Looking for information on the free child place for 3 years plus

[stressed2007]

Can anyone suggest a good place to explain how the free place works for the 3 and overs? . I.e. how many sessions - how this interacts with private nurseries etc. i can't understand any of the pages that come up when I search for information. Thanks

Have a look at this under Early Year Entitlement. It is up to 5 "sessions" of 2 1/2 (soon increasing to be 3) hours per week for up to 38 weeks of the year(termtime only). Day nurseries may have am and pm "sessions" so a full day could include 2 funded sessions. However you would have to pay for the rest of the time spent there at their normal rate plus extras like lunch and for the full period during any non termtime days. Your local LEA (or County Council) website should provide more detail, espeically as to when they are increasing the hours to 3.

did you manage to sort yourself out ? if not i offer the funded sessions or 'free places' so just shout if you want more info.

when does it go up to 3 hours please?

this is the info i have..........Many day nurseries offer this service to parents and in 2010 the number of hours will increase to 15 per week which can be taken more flexibly. This is being piloted in some areas from 2009. You can ask if your nursery offers these places, or alternatively call your local council who will be able to advise you of the nearest nursery that does.

meant to add nursery, pre-school or childminder can offer these sessions

our ds is in private nursery 3days a week this equates to 6 sessions (am and pm)

we are entitled to 5 sessions per week. The nursery charges £33 per day which breaks down into £16.50 per session

the govt grant is £6 per session (not sure if this varies across the country) and the grant is paid to the nursery 6 times a year.

Its left up to each nursery to decide how to re-imburse the parents with the grant money. Ours takes the full fees and then gives us the grant back via cheque 3 times a year

Be aware that you wont automatically be eliglbe for the grant as soon as your dc is 3. They only become eligble in the first full scholastic term after their third b/day
eg my ds was 3 in april and wasnt eligble to start getting the grant till Sept

I hope this helps a little

your child will get 5 x2.5 hr sessions per week funded. you are NOT to be charged for it and then given the money back later, providers are NOT allowed to charge top up fees ie if there normal charge for 2.5hrs is less than the funding figure they are not to make the difference up from the parents.

your child is eligible for the funding the TERM AFTER their 3rd birthday. you only get funding for 38wks of the year ie term times and lastly you can NOT run funding sessions back to back, ie if your child is at a session for 5 hours you can only use 1 voucher. there has to be a minimum of 1 hour between sessions ie if your child is there for a 6hr session you can use 2 vouchers.

in essex the funding is £9.02 per session but the amount is a local decision so you need to check locally.

Will someone please confIrm if I have understood correctly? £6 per session? I don't know any nursery that charges anythign like that so one only sets off the govt grant against the real fees? This may boay for a session at a toddler group but not a nursery? Effectively you are getting £30 towards nursery fees? This seems so low -£6 would n't even cover the cost of the hours which equate to one session with a childminder.

Can anyone also please tell me how it works if I live in one borough but my child goes to nursery in another borough? Which borough pays for it?

Thanks very much.

Also how does 2.5 hours work? My nursery is open all day. There is however an am and pm session but as the nursery is technicaly open 8-6pm (even if your child does not attend that long)I assume the sessions are 5 hours each? There is no such thing there as a 2.5 hour session so how does it work? Thanks

it's not £6 here. Our preschool gets £8.59 per 2.5hr session paid by the council. I think the actual amount is set locally.

No idea on using this funding in a nursery setting though sorry.

stressed2007 they can still only claim for 2.5 hours worth each am or pm so the EY fudnign counts towards your fees but you'd pay the balance . The amount per hour is normally capped by the LEA to take account of local costs so if yours works out more expensive than this you pay the difference for the funded hours too - ie they aren't always "free". afaik they'd claim from the LEA/borough in which the nursery(as that is where it will have been approved for the scheme) is but they should be able to tell you.

Hi cmx2, one of my mindees (im a cm) will be going into nursery in jan (i think, maybe they also only have one intake as well now??)..anyway, i would like to keep her here /as would mum on the one day a week she normally comes until she starts school properly...how do i go about 'registering' myself to do this? and if the government pay £6 per session for those 3 hrs and mindee is with me 9 hours can/would mum just pay the differeence?
hope that makes sense?

TIA

And if your council are completely useless and point blank refuse to register your private nursery as an education provider you won't get anything...(can you tell there's a story here??)

cmx 2..

I spoke to my local education dept re the grant being given back in this way.
Their answer was .. we pay the nursery 6 times a year to keep their cash flow working.
How they pay it back to you is up to them

I think its easier this way than trying to figure out sessions, school weeks etc The full grant is whatever the lea set as a session fee x5 X38 weeks a year. We get the full grant as ds is there for more than 5 sessions and we get a cheque at xmas, easter and summer

maybe up here in Scotland we are different...

wouldnt be the first time!!

PC you can apply to LEA to be approved for EY grant, they have certain criteria. However even if you did this you may find that that particular child uses up his/her EY funding on the nursery place first, even if it is a state funded one.

ah, right!..well i will speak to LEA tomorrow then, thanks for that

poorbuthappy

want to share your story of unreasonable lea twaddle??

stressed..

at a private nursery yes there is no such thing as a 2.5hr session. that's because fundamentally they are a daycare provider for working parents.

you have to think of it in terms of a school nursery or a pre school in a church hall where all the children go just mornings or just afternoons, from 9-11.30am or 12.30-3pm, for example. then it's just totally free basically.

for private nurseries they normally just knock the grant off your bill. so yes it doesn't seem like a big saving.

my dd's nursery's pretty good. she goes 2 afternoons a week, which runs from 1pm til 6pm..though she's picked up at 4.30. when she's 3 she can add to this 3 extra afternoons, but just from 1 til 3.30pm, during term time. and those 3 extras will be totally free.

spose it's no help though if your dc goes to nursery full time anyway though.

hi i am accredited through my local NCMA network, the network get the money from essex county (i think) they then pass it on to all the cms that are offering the funded sessions.

i would call your local NCMA office and ask them. they should be able to answer all your questions.

i get my cheques twice a term ie the first one comes at the start of the term the second usally arrives just after the half term hols. it does mean i have to manage without some of my income for a few weeks but when i get my cheque its like having some savings.

i supply 11 sessions over the course of the week with various differnt children have different amounts of sessions (child A has 3 sessions with me, child B has 2 sessions etc) so my cheques are quiet large i think the one due now will hopefully cover most of christmas!