15 hours for 2 year olds??? Please help!

[MrsRawl]

Can someone please help before I head butt the wall. 😂
i put my daughters name down on the waitlist for the nursery I want her to go to. This was ready for her starting the 15 funded hours after her 3rd birthday, she’s 3 in October so would be a January 2025 start.
anyway today they asked me to go for a nursery tour, which we did, she said why isn’t she starting until 3 so I explained the above and she said well from April 2024 all 2 year olds are entitled to the 15 funded hours.

anyway she said after the tour, go home and get a code and then email them back. I’ve done so much reading online and it’s annoying me now so thought ask on here, from what I understand she doesn’t qualify because only my husband works full time and we don’t get benefits apart from child benefit, anyway I emailed the nursery and they responded and said no, all 2 year olds regardless of situation get 15 funded hours as from April and I must have clicked on the wrong thing. My cousin works at a pre school so I asked her and she said no both me and hubby needs to be working to qualify, nursery replied and said no that’s wrong.
can someone please clear this up for me, I am so confused by it all, and reading on Google just confuses me more. Thank you

Both parents have to be working for the 2 year old funded hours and each parent much be earning at least £8,670 a year and less than £100,000 a year adjusted net income, which is your income after some tax reliefs and deductions such as pensions

So the nursery is wrong.

are you working part time or are you a stay at home mother? if you are working part time you may still qualify

Thank you, this is exactly how I understood it. You’d think with them being the provider they’d know what they was talking about.

No I stay at home

Well you’d hope they’d know but to be fair, the information about it has been all over the place and not everything has been explained well to the nurseries about how it works and who qualifies. So I wouldn’t really blame them for that.

as I understand it it is for working patents, working at least 16 hours a week.

The nursery is definitely wrong. You have to both be working.

https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk/providers/guidance-and-resources/guidancezone/freechildcareentitlementsforworkingparent-frequentlyaskedquestions
"The universal 15 hours of free childcare offer remains in place for all parents of 3- and 4-year-olds, regardless of parental circumstances, including those who earn over £100,000."
"If you, or your partner, are on maternity, paternity, or adoption leave, or one of you is unable to work because you are disabled or have caring responsibilities, you could still be eligible."

It does not sound to me that you are eligible, at the moment. Term following your daughters 3rd Birthday you are eligible for the 15-hour universal nursery education funding, but not the additional 15 hours childcare funding.

Thank you everyone, I’ve kept referring to the childcare choices website, the nursery have now not responded to me so I’m assuming they now realise I was right and we don’t qualify. I’ve still put her name down for the 3 year funding, that was what my original plan was anyway, it was just yesterday they was adamant she could start now,