30 hours childcare - parent vs nursery!

[MacciJ]

Hello everyone, could use your urgent advice

My daughter is 3 and born in January and we're entitled to 30 hours free childcare from 1st April.. Due to annualised billing they are saying that the bill is £450 a month inclusive of 30 hours free. I can't wrap my head around it as my daughter only goes 3 days per week with (30 hours anyway) - how it can be this much?

So my girlfriend works at a nursery which was brought out by one of those big nursery companies a few months back - we were told our rate for our daughter going there wouldn't change (and now it has but we didn't agree or ever know about it?) It's like 40/50 a month - is this legal?

If you don’t like the new prices then just find another nursery

Does your child go year round?

The funding is term time only.

I think it's something to do with the 30 hours only applying during term time so only 36 weeks a year. Someone else will be along shortly to explain it more fully than I can

Presumably that includes full payment for Jan to April? Is her funded spot term-time only so you have to pay full rate for school holidays? Some nurseries let you spread it across the whole year but others only have funded spaces for term time.

For example, our nursery lets you spread it over 48 weeks (two weeks nursery is closed over Xmas and two weeks of your choosing you take your child out). But they have limited spaces for that setup and some children can only go term-time with funded hours.

For your daughter attend all year or term time only?
I think the 30 hours is only for term time.
Happy to be corrected.
What is the daily rate if you’re paying?

Free Hours funding is only for 39 weeks a year (school terms) so you're not getting 30 hours free all year.

If you use a nursery that's open 52 weeks a year then you will get around 22 hours a week and that may only cover 2 days in a nursery that's open 11hrs a day.

Because free hours funding is low, nurseries can charge for extras including food, nappies, activities and teaching as well.

30 hours is term time only so if your daughter also attends in non-term time you will pay for those weeks and they spread it out through the whole year to make it easier for you to pay (you don't have to pay a larger lump sum in August when the free hours dont apply for example)
30 hours also doesn't include food so they will add on a small daily cost for this each day term and non-term.

Also just to say, the Summer term in our borough doesn't start until 25th April so that's almost a month less than you were expecting.

Thanks everyone I do appreciate the comments (apart from the sausage at the top who said if you don't like the prices you can leave - thanks captain obvious)

They take into account school academic year (Sept-July) This is for the whole year, completely understand term time funding vs non funded holidays. She goes 30 hours every week all year round.

Surely the point of the government 30 hours free is to benefit parents in the intended way(30 hours free), why would it be annualised when I'm only entitled to this benefit now and wasn't with all my full price bills prior? (I feel I've paid my premium already pre-discount)

Hoping someone can see my frustration at £450 a month for 30 hours a week when I'm entitled to 30 hours free. I do get there's complexities to it.

We know of our friend who's child goes there and they pay £100 less but have had 30 hours free since September.

Yep, this is normal. When the 30 hours was announced I mistakenly thought our childcare costs would drop to almost nothing as we were paying for 3 days a week (nursery open for 11.5 hours a day). They dropped to about £700 a month from the term after she turned 3.

It's because the nursery doesn't get the full hourly cost of what they're providing back from the govt and it's termtime only. A lot of nurseries also only let you use it in 3 hour blocks per day so 30 hours = 10 x 3 hour blocks per week, so it reduces the bill but not by a huge amount. In our case that meant we claimed 6 x 3 hour blocks (for the 3 days a week we needed it), then paid for the rest of those days.

Look up champagne nurseries lemonade funding!

But that isn't the fault of the nursery - it's the govt and DfE specifically you should be angry with.

Funded hours are primarily designed to support child development rather than for childcare and as many parents use pre-schools attached to primary schools, which are term time only, that's how they designed the system.

I do understand the frustration though. Childcare costs are too high.

Do you use Tax Free Childcare?

Mine goes 3 days a week and we pay approx £200 per month because our hours are split across the full term and this also includes wrap around areas. We are given a breakdown which helps. You are also still entitled to the tax free 20% which makes a difference.

Also something to bear in mind is that the hours on,y cover 38 weeks a year and 9-12 and 12-3 so if they're in 50 weeks a year 7.30-5 even if the hours a week add up to 30 (yes I know the maths here doesn't) but you'll have to pay full whack for 7.30-9 and then 3-5 and full for the other weeks a year for the holidays.
It shouldn't be called free childcare, it should be called subsidized.
It also doesn't come close to the actual costs of running a nursery.

Think of it you get 1140 funded hours per year.

For us we have DS in nursery 3 days. Our nursery operate a 10 hour day and a 50 week year. So we get 114 days fully covered. So we cover (50*3)-114 days a year.... Then pay 80% of that cost due to the tax free childcare

I couldn't get my head around this either, we asked for a breakdown of costs and the nursery manager to go through it. They were happy to explain.

It’s 30 funded hours for 38 weeks of the year. The government doesn’t give enough to nurseries to cover the cost of looking after the child so they have to charge parents. Food and other extras are also charged for.

How many hours above the 30 is the child going to be doing? And what is the normal hourly/ or session rate?

Funded hours not free hours unfortunately.

Thanks all. Some misdirected anger here it seems on my part - lifes just expensive and I think I looked at this 30 hours free to be like the Christmas of all Christmases once it rolled around.

I'm not the brightest spark and i'm adding it all up and the confusing factor is the way hours are broken down and split. I'm just working it out as term weeks (I don't pay anything) - and then holidays (I pay full price) and I think that's the wrong way of looking at it

I'm still annoyed that they didn't tell us about the price increase on top of all this though.

@Duracellbunnywannabe

It’s 30 funded hours for 38 weeks of the year. The government doesn’t give enough to nurseries to cover the cost of looking after the child so they have to charge parents. Food and other extras are also charged for.

My daughters nursery used to also charge for the lunch hour separately. Funded hours could only be used for morning and afternoon sessions, not lunch time

Our bill is about the same (DD turned 3 in Feb so received the 30 hours funding now too).
I'm trying not to think about next year when we have to add two babies in the baby (most expensive) room too We're going to be so skint!

This is bonkers 😆

Ask your nursery to clarify how they bill each hour. Some private day nurseries bill the 30 hours:-

• term time only (so apply this rate 39 weeks of the year)
• 9am to 3pm daily across all five weekdays

So if this is how your dds nursery does it, then you are "only" accessing 9-3pm, 3 days a week, for 39 weeks of the year, and being billed full rates for all other hours.

It does seem high though. We will be around £150 a month after the tax-free childcare discount for three days 7.30-5.30pm, once DD's funded hours kick in next month, across 48 weeks. It works out as two whole days and a half day a week funded.

It's £4.50 a day for a fully funded day (two sessions) to cover food (and an extra £3 if you want them to have breakfast there) and £30 for a half-funded day (one session) (assuming 48-week model). So £39 a week for three days.

We are in Scotland though so perhaps it works differently. Nursery should be able to give you a breakdown. The whole thing is quite hard to wrap your head around - I'm generally quite good at grasping stuff like this, but I needed our lovely nursery manager to explain it to me!