle to pay the new charge so this could have a serious impact on her daily life as she may have to take her child out of nursery. It’s unfortunate that her nursery was undercharging previously so gave her a false sense of security, and that it didn’t give more warning about the massive % price increase.

Also a lot of nurseries will only offer the 30 hours in 10 sets of 3 hour blocks so 9-12, 1-4 daily and then you are required to pay wrap around costs. I was lucky my nursery just deducted 30 hours but we still had a charge.

School nurseries do take the 30 hours funding locally to me.

It is billed wrongly. It should be free EDUCATION not free CHILDCARE!!!