30 hours free childcare, split between preschool and child minder stretching

[Lindseypharm]

My 3 year old will soon qualify for 30 hours free childcare. I would like to split this between his child minder and the local preschool with child minder doing preschool drop off and pick up 3 days a week and full days in the holidays. Can this be done ie one setting is stretched and the other not? Childminder doesn't think it will be an issue but I am worried I could be landed with an unexpected bill?!

Any advice or words of wisdom from others in a similar situation greatly appreciated x

LAs usually have their own rules with this. In ours you can but you can’t change once you’ve started.

Oh but you can’t ‘bank’ the hours so you will have more to pay in the holidays.

You might find an issue with your term time days. I’m looking to do similar but my childminder charges a fee during the Pre school hours as my child is effectively taking a place (yours may not do this!) and I can’t use the 30 hours in more than one place at a time, so I will be using the hours at Pre school and will have to pay the childminder a small amount during pre school hours. Then I can use some of the 30 hours for before and after school care with the childminder. Does that make sense? It took me a while to get my head around it!

I did this last year. I used the 15 hours at the main pre school and sent dd to another preschool 1 day per week for the remainder

Thanks for the replies :)

The funding seems so complicated! My child minder is brilliant and I trust that she has it sorted but I am considering taking on extra hours at work and basically will be left working more for less money if the funding doesn't work out? :/

I am very lucky that she looks after 3 under 3's and three older siblings that she takes to preschool (with an am/pm assistant) so she is not concerned about the space being taken up during the day iyswim

You can claim your hours with 2 settings. So, for example you could claim 15 with the pre school which would be term time only, and 15 with your childminder which she could "stretch" to cover school holidays.

I "share" hours with 2 nurseries,but it's up to me how I use my hours, some parents want term time only, and some want it stretched over the year.

I share mine between nursery and childminder. So it is 15 hours at nursery and the childminder does one or two days a week depending on what I need. It's really useful.

Yes you can do this. CM can choose whether to stretch or not. Just check with her whether she charges for the time at Pre school, because many CMs do.

Yes. Both settings must know which one is claiming the universal 15 hours as that is a separate part of form then it has to be agreed how many additional hours are needed say at playgroup so if they took another 1 they claim 15 + 5 leaving you 10 the childmidner can claim 10 hours term time or stretch it over her opening weeks 380/number of weeks open (funding term time is paid for 38 weeks a year)

Yes you can claim 15 hrs per week tto with the nursery then 11/12 hours per week all year round with the cm.

Yes you can. Where I am for example this term is 11 weeks of term for time and 13 weeks of stretched, so each provider can claim differently (eg one could do 11 weeks of 18 hours and one 13 weeks of 10 hours). Obviously you have to pay for the extra holiday hours though.

Thanks so much to everyone that has replied 😀 Really put my mind at rest!

Just make sure you bear in mind that tbe 30 hours is based on term time only, if stretched across the year ots more like 22 per week.