To not understand what this means on our nursery pricing?

[HeadsShouldersTitsandArse]

Can someone with more brain cells than me please explain what this means?

Because £12 a day on food, nappies ect seems bloody expensive.. I’m used to £3-£4 a day.

I have two children, I can’t afford £350+ on nappies and food every month.. that’s more than our entire food shop 😂

I’m really starting to sweat😅

It means your funded place is not at all 'funded'!

It's not just food and nappies though - the list of other things was huge.

This. You have to pay towards a place which they stupidly have to word as a 'contribution' because the government don't pay enough to keep the nursery open.

It will be the resources. Nurseries don't receive enough for funded hours to be economically viable

So it is £12 per day per child, plus the normal hourly rate outside of the funded hours?

that means I’m paying more an hour for nursery than I even get paid. I’m losing money by going to work 😅

Welcome to the consequences of the government offering about 2p per "funded hour" to childcare settings.

The funded hours are funded at such a low hourly rate the nursery would go bust without "contributions"

We pay £12 for funded days this covers admin costs, food, craft stuff, all the things they do in the day. I see the funding as covering the building and the staff for the day and the top up everything to make the day a nice day. Sadly the funding provided by the government isn't sufficient. For us the cost of the funded day is 20% of the normal day rate and I won't complain plus we get the tax relief from from the gov.

Also if they are full time and not term time the full rate will be charged during school holidays.

The gov funded rate is £5.62 for 3-4 year olds and £7.95ph for 2year olds.

this is where I’m confused. The funding for 2 year olds is more than they charge as a standard hourly? Am I missing something? 😩

I really can’t wrap my head around all of these figures 😅

It was clear when the government announced the new 'free' hours that they had no intention of actually funding it properly. They only did it in an attempt to buy popularity. Lots of nurseries have closed as a result, your one is obviously trying to survive. It's really tough on you though. Luckily these years don't go on forever.

The local authority/council takes a cut. The nursery won't get that per hour.

It’s so tough. I’m not even sure what to even do at this point. Prices have increased so much and we’ve not had any sort of pay rise to help take the edge off.

It’s really tough. I don’t know how they expect people to afford it

The government don’t fund them enough. So yes, you’re paying to top that up. You’ll
also need to pay the full cost during school
holidays and pay the hourly rate if you want them in for more than 30 hours.

This isn’t news. Critics have been going on about this since the government announced these, and for the last few years during the previous funded hours because it was the same then. Not enough.

Most people cannot afford full time childcare so have to work it out by doing opposite shifts or using family. Or take the hit for a few years and work for essentially nothing just to pay the fees.

We didn't pay the contribution on our non-funded days, they were just charged at the normal day rate. It's worth checking how the nursery uses up your hours - one of our options was a 10 hour block so we did two days of that and paid an extra half day. The half day cost the same as when our child was under 3. (That was stretched hours so we didn't pay more in the holidays). Our monthly bill for 2.5 days at nursery was still over £100 a month so I can imagine in more expensive areas and with costs rising it could easily be £300ish for full time, although yours seems particularly bad.

Yeah but they have listed 7 different types of food so it’s not actually that huge, in addition to ‘refreshments’ too.

They're not actually allowed to insist on a contribution, it must be voluntary.

And if you don’t volunteer to pay it, they will decline your application for a place. They don’t need to take your kid.

The contribution is only for the funded sessions, and it's similar to ours nursery. It covers more than just nappies and food though.
Depending on your resources, some nurseries in my area will have some extra funding available to support parents who can't afford the contribution. It might be worth exploring, I have no idea how it works.

I was wondering the same thing about the hourly cost! When I heard the announcement from the government, I checked the rates and it was higher than our non-funded hours so I thought "great, we won't pay anything then!". I'm really confused about why the council would take a cut of "my" funded hours given that I get nothing in return...

It doesn’t seem that bad to me. My son’s nursery charges about £1.50 per hour on top of what they receive from the government for ‘funded’ hours. If your child is there for 9 hours, then you’re paying less than that per hour as a top-up.

I’m not saying it’s right, just that it’s not unusual…

£12 a day is very reasonable. Currently paying £67 a day for my 18 month old and have to provide my own nappies.

We pay £13 per half day and we can't even use all of our funded hours as they only have 4 sessions available and will only apply the funding to the hours the gov funds which is understandable but annoying when you're paying a top up and have gov funded hours spare which you can't use but would love to be able to use across the days you have (I.e. if gov let you use them for longer hours but fewer days)

You don't have to pay it. It's a contribution you can provide nappies, food , drink etc and not pay.

They may refuse you tho (although they are not allowed to)

You need to top up and I wish the government stop with free nursery places as it's not free but funded to a level that the nursery can't afford..the nursery would go under if just did free places as doesn't cover costs...

What will you be paying when eligible for funded hours?