How could care essentials be £218.50 a month ?!

[Daisydips]

My child nursery says care essentials cost £218.50 a month. My child is 3 uses the toilet and only ever comes home with paper with normal black pen drawings on. What possibly could be costing £218.50 for it be an essential payment?

Am I being unreasonable to question this ?

Also @Lostuser it actually works out £23 a day for ‘essentials’

Or their fillers.....

We pay £26 a day for “essentials” without the funding it’s £97 so I’ll happily pay £26

@pambeesleyhalpert the funding doesn’t cover essentials ?

I was literally asking a question. I have no idea how fillers nails and all the other stuff have come up in this chat.

How much are nurserys been given per hour for the funded hours?

Is that over 52 weeks or 36

I based it roughly on 20 days per month, assuming child attends M-F,

They do at my nursery. £4.30 per hour

I think the ratio is generally accepted at nurseries at 1:8 at this age?

My nursery say they can’t offer a proper standard of preschool teaching at that ratio.

And of course - you can’t expect them to be at maximum capacity at all times.

I really do think how they describe and structure funding, needs to be looked at again. I can understand the confusion, there is currently a mismatch in expectations by calling the hours ‘free’.

Reality is that nurseries can’t operate on the government funded hourly rate alone. I now receive 0 funded hours at all because my nursery stopped offering them. Because they felt it had become impossible. Unless something changes more may well follow suit!

Conclusion - I would pay the £218, Op and be happy.

Those are the laws

52

It's a top up as the government funding doesn't fully cover the costs.
But they're not allowed legally to call it a top up, it has to be a voluntary consumables charge.
They should itemise the consumables and give you the option of providing it.

The three year old funding is tricky as it isn't enough. I lose a £1 an hour on the funding as a childminder but I really can't be bothered to start charging 'consumables' and have parents argue about it and want to bring in boxes of tissues instead so I just don't take 3 year olds anymore.

The funding is supposed to cover basic childcare only.
However my LA pays £5.50 an hour for 3 year olds which is less than even the cheapest childminder fees.

It’s for consumables- all the things that need replacing. Food, paints, sand, glue, baking stuff, baby wipes, the new pants and socks that go home and never come back etc.

Food, wipes and spare clothes - yes. Any extra activities like yoga or French or trips out.
But they can't charge extra for anything necessary to deliver the EYFS like sensory materials, toys, art resources.

She's not got her child in 50 hours a week

It was a general comment, about SOME people always complaining about the cost of childcare, about paying for nursery but never having issues with any "Luxury" non essential treats, nails fillers or sky tv or god knows what.

The people who would barely tolerate to pay £2 or £3 an hour for childcare astonish me. Would THEY consider being paid £3 an hour themselves? Why would they expect some bargain service and barely paid people to look after their own CHILD! And when it's nursery, it's babies and toddlers!

What's the absolute minimum they would consider accepting to be paid? How dare they consider paying any less?

We paid far more than that per child per month 30 years ago when there were no government subsidies. If that is all you are being asked to
pay per child think
yourself very lucky.

I do think the more the government has subsidised for parents, the more they expect.

I'd love to show them what they'd have been paying 3 years ago!

so for the 30 “free hours” are they across 3 days or more? Then it’s approx £17 a day which if that includes lunch, snacks etc isn’t too bad. It was £40 a day when mine were 3, max subsidy was £50 per week for the “free hours” and only £10 could be used per day (thus you could only get the full £50 if your child was full time at day nursery). Things are definitely better now

I've seen some providers invoice showing what the full cost would be, then minus the funded hours so parents actually see how much they save.
Unfortunately once something is free, for lots of people it means worthless.