Splitting 30 free hours across two providers

[Minty82]

Does anyone know whether you can do this? DS currently does 18 hours (three days), 15 of which are funded. I'm about to go full time, and he'll be at a different nursery on the other two days as his preschool is full. New nursery offers a maximum of 15 funded hours. Can I claim both sets of 15 hours?

If you have the 30 hour code you can share between settings.

Brilliant, thank you.

Only with settings that are subscribing to the 30-hours funding. Many settings don't. They only offer the 15 hours, which is separate funding system altogether from the 15 hours. I don't think you can get 15 hours (on the 15 hours funding formula) in one setting and 15 hours in a different setting on the same formula. Both settings have to be registered to offer the 30 hours, and many are not. I am not sure if I am making any sense... The 30 hours can be split between two providers, but the 15 hours cannot be used twice...

My DS does 15 hours with the local state run nursery (my eldest did 15 hours there too before the 30 hours came in). They have limited places for 30 hours. The additional 15 are provided by my childminder who is registered for it.

I split my 30 hrs 15 at nursery and 15 at childminder but one of the settings will be required to offer the 30 hrs to get this.

Yes, that makes sense twofishfingers. I think the new nursery only offers the normal 15 hours, but his current preschool is registered for the 30 but in practice only offers 18 as that's the maximum they can afford to provide. So would I only really be able to claim 15 from one and three from the other?

You put the setting that doesn't take the 30 hours down as your universal funded place...they get the funding even if you loose the right to 30 hours. you then put the other setting down as your additional funding...no different to using it at state nursery attached to a school not offering 30 hours and a childminder who does.

You won't be able to claim the additional funding until the start of the new term in April
You will have to ask your current nursery if they will claim the additional hours instead of the universal hours
You won't be able to live your funding midterm either
Son you won't be able to claim the universal hours from your new preschool until the start of the new term in April
Have you received your code yet?
You will need to reconfirm it before the start of the new term or your won't be able to claim the additional funding and then you need to recomfirm every 3 months

We just found out the we are not able to split because of the following set-up:

Half the week at a local authority nursery who offer 15 or 30 hours.
Half the week at a private nursery who only offer 15 hours.

The local authority nursery always gets the first 15 hours, so we don't have the option of putting the private one as the universal funding. It is only possible to top-up to the 30 hours at a private nursery who offer the 30 hours. So we have to pay the private nursery.

It's very frustrating and a makes no sense, but apparently the funding streams are different and there is nothing that can be done!

N1M4 - the private nursery cant insist you use all 30 hours with them. You can also use other providers like childminders.

The whole funding scheme is rotten to the core. The confusion around the 30 hours scheme arises because people make the elementary mistake of believing it was ever meant to help families and childcare providers. It was only ever intended as a political con trick to buy the votes of gullible parents. The chaotic and unjust way in which it is delivered only makes sense once you’ve grasped that all-defining context.

The so-called 'free' hours are available in two chunks of 15 hours. The first chunk of 15 hours is known as the "universal entitlement". The second chunk is called the "extended entitlement."

IIUC, N1M4's private nursery only offers the 15 hours under the universal entitlement. The child cannot take up those hours because the local authority nursery has first dibs on the funding, and has already claimed the universal entitlement hours for themselves.

It’s all just part of the unbalanced system which is heavily skewed in favour of state schools and local authority nurseries. In effect, the local authorities pay themselves first in every case before any of the other childcare providers get a look in. It allows them to maintain a positional advantage, irrespective of parental choice, without having to worry about irritating little details, such as having to match private/independent/voluntary sector providers on aspects of quality.