How much does your nursery charge for funded hours 'top up'

[ceeb21]

Just that really, interested to see how much others are charged for the top up charge when claiming 30hrs free!

The guidance covers that first part too:

“Where it is reasonably practicable, local authorities should ensure that children are able to take up their free hours in continuous blocks and avoid artificial breaks being created throughout the day, for example, over the lunch period.”

”Reasonably practicable” is open to interpretation but is more likely to relate to the availability of the room at certain times of day, as opposed to financial reasons.

Or they can say it's staff breaks so paying for extra staff...as long as they can make an excuse they can charge.

Nurseries cannot charge a top up BUT they can charge for snacks, nappies, lunch etc and they can limit the number of "free" hours used per day eg max 6 hours per day but also they can charge for the additional hours if they don't offer flexi/part time places eg if a nursery only have full day (10 hour) places at £100 it's quite legal to charge £40 for the remaining hours plus lunch.

Sessional nursery schools tend to not charge or minimal extra btw. Eg the school mine went to was 9-12 5 days a week and I wasn't charged anything

That’s ultimately for the local authority to decide if they consider it not “reasonably practicable” to, for example, stagger lunches while ensuring ratios are maintained. It can’t just be “an excuse”, someone has to apply the judgement about what’s reasonable.

Thanks @slamfightbrightlight
Our nursery definitely does not take any of that into account. They have a disclaimer that the cost of meals etc takes into account staff wages and is therefore non-negotiable.

The only one they do off that list is allow us to take our own nappies. They charge £1 per nappy otherwise.

I'm not sure what your point is? Yes the settings may get audited but many are still charging this way. And when funding first came out it was one of the suggestions a consultancy company employed by the LA came up with when looking at sustainability....others included minimum wages for all staff, asking for parent volunteers, enhanced under 3 rates, ironing, make classes like French or dance.

My point was that it’s not a case of “if they can make an excuse they can charge” because there’s meant to be this layer of scrutiny from the LA (which most haven’t been doing). And yes, I’ve heard of LAs recommending all of those things too and providers feeling (justifiably) put out when they suddenly change their minds!

Unfortunately when the funding rate is 60 % of your breakeven rate money has to come from somewhere. The government were told by their own advisors what the level of funding would be in order for sustainability and chose to ignore them the extension to the scheme is only going to make it worse.

It works out about £24 a day but that’s because we stretch it over 52 weeks so only 22 hours so we have an extra unfunded day plus an hour from 8-9 every day that’s extra. They don’t charge for food but they do add a £22 per week for craft stuff etc. If it falls that the Monday of one week is on one bill and the Tues-Fri are on another months bill then we pay that £22 twice.

Completely agree and you’ll get no argument from me! I just feel it’s important parents know exactly how it is supposed to work, in the govt’s own words, so they can be held to account for the mess they’ve made of it.

They will not because the council don't want to provoke a childcare crisis in their area which is what would happen if they 'found out' (clearly, they know) that almost all private nurseries do this and tried to stop them. A lot would either close or stop offering funded places at all.

@jannier ok that makes more sense now. Our nursery only give me the funded hours for 5.5 hours per day the other 5.5 hours we have to pay for. My child only goes in for 9hrs . so if my child went in at least 4 days per week she will get her full 22 funded hours ( it’s stretched over the year) child only goest in for 3 days a week so we essentially lose 5.5 hours of funded childcare every week. They really do make it difficult but guess it’s a business still

£45.59 a day stretched funding so it's about half price. My twins only go in 2 days but from sept will be at the preschool attached to the primary for 3 days a week which is fully funded term time only.

Holidays will be covered by me and family.

My son is at a term time only nursery that goes 9-3 with additional hour at start or end so it's a bit different from full time nurseries. We pay £0.75 for morning snack and £0.75 for afternoon snack daily and £3.00 to start at 8.30 instead of 9. I think it's £6 to start at £8 in the morning and £6.50 for 3-4

We recently moved to a new area across the country. My 3 year old’s nursery charged £3.50 per hour on top of funded hours (stretched). I think she’s booked in for about 30 hours. It’s about £800 per
month 😱. I can’t get over how expensive it is. Where we were living before we weren’t paying anything for her childcare (during term time), she was at a lovely preschool attached to school and at childminder. Neither charged extra.

Ours don't charge anything. My son gets the 22 hours pro rata and i pay for an extra 1 day a week

I think "top up" has just become the way of talking about it. In official policies they will be broken down correctly to show what the actual costs are.

You need to remember that the government pay between £3.60-£5 per hour, depending on area, then the LA take a percentage of this before they pay the provider. Compare this to the price you paid for a full day before you got funded hours.

DD in nursery 3 10 hr days a week all year round so with stretched funding we get 22.5hrs a week free, pay £8.35 per hour for unfunded hours (7.5hrs per week) and then £6.50 for 2 days per week (the fully funded days) for food (breakfast, lunch tea and two snacks). No additional fee on the funded hours and no charges for consumables or additional activites (like music class, or visitng farm etc). But i know we are very lucky with this compared to other friends nurseries :-)