To be annoyed that 30 h free childcare...

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...starts the whole term AFTER the child hits 3 yo. My son missed the deadline for next term by 5 days, and so we have to wait until September to be able to access the 30 free hours. Parents of a kid born 5 days before will get the 30 free hours in April, May, June, July and August, although they will go to school at the same time...
Just a mnini rant, I thought it was the following month and just realised it,s the whole 5 extra months of massive payments for the nursery.

What’s the source for this because the government website disagrees.

This

No help for us in 1991 and 1993 when my eldest were born.

I think it's designed to provide the same amount of childcare to all overall - so the legal age of having to start school is from the term after they turn 5. So if you kept them at nursery until the term after turning 5 that would give 2 full years September to September of 30 hours funded at the nursery - as opposed to if you begun in April and had 2 years plus until September as school isn't compulsory until that term...

Something like that.. I asked the question before and that was what I got told anyway!

YANBU

I think should be done monthly

One of our children birthday at start of term so had to wait over 3 months until we could get the benefit

Yes our 4 year old in reception goes to breakfast & after scho

This is literally off the govt website. Says it stops when the child starts reception on the last bullet here

I'll try again!

Yes our 4 year old is in reception and attends breakfast and after school club which we pay out from our income

No 30 hours to use here

If she was born a couple of weeks later she'd still be in nursery/pre school so we would be using the 30 hours!

In wales we missed the £1000 newborn savings account by a week, we missed free childcare completely and it financially crippled us. We missed KS1 free school meals by one term and they are now introducing KS2 free school meals as she started secondary.

Every little bit of support has been just out of grasp!

So sorry I've just noticed the compulsory school age if later bit - does that mean I could have got wraparound care for free until she was 5?!? 😳

Surely the logical cut off is their third birthday!

Look in the brackets on the second paragraph 🙄

Yes I think it depends on the school, I think they have to opt in to accept the 30 free hours for wraparound age 4 - which I don't think ours does unfortunately!

And I know of parents who were able to continue with payments into reception for their children who were 4, they used it to pay for private school fees.

I think the wording on the government website is confusing. I interpreted it as saying that if your child has started reception you are no longer eligible for the free hours (even if they are still 4), which makes sense since you will be getting the school hours for free. The bit in brackets means that if you choose to delay your child's entry to reception until they reach compulsory school age, you can use the free hours for the period until they start reception.

If anyone has succeeded in claiming free hours for their 4-year old while in reception I'd be very interested.

My 3 and a half year old turns 4 in June. He’s at a private school and they will accept the 30 hours funding for his reception year because it’s still permitted for the entire year for him (because he’s a summer baby). They’ve agreed this and it’s in their fees policy so it’s definitely the case that you can use it - you get six full terms of funding starting from the term after their 3rd birthday.

Yes I did realise that and posted again straight after, no need to roll your eyes.

Just checked and our school doesn't accept the 30 free hours for ASC anyway and speaking to others nor do theirs so I don't think it's a widespread offering unfortunately! At least we get the tax free though

Last month, Jeremy Hunt rejected calls to extend the “free” entitlement to 1 and 2 year olds. He said it was unaffordable.

What has happened to change his mind and, more importantly, where is the money coming from?

Starting loads of kids every term would be much more stressful

Every month I mean

I was always annoyed, that parents of September borns got 2 years funded nursery, whereas august borns got only 1 year. If it’s really early education as they say, why was it not funded from say 2 years before they start school. Also pre schools especially seem to be empty under spring/summer terms, despite most of the children starting school together.

We used the 15 free hours towards our DC’s private school fees when they were in Reception as they didn’t turn 5 until the August after Reception year.

I don't know, but I'm guessing that they've done some modelling that shows that labour force participation will rise as a result of funding more childcare for 1-2 year olds, leading to a higher tax revenues, lower benefit payments, and higher economic growth. So the costs are at least partly cancelled out, the money does not have to be taken from somewhere else. That's what many people have been saying for years, not sure why the Tories are only listening now.

Well if you have an august baby you only get 3 terms of payments whereas if they are September you get 5! There has to be a cut off

Interesting, but I can see that this is different to the situation in a state school, where you are already getting a lot of hours for free and would only be using the free hours for wraparound care.

In Scotland the funding is from the day after they turn 3... so it absolutely could be done... Yep, sucks and the younger kids get less time in nursery in preparation for school than the older kids too!