30-hours free childcare and private hours

[Mum445]

Hello,

I have a quick question about private hours at a nursery. My daughter is three and qualifies for the 30 hours free childcare. She attends nursery 2 days per week. Our nursery opening hours are 7.45-6pm which is 10 hours and 15 minutes. Nurseries can only offer 10 hours per day so we receive 20 free hours per week and have to pay for 30 minutes. Our nursery charges £120/hour for private hours if you attend 2 days per week (and £14/hour if you attend 3 days per week) so even though my daughter attends 2 days per week we still have to pay £60/week for that extra 30 minutes!!!!

The nursery never provided a price break-down and only released their fee structure when asked over and over again via email. My question is: Are they allowed to charge this staggering amount per hour? Is there an organization that can advise us on this and should we contact ofsted to complain?

We pay £21 a day on top of the 'funded' (NOT free) hours as the funding doesn't cover the cost of activities, food etc and the nursery provide 3 meals a day plus snacks so I think that's reasonable.

I don't know how nurseries are going to survive in the future.

Hello everyone, my child is turning 3 in September and is starting nursery in January 2024. We want to apply for 30hours free child care. I work full time and my partner is due to Start working 16 hours a week st the minimum wage in 2 weeks time. Would we be eligible for 30hours free childcare ? She wouldn't get a full payslip probably for a month or 2 so wondering if that's going to be an issue. Many thanks all

Hi @Aceofspadez Yes, you should be eligible for the 30 hours.

The 30 hours are term time only so the nursery does it as stretched hours (22 hours per week not 30). This is another misleading fact for the '30 free hours' that the government so proudly 'offers'. This means that we would pay for 9 hours or so for the 3rd day at £14/hour which makes it more than double per week than what we pay now. Hope this makes sense!!