to me a bit miffed that ds play school is claiming for 40 mins a week that ds isn't there ?

[ocdgirl]

ds is 3 and goes to playschool 4 times a week and i have been told to pick him up from a morning session at 12.20 and pick up in the afternoon from 3.30 - 3.50, i have filled the government claim form in and when i took it back they checked it and have crossed the boxes saying he attends from 9-12.30 in the am and from 12.30-4.00 in the pm. Now i know it's only 10 mins per day but why should they be allowed to claim for this ? am i being slightly pedantic ?

I don't know but I'm guessing it's setting up time and is allowed to be allocated.

Someone will be along who knows.

they only get LA funding for 2.5 hours per day, so it's a mystery why they bothered at all tbh...

I would say that he is funded for the time with staff not for clear up etc. IMO staff should be teaching the LO's to help with clear up and shouldn't need to finish 10 mins early!! He is funded by the government for 12.5 hrs per week and he is not recieving this!

I think you are correct they are claiming for something you are not recieving.

HOWEVER I would note is this a private (for profit) outfit or a pre-school managed by volunteers, as if the latter fully expect to be asked to join the committee, if you want to get involved in stuff like this!!!

Madwoman- we claim for 2 long days and 1 half day so 5 hours some days and none others but dd1's pre-school does do all day sessions ( thank god )

Private for profit they said they like 10 mins gap between kids leaving and kids arriving as it's easier for them, as for the afternoon i'm not sure why they want the kids to be collected early, maybe so they can have a cuppa before going home

In that case I would investigate further with your local LEA just to find out exactly what is funded! Sounds like an easy way of funding staff breaks (or not employing enough staff to cover them.

Again beware if the management don't do this they may price increase so they don't lose any profit .

Are they're any other pre-schools locally or does this one have a monopoly?

doris - yes, same total number of max hours per week though. some LAs let you claim for 5 hours a day if you only go up to the 5 x 2.5 hours per week total, some don't.

in our LA, you can only claim 5 hours per day if you do a morning and an afternoon session - not just an extended morning session though.

it's why all the 'free' state provision is 9 - 11.30 lol.

my ds only attends 4 sessions a week as they are longer than a lot of play schools. i am really confused now as i thought they got up to 15 hours a week funded (doesn't take much to confuse me though)

Just a note we got some info this week that things are changing, our LEA sent out a circular informing of the new changes to early years funding which is increasing to 15 hours per week (yeah) and Lunches can now be included in the time claimed for !!

(that's £20 month saving for me!!)

ah, there ya go! 3 hours a day.

some LA's may stick to the 3 hours a day limit rather than allowing you to do fewer longer days, but it looks as though you may be lucky ocdgirl!

i haven't worked out the maths though...

You could complain.
When I worked in Early Threes last year, one Father complained that we opened the doors up to five mins early when it rained (because the parents were all in the yard with no shelter btw). He said his Daughter was not getting her entitlement.

So we had to stop and now get parents complaining that they are standing in the rain.

Another point to consider is that some struggling playgroups have difficulty paying wages for play time never mind clear up time and pinching 40 mins could mean the difference between staying open and closing.