Can someone please explain the 30hrs!!

[Flowerpot28]

I’m getting very frustrated with my daughter’s nursery. Can someone please if nursery’s are allowed to do this. My daughter has been attending this since 1. She was eligible for the 30hrs as of September. The nursery have increased price (as usual so not a surprise) and also said we can only use our 30hrs funded hours 1 morning between Tuesday-Thursdays. My daughter ironically attends these specific full days which means i miss out on the funded hrs by 10hrs. Are they allowed to do this? We are still being charged for the meals for 30hrs so how does this make any sense

Well essentially yes they can. They don't have to accept funding at all but if they do they can put caps on when it can be accessed. Sounds like you'll have to find an alternative provision to accommodate.

IME nurseries do what they want because they can be user they know parents have few alternative options

Can you move to a childminder? They tend to be much more flexible

Yes

It used to be normal that the hours were set sessions. (Something like 9-12 and 1-4).

They can do set sessions. You can split between two setting.
It's 30 hours over 38 weeks so if your using it all year it's divided by the number of weeks nursery is open so around 22 hours a week.

It’s not divided, it’s term time only. I pay privately for the remaining. I know they can set it but can they change it mid contract we literally just changed my daughters days to accommodate the 30hrs better

Do you mean you can use 5h on Tue Wed and Thu afternoons but 5h on only one of those three mornings?

If you switched to a Mon or Fri, would they let you use more? They are probably “underoccupied” on those days.

X post.

Did they say to you that the Tue - Thu days woudl accommodate 30 free hours?

Typically you can only use 6 hours per day here and only 9-12am and 1-4pm. This means to use the full 30 hours you need to be full time at the nursery which is the only way the can manage financially due to underfunding by the government

So I literally just changed it last week that my daughter would stop attending on Mondays as it was really expensive. They’ve now said to all parents they will only allow one morning between Tuesday to Thursday where the 30hrs can be applied.

But when she was full time so I’ve only recently cut down I was still paying over £300 to cover food etc so it didn’t make any sense hence why I cut the hrs down but now that I have they’ve now changed it again that I can’t even use it.

i agree

I would love to actually just change to childminder but my daughter doesn’t Work with change well and starts school next year anyways so wouldn’t be worth it. My plan was to remove her from Nursey in July as she has an older sister so we could spend summer before the school year starts

What annoys me is that so many people bang on about how poor nurseries are and how little money they make

I know for a fact what my LA pays per hour for the funded hours is within 25p!!! Of what my childminders hourly rate is - hence why virtually no top up. And my kids pre school also doesn't charge a top up 🤔 so if they manage it why can't nurseries - same bloody overheads in terms of insurance and having a building etc the issue is that nurseries take the piss

In my area nursery is around £65 per day for a 10 hour day 8am - 6pm

So that's £6.50 per hour. My LA pays about £5.50 per hour for the funded hours for over 3 year olds - more for under 3. So that would suggest the top up - that they shouldn't be charging anyway as it's against the rules - should be no more than £10 per day maximum

All these "rules" they bring in to say when you can and can't use the funded hours is just to screw parents over

If you are going to need wrap around I'd move to a childminder who does that school anyway. Time to get used to them before the change to school

Our nursery made it very unattractive for people to use 30 funded hours as they wanted self funding parents.

We don’t qualify for 30 hours and they let us dictate pretty much what hours our DS attends albeit with notice. Those who do claim the 30 hours have to be full time 51 weeks of the year.

Why would any business want to take a cut in income to subsidise a government scheme? If the government said to you were now going to pay you 75% of what your current salary is for the same work, would you be leaping up and down saying yes I'll take the wage cut?