AIBU to question nursery saying 30 free hours cannot start until September?

[plentyofprettyplants]

My son turns 3 in May and will be starting at the nursery that's attached to our local school as soon as he is 3 (they don't take them any earlier than this).

He is entitled to the 30 free hours of childcare we get now in England, and benefitted from these at his previous nursery.

When my eldest started at nursery at the same school a couple of years ago, we were able to get the free hours of childcare for him from the day he started, which was mid-term, though the school did apply the term before for his funding when he was still 2. So we expected to be able to do the same for our youngest son.

The school have come back to say the early years funding advisor (presume at the local council) has advised that they cannot put the funding application in for my youngest son until he is 3, so he cannot get the funding until September 2026. This means we have to pay for him to attend the nursery there between May-July.

Has anyone been successful in getting their child's place at a nursery with an age restriction funded mid-term since the 30 hours funding came in? Or has your experience been you've had to wait until the term after they've turned whatever age the nursery takes them from?

I feel like surely it should be possible to get the funding given we managed to get it for my older son, and that someone is just misinterpreting the policy. It's much cheaper than his old nursery's day rate, but it's still something we haven't budgeted for as we assumed we'd be able to get the funded hours.

YABU: suck it up and pay the fees for a term
YANBU: fight for your right to free childcare!

It used to be the academic term after the child turns 3.
So for a May born that is September.
I assume it's still the same if the nursery doesn't take under 3s.
Sorry.

Funding entitlement start dates
When your child turns the relevant age:

• 1 January to 31 March they can get their hours from - Term starting on or after 1 April
• 1 April to 31 August they can get their hours from - Term starting on or after 1 September
• 1 September to 31 December they can get their hours from - Term starting on or after 1 January

It's always been the next academic term after the relevant age.

I think a lot of it in when you the nursery have to submit what funding is needed. We had to process the funding form in mid Feb for the summer term so ther window may have closed now until the autumn term.

I think the key part in this is 'relevant age'. The funding is now available from 9 months of age up until school age. So my son has been eligible for this funding since 1 April 2024 as he turned 9 months old in February 2024.

Just because the school nursery doesn't take children until they turn 3, my child's place should still be funded as he has been eligible for the funding since 1 April 2024.

I've been in touch with the school for ages about getting the application in, I don't think I've missed their deadline yet.

Has your previous nursery already applied for this full term in his name?

No, he finished at his old nursery at Christmas.

You have to use the funding by a certain point in the term. So for May you're probably too late. Either starts in April or starts from September.

Some nurseries don’t take under 3’s and some don’t take funded places so it not financially beneficial.

Ugh I’m in the same situation of the “birthday lottery”, my DD turns 9 months after April 1st so we are paying may- September.
But in your case, I would have assumed the same as you, it’s entitled from 9 months so as long as it’s applied for by the deadline I don’t see why you have to wait until September! I’m new to all this though so not very savvy with the rules

They have to apply on a termly basis. So he is eligible already, but they can’t apply for him for May because they would have to apply now and he’s not starting in April. School nurseries tend to have stricter rules. Like ours can do 15 or 30 hours (plus early drop offs) but that’s it. So it may be about their application process. Some businesses are more flexible.

If the applied for you older childs funding before he started, they shouldn't have been.

Schools have them the term after they turn 3. The above posters are right. Different with a private nursery.

In my LA there are different funding streams for 30 hours. Under 2s, 2-3 and 3+ and the nurseries can choose if they apply for any or all of the 3 funding streams. If your nursery has similar it might be that they have only applied for the 3+ funding which is the same as the universal nursery place (from term after they turn 3).

The thing is they should be really clear with you what they are charging for and what free hours you are getting so ywnbu to ask for clarification just in case they have made an error.

I forgot something else. In my child’s nursery you had to be there on headcount day to get the funding. If the headcount day is before your son starts then it could be that?

The nursery are correct. They wouldn’t be able to claim 3yo funding till September.

sounds like you are expecting them to try and claim the 2yo funding. I can see why they won’t do this as they are a 3y+ nursery BUT even if they would they couldn’t claim that term as child would have to have started attending before the headcount day which is likely late April. Sorry if it hasn’t worked out the way you needed it to

I think the school has become confused. It’s sounds like your child is eligible for the working parent entitlement in which case he is able to claim funding for 2 years olds. A lot of schools have not got their heads round that some 3 years olds will be eligible for 2 year old funding and are therefore still sticking to the narrative that children are only eligible for funding the term after they turn 3.
Do you have an eligibility code? I’d ask the school to run it through their system. They might get it then

He's not eligible for 3yr old funding until the term after he turns 3. He's eligible for 2yr old funding until then but if he's starting a new setting mid-term then they've missed the deadline to apply for the 2yr old funding. Not all "30hr funding" is the same.

If born in May he gets the funding in September....yabu I'm.afraid

It’s depend on the LA. Our headcount for summer is open now.

No, he'll be too young for school nursery, completely different story with private one. It's NEXT TERM after 3rd birthday.

Not sure if you can call the council or LA yourself to check your options...?

I know that some things have changed in recent years based on discussions with our nurseries/childminders.
For instance, funding cannot be transferred anymore from 1 setting to another, when before it could be shared if the child moved mid term.

We also had a lot of confusion when our eldest turned 3, because his nursery kept telling we "had to apply" for the funded hours. But there was no mechanism for us to do so, because he was already receiving the funded hours for 2 year old.

In the end, everyone was correct I think, because on their end he was moving from the "under 3" funding to the "3-4" funding stream, so it was a different application process. But from our side we had nothing to do but reconfirm as usual, and the eligibility code stayed the same.

So I'm wondering if the nursery isn't trying to apply to the wrong "stream". They want to apply to the funding for 3 year old, when they should apply to the funding for 2 year old.

Actually reading other posters I think they are correct that the issue is that your child isn't there at the start of the term. So they can't apply for the 2-3 year old funding either, because the LA wouldn't give them the funding for the whole term if he only starts in May.

It could be that it was possible before for a nursery to get funding for only part of the term (the same way funding could be split between providers), so it didn't impact your eldest.
This change is fairly recent, as we managed to get split funding mid term for our child about 1.5 years ago, but were told it was the last term the LA would authorise it.

In the local authority where I work, if a child hasn’t used their funding in another setting, we can claim funding as soon as they join us, even if that is mid-term.

If the funding has been allocated to another setting from the beginning of a term, and a child tries to join us mid term, then the previous setting does not have to transfer the funding (although they can choose it).

Is your child moving mid-term from another setting?

Really grateful for everyone's contributions - thanks for taking the time to respond!

I'm going to chat with the admin person at the school tomorrow morning and ask to see the application form they have to complete. I'll try and persuade them to at least put in the application with our son's eligibility code - I assume the worst that can happen is it gets rejected and we have to pay the fees for the term.

Will provide an update on how that goes when I have one, in case it's helpful to anyone in a similar position to us!