Nursery asking for extra fees for 15 hours funded

[Teacup40]

Good morning everyone, I wonder if anyone can help me?
My son is entitled to 15 hours funded care and is due to start in September. We have had a fair few visits and all fine until yesterday on his last visit before starting in September they told me that there is a £100 registration fee for tapestry and uniform etc I asked if this is compulsory as I'm not too bothered about uniform and I noticed other children without uniforms she advised me it was, is this correct? I don't want to come across as entitled I'm so grateful for the 15 hours he gets but I just know I'm struggling already and will not have the £100 fee so if this is right I'll not be able to send him.

Nursery registration fees at ~£100 a piece (or more) all very normally locally (in a big city).

The deposit I agree seems outrageous, but it’s competitive to get a space and they’re all doing it so not really any choice.

I think the big deposits are to stop people securing a place at X date in the future, then deciding not to send their child, meaning the nursery lose out on a month of fees or more.

Nurseries have waiting lists and if there's a choice between a child who's parents pay the extra or not who they going to choose. So many nurseries are closing as they can't afford to run on funded hours. There's a severe lack of nurseries in my area and unless you put your childs name down at birth you don't get a place unless you are lucky and someone has moved away.

Nonsense, 4-6 weeks of fees is totally standard for private nursery deposits.

We paid a registration fee to secure the place, it wasn't specified what this was for but we assumed as there is a waiting list and it was a deposit of sorts. All of my friends have paid similar. We are all in private nurseries not attached to schools. They also charge top up fees for meals and consumables, I'm unsure what the position is on these being optional as no one seems to opt out. This is £12 per full day for us, whereas if we paid the £68 full fee these things would be included.

Our fees have been put up by 10% in April and another % in September, to cover for the fact that as now pretty much all children are using the funded places, it's not as much money coming in as when people pay the daily full fee, so they have to offset it somehow. It has meant for us that the extra 15hrs is barely saving us anything, what with the top up fees and increase x2.

yes agree!! I do admissions for a nursery too in the office - we tend to offer the places to the non funded children instead of funded children because we make more money that way! the funded hours is a ball ache - we have to put in the application and we have to itemise all the invoices -way less admin without it

and we have the choice - our list is so long

Normal here.

£150 registration fee - this holds the place but apparently also pays for the app, a bib ect.

We have hourly top of fees for each free hour used too. But the nursery to do a lot - external providers in for ballet, baby signing, music classes, ball sports etc.

Two kids. Both private nursery and never been asked for that much.

I understand it from a business point of view but isn't that discrimination? We don't want children of poor parents here etc.

@TwoFeralKids its unfortunate but private nurseries don't have to accept funding at all if they don't want to - its optional

This. You’ve said yourself other nurseries are full.

I can’t possibly imagine why they wouldn’t want to choose the parent who can only use the free hours, and is already kicking off about having to pay a penny extra and threatening reporting to the council vs a parent actually willing to contribute towards and support the nursery who will be caring for their child, while paying for the additional extras or extra days which make it financially viable for the nursery to operate profitably.

Cant imagine at all.

Honestly this sounds absolutely crazy to me. You seem to have a very good deal (free hours with no extra costs). Yes nurseries are not allowed to offer top up fees, but they can put conditions on the access to 15 hours as they are completely oversubscribed. I am surprised you are getting away with only £100. It’s terrible the nursery wasn’t upfront, and feed that back, but you will still have to pay it but mostly likely you’ll make it until next pay day before they chase you?

I'm not kicking off or reporting them to anyone! I understand why they ask for these fees but I don't have an extra £100 and I'm clearly not the only one in this position if the government are making fees optional. I'm selling things on Vinted to try n stay afloat clearly you can't imagine how bad the cost of living crisis is affecting most people 🤷

I'm not questioning if it's a good deal though I'm just asking If the information I was given was correct. The 15 hours funded nursery hours are brilliant but not so brilliant if you can't afford to access them.

completely agree.

Yes that was directed more broadly at posters in general than you, endlessly demanding consequences for the nurseries for… trying to run a business.

If you can’t afford this nursery, then you need to do some research into others that don’t have any registration fees (eg one attached to a state school?) - which must exist, as other posters report using them.

Can you wait longer to put them in, or do you need the childcare now to work?

This is totally normal OP and most private nurseries charge a registration fee, completely allowed & above board. No issue whatsoever with them charging this.

It’s got nothing at all to do with the funded hours.

Everyone has to pay a registration fee at nursery, they're looking after your child you have to pay something 🙄
From your posts im guessing you're not working ?
I have to pay £400 a month for 15 hours and I'm actually working so I need the childcare. You're just lucky you get it for free.

MidnightPatrol thats a shitty post in my opinion. the OP isn't kicking off as you put it about a "penny more" its £100 she hasn't budgeted for and doesn't have. If any business has any form of hidden costs then they cant be surprised when people object to them. Cost of living is massively high at the minute with loads of people struggling - your post was unnecessarily unkind. Shame on you!

It’s a perfectly reasonable post.

And, as I said to the OP, my comment is directed at the posters advising rather than her personally.

Near daily now there are posts of people wanting totally free childcare and advising each other to report nurseries to the council, being appalled they have to pay a penny towards their childcare despite acknowledging the funding isn’t enough.

People seem to forget these are private businesses, and the funding barely covers (if it does at all) the time it’s supposed to. Make it unviable for nurseries to offer the funding - and they either won’t, or they’ll shut down because it’s not profitable to run one.

It won’t be a hidden cost and is no doubt advertised fairly prominently on their application web page and form, OP has just missed it / assumed it’s going to be free because of the (misleading) ‘free hours’ label.

I've said this before, the more hours that are given for free, the more complaining / resistance I've seen about paying fees.

My lovely families of 2 years ago were paying their invoices on time and were so kind and appreciative. Now I see parents negotiating over 15 minute intervals, minimal fee meal costs, literally trying to get out of everything.

I'm fed up with sending out teeny invoices and still having parents complain. Id love to put the real fee on the invoice and show parents how much of a discount they are already getting but we have to show it as £0.

We all know when you pay £0, it's value to you becomes nil and sadly this is happening with our childcare settings. Its the same with FB marketplace and selling something for £0 attracts time wasters, add a small fee and somehow people value the item and your time and make considered purchases.

Fair enough, No I'm not working at the moment I'm starting a course in January but was hoping to start him in September so it's all sorted and he's settled and I can just focus on improving my situation and getting back to work.

So what are you going to do OP?

It's not obvious tbh as they don't have a website and the info they gave me had no info re costs.

It sounds like the best thing to do then is delay his start until next term (January), giving you time to save the registration fee. That gives you five months so £20 a month.

Perhaps if you explain this predicament to the nursery, they will allow you to pay this fee when he starts rather than now to secure the place / or at least not need to pay it immediately.