Confused about 30 hours free childcare?

[Kardelen]

So today I went to view a nursery that supposedly does 30 free hours funding for over 3 years.

when I spoke to the worker about this, she said the government says its 30 hours free but it’s not really, as they still have to provide food etc.

so she said it will be about 87 pounds a day, and 700 pounds a month.

im really confused as thought it was actually free? As normally the feeds are around 80 per day anyway?

@Kardelen
Dont give up on the Bank idea, talk to them, you get so many hours a year paid by the Bank to do mandatory training, and also supplementary training, which can often be done from home.
they will also have in place a way to re validate Bank staff. One shift a week is plenty to stay up to date.
Think about your future as babies are very soon at secondary school

I have never, and I mean never, heard of a childminder adding costs for heating and petrol/diesel. That’s truly bizarre and she shouldn’t be charging that. We claim tax deductions for 45p per mile and also a percentage of fuel costs through expenses. If the childminder is charging everyone 45p per mile that’s a fair bit on top of what she will be deducting for tax purposes. I’m not one to question childminder charges but in this case I do, especially if she is also adding a contribution towards the funding deficit.

To be fair the 45p per mile is divided between the number of children in the car but yes the rates do seem high. I guess the market is dictating it though and there are not lots of childminders looking to start up in the area to take advantage of these high rates.

Leaving aside the funded hours, I think all settings will try and make things work in the most palatable way for their clients.

So maybe charging £2 per day for heating feels better than putting the hourly rate up 20p (like some restaurants charge for bread and some give it free, but will price it in elsewhere). Charging per mile for trips means it’s an occasional charge rather than an everyday increase, etc.

£87 a day can't be right if they get the 30 hours free funding. Our nursery is £4.50 a day for food when they have the funded hours. Until she was 3 it was £62 a day.

For our nursery, we pay 74 per day usually. We get 22 funded hours per week (the 30 hours a week term time split evenly over the 51 weeks a year that we use the nursery). The 22 hours have to be taken over 3 days, and any additional days are full price. If you take a 'funded' day, they add on charges for each meal and snack and then an extra charge for additional activities which they state covers arts and crafts, French, PE, music etc. So a funded day ends up costing 40 pounds rather than 74 pounds.

But she also adds a separate charge for the funded hours. Also, charging for petrol/diesel is stepping into the realms of being a taxi service which isn’t allowed.

If you both work see if you are eligible for the tax free childcare too

What kind of nurse are you? Is there an option to pick up a few weekend nights a month to keep your hand in? Or I have a friend who works one weekday and a Saturday regularly.

When I was a childminder I used to offer funding with a consumables charge as my LA rate was £2.40 less than my hourly rate. All my families knew it was either this or go elsewhere as I wasn't prepared to work at that pitiful rate and demand was high in my area. As another cm has said, be careful complaining about extras as most will just stop offering or like I did, go back into the workplace. As it happens, I had children from small babies and they were just happy to see a reduction in their bill and continue with good reliable childcare. I only had 1 parent not happy who I lost to pre-school because of my fees but they had local grandparents to help with shorter hours & weren't the easiest parent so I didn't budge an inch

OP a professional, caring & reliable childminder is 2nd best to mum or dad IMO especially for little ones and with hindsight would opt for cm over nursery for my children any day. I've since given up as I was earning pittance, my children were older and I wanted my house back but do miss it and adored the children (& still babysit for some of the younger ones). I had an amazing cm for my youngest son and can honestly say I was an amazing cm, but there are plenty who aren't so amazing so take time, get recommendations, take up references but most importantly go with your gut.

@Kardelen haven’t RTFT so someone’s probably already suggested this - but re needing to train again if you gave up full time work - do a couple of bank shifts a month at the weekends or when your partners off to maintain your skills. Check the NMC requirements about how many hours you need to do to maintain registration but it’s honestly not that much. You have to do so many every three years.

How do you get £4.80 many areas have a base rate of less than that

My friend has just had her rate cut by 50p an hour as the LA have decided to give the additional money to setting with SEN ....she has 2 children awaiting diagnosis....this means she'd had a pay cut of £45 a week but pays for all groups and outings and £600 a month in gas in August she will pay £12.50 a day to get the children due to ULEZ and the parents are saying no to consumables charges....she's going to work at ASDA despite her early years degree , SENCO training and more.

So sorry about your friend @jannier - what a shame the families can’t/won’t pay more :-(

Rates are here but appreciate LAs take up to 5% admin and also this might reflect the average not the SEN/other rates.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-years-funding-2023-to-2024

That’s terrible, the industry is losing so many excellent early years professionals. It’s just going to get worse when more and more children are eligible for 30 hours funded childcare. It’s going to be a lottery of who can find places for their little ones as settings have been crapped on left right and centre

But it's impossible to know what an LA says will be the base rate our rate is considered a good one at just below 5.00 but schools and now settings with Send children can get up to £7.62 an hour effectively all nurseries will have at least one child with SEND so will be paid the higher rate for all funded 3/4 year olds meaning there is much less in the pot for lowly childminders who have pre diagnosed children and ones from disadvantaged households so less able to top up

Our nursery allowed completely free hours. DS did about 35, 36 hours a week (basically school hours with half an hour either side as I worked in a school) and we paid between £60 and £80 a month.

Replace the £4.80 with the hourly subsidy for your area.

What hourly subsidy my area the LA take 5% then they are free to determine how to distribute the funding over all provides schools get a higher percentage then a setting that has at least one SEND child at headcount....although that is weighted then the remaining is split randomly is seems as in my WhatsApp group the rate over 20 plus childminders with no send children varies from 5 to 6.92 nobody can work out how it's calculated and we're not being told all we know is that many are being paid less this term than the previous one for the same children and our rules on top ups are reduced....no paint or craft, no cleaning stuff, no wipes etc. Then we're asked to maintain standards and improve cultural capitol for children who's parents can't put food on the table while others are getting a lot more per hour for children with siblings in private schools. Because the deprivation allowance has been removed

DD does four days on full-day hours (8-6 not 9-5 which is significantly cheaper; we usually manage drop-off and pick-up for 9-5 which is annoying but need to pay for the “just in case” extra hours), which with the 30 hours stretched across the year is max £500 a month; it’s been as little as £400 too. It’s halved our bill: a proper dramatic drop. I have no idea how it’s all worked out as the invoice is just her hours minus the funding. She gets everything included: meals, snacks, activities, etc.

It’s also difficult when they have someone as qualified teacher status. Our LA pay more funding for that. What’s infuriating is that it only has to be one member of staff who may not be in every day and may not even spend that much time with the children. It’s annoying as having that status doesn’t mean a setting is any better, any more educational and the children are any better cared for especially if the person spends minimal time with the children!

A local preschool has a lady who is a qualified teacher that does one morning a week for 3 hours. They also have one child with SEN who does 2 mornings a week. They get paid more for funding than they would for their usual hourly rate whereas I get £2.55 less than my hourly rate 🙄

And can have 1 to 13 for qts status so more scope and then they are saying they are struggling

My 3 year old goes to a term time preschool attached to a primary school. She doesn't get her 30 hours free until after Easter holidays.
She'll be in 8:30-3:15 and it will cost £2.50 a day to cover lunchtime supervision.
Currently I pay £22.50 a day for the same thing without the 30hrs funding.

It’s just insane! Does being a teacher suddenly give you more eyes in your head to watch everyone and octopus style arms to help them all 🤷🏼‍♀️

I don't get sending a child to somewhere that can't give individual attention or a cuddle. schools in my opinion are not for early years but the government want every child in school as early as possible so it's cheaper for them not in the best interest of a child. The whole preparation for school argument is being pushed without parents being informed what it actually means.