Would I still qualify for 30 hours childcare on my salary?

[Sammy1990z]

I am a teacher in London. I requested to work for 9 hours which comes out to just over £15000 in earnings per annum. I genuinely do want to spend more time with my baby so not interested to send my child more than 2 days for 10 hours to nursery but still touching base with work.

Salary wise it looks like I do qualify for 30 hours free childcare. However I started seeing posts where teachers thought they qualify but didn’t because once they spread it across the year turns out they were earning less and needed to work more hours.

i am confused. My earnings will be spread across the year which comes out to £1100 roughly with everything deducted. Is there anything I need to look at on my contract that ensure it’s not a problem. I am just worried there is something I am not seeing maybe.

Some nurseries near me do offer term time only and so do some childminders. So worth looking around but also might be nice to have a few days a week in the holidays.

I’m a provider. It’s very common.

It’s the equivalent of 16 hours at minimum wage, so 16x12.71=£203.36 a week, so £10,574 a year. So if you’re definitely getting the actual 15k and it’s not pro rata’d then you should.

A child minder might work better for you op. I am struggling to think of a nursery near us that would accommodate those hours

My DC's nursery offers 8-4 or 9.15 - 2.15 or you can choose breakfast dropping them off from 7am or tea, picking up by 6pm. Some DC are term time only and some stretch their hours over the full year. Nurseries are private businesses and plenty offer flexible arrangements.

The cut off is the salary equating to 16h at minimum wage. OP meets the cut off so she’s entitled to the benefit.

The benefit is enabling her to work part time. It is working as designed.

A voice of sanity against all the bitterness.

As others have said OP, your biggest struggle is likely to be finding a quality childcare provider who is willing just to do the 9 hours you want. I started DC at two mornings a week but the nursery changed ownership and stopped providing such flexibility. I was lucky in that they honoured my arrangement until DC went up to 2 full days at 19 months.

Generally nurseries offer more flexibility on a Friday if you have some control re: your working days.

Yes you will qualify as it is done based on earnings not hours.

I think you’ll qualify. I’m a teacher and work 3 full days so my child’s nursery day runs 8-6pm. You may find you need to pay for two whole days, but just don’t need to use them all. I don’t pay anything for the first two, it’s the third (less and hour and a bit I think) that I pay for as the nursery is open 51 weeks a year, so the 30 hours are spread to 22ish instead. 30 hrs is only term time only, but there aren’t many nurseries that do that here, only pre-schools for older kids.

Or as others have said finding a childminder who does the school run could work out really well.

You need to get contacting them asap, I booked my daughter’s place when I was in the first trimester. I know not all areas are like that, but we couldn’t get a space at our first choice.

Tbh most won’t as they will charge you for all day / 2 sessions as your child will be taking up a space both am and pm and won’t be able to fill 8-10 and 3-6

According to the gov website it’s based on pay, not hours worked.

You were faster at replying than me editing my response. You are correct :)

No one has mentioned this yet, so I’ll add that yes, if you earn £15,000 per year, you would qualify for funded childcare from the term after your child turns 9 months old, if your partner also earns more than £10,574.72 (and less than £100,000 net) per year, or you are a solo parent.

A childminder is more likely to accommodate your hours, if you drop off after the school run in the morning and collect before the afternoon school run they will be interested I’m sure!

Quite right, OP. Ignore the fucking twatty responses.

I used to do 0.4 as a teacher and had this conversation with HMRC, they essentially said they wont ask for a contract of hours worked but will look t my wage being more than £200 ish a week (was less at the time!)

this!!!

you’ll need to pay before this point as you’ll be under the threshold.

People are so negative on this thread!! It’s just a Mum asking a question about work. She’s not responsible for the lack of available childcare or how the government system works! A lot of the info is wrong anyway…if you qualify for 30 hours you can use it regardless of when you work…they don’t check your timetable!

But anyway that’s not what you asked.

there are calculators online that will tell you if you are entitled to it. Or you can call up. They are generally helpful.

are you aware that 30 free hours isn’t actually free childcare as the hours are technically only term time (god knows why) and very few nurseries offer term time only even if you want that. So it’s actually something like 22 hours per week free and you have to pay the extra. I don’t think you could use the fact that you aren’t using the full 30 hours to make this free but you could ask the nursery.

I don’t know any nursery that would do 10-3 - I mean you can do that but you’d pay for the full days. You may find more flexibility with a childminder.

best of luck

I appreciate the system allows this however I think it’s disgraceful and I’d be ashamed to admit to doing it.

Government funded means someone else is working for no pay to allow you time to clean your house.

If it wasn’t so anonymised you would feel ashamed to do this. Imagine knocking on your neighbours door and telling them they need to go out to work for a few hours while you stay at home and that when they’ve finished their shift they need to knock on your door and give you the money they’ve earned that day as you want funding for cleaning your own house. I doubt you’d be as comfortable with the arrangements then yet it is precisely what you are doing. It’s no wonder the country is bankrupt with chancers abusing the system at every opportunity.