how does the govt funded nursery place thing work?

[Cha]

Forgive me if I sound dim, but I am finding it hard to know what the next step for my 2 year old dd is...
I have been told by other parents that the govt funds (or partially funds?) a nursery school place for children aged 3+. Do all nursery schools do this or is it a bit like finding an NHS dentist? There are some good nursery schools around here (we live in SE London) but do you have to be in the catchment area like schools? Do you have to put your child on a waiting list? I have been told that I should have done this already - on her 2nd birthday! Feeling alarmed already! Someone told me there is a website that lists the Ofsted results of your local nursery schools. Does anyone know what the address is? What I have done is just looked in the yellow pages and wrote down a list of nursery schools I'd heard good things of with the intention of ringing round tomorrow. Is this how it is done? And what questions do I ask?? Help!!!!!!

ooh good, glad you asked this. I have no idea either

O.k, not sure that this will make sense but i'll try. I live in birmingham and my dd2 goes to a nursery which is on the site of a school but isn't a state nursery. She started when she was 3 and gets 12.5 hours a week free. You can use the hours any way you want, i.e so many mornings a week or full days e.t.c. My dd started off by going for 2 full days a week, and all i payed for was the lunch hour (grant won't cover those) and squash, swimming e.t.c. Since Jan she has been going for an extra day for which i pay full price.
The grant also doesn't cover school holidays. HTH
Any questions ??? ask away

check out this website re Nursery Education grant

www.surestart.gov.uk/surestartservices/funding/neg/

Cheers folks - thanks for the links to SureStart too, though their FAQs are hardly the kind of FAQs anyone I have ever met would be likely to ask... Have emailed them anyway for more info.
Have found the Ofsted website, if anyone's interested.
ofsted

You can find the inspected schools in your area and read what the reports say.
How do you go about sorting this whole thing out? Do you have to fill in forms etc and if so, where do you get them from?

Cha - most nurseries sort out the funding, and you just pay the extra. No form filling. click on your area and you should be able to find a telephone number for your local Childcare Information Service, they sould be able to give you the information you need regarding funding.

Have you tried going to your LEA website - they will have a list of (state) nurseries and primaries with nursery schools attached. This gives you the contact information. But ask around - playground gossip is a good way to find out what options there are for you. In our borough the nurseries accept names from 2, although admissions criteria will be based around catchment area, siblings, special needs rather than getting your name down first! Good luck whatever you decide to do

My DD2 attends a private day nursery which offers "nursery funding" from the term after their 3rd birthday.

This entitles you to free 5 x 2.5 hour sessions a week term-time only. I pay the extra as each of our sessions are 4 hours. Also my nursery is open 48 weeks a year so I pay the extra for the school holidays.

You don't need to do anything yourself - when your child reachs the age, your nursery will give you a form to sign. This is basically for you to confirm the sessions attended.

HTH

Pamina

Yes, that's right!

DD2 only attended "officially" 4 sessions until recently when I "upped" her to 5. However because I work there, her attendance is more or less based on when I'm in.

For example, Thursdays used to be "our" day off -so I claimed for just 4 sessions - even though if you added up all the hours she was there it would equate to having 5 sessions. Her morning session starts at 8.30am, we arrive at 9.00am and techically she should go at 12.30pm. However, because I work until 2.30pm she has to stay until that time.

Then I was asked to work on Thursdays as well, so rather than take her and pay for those days, I put in the form at Christmas to claim for an extra day - totally 5 sessions.

Hope this isn't as confusing for you as it is for me

You should be able to claim for 5 x 2.5hr sessions. You could use these for 5 morning sessions, 5 afternoon sessions, or a mixture of the two.

pamina - my DS will be 3 tomorrow and will receive the grant after Easter. He attends private nursery 3 days a week but will have 5 sessions (ie morning/afternoon) counted in this. The nursery also has children who go purely for the sessions (9-11.30 am or 1-3.30 pm). Some do two sessions in one day and so stay for lunch at a cost of £6. So are attending 9-3.30 at a cost of £6 to parent.

I wonder if your nursery does not have official sessions in the afternoon. You know that would count towards the learning criteria or whatever it is. Alternatively they could be trying to pull a fast one.

Just been pondering this a bit more and thinking perhaps I'm being done out of it - looking at my last bill - I'm not being charged from 12.30 - 2.30pm

That would have been a bit embarrassing if I'd charged in there tomorrow!

A quick query along the same lines. If we put dd into a private school, Reception Class, when she will have just turned 4 as she is an August bday, are we likely to receive any govt funding against the fees under this scheme? The school concerned does also operate a nursery unit.

Yep, you'd get funding for part of the reception year (DD's school does the same thing). you'd get funding until the end of the Spring term when she's in Reception. state primaries also claim this funding which is why many are encouraging a single intake in September.

sorry, if she's an august b'day you should get funding for all 3 terms.

provided that the school is registered as part of the local EYDCP, most are. just ask them if they are registered for vouchers.

So if a child goes to a private nursery - do you have to pay for the school holidays when the vochers don't cover this???

thanks for that ML, may certainly help for that first year

FD for my nephew it was term time only, ie. school holidays and half terms not funded, but may be this depends on area ?

FD I have been told that for DS he will be funded 12.5 hours a week for 3 11 week terms a year - so the answer is yes.

I am really annoyed at how this nursery education grant is worked out. We were told our son gets 5 free sessions. Now they are telling us the grant has run out and we have to pay in full. We have signed a contract - you can't just back out if you can't afford it. I am not working, my husband works. I thought I could work a couple of days a week by taking advantage of this NEG. Now we have to pay £549 a month!!!! which we cannot afford. If we were on benefits and we wanted to give our kids a bit of free early years education, I dread to think what would happen.
We shouldn't have to work out how much to pay extra. They should tell us before we've signed the contract and make it simple. I've got enough to do looking after 2 kids (one of them is very ill) without working out blasted sums and worrying how much we will have to pay this month.
They made us think it was free and then we signed a contract and found out we'd have to pay the full amount. If they had told us how much we would have to pay from the start there wouldn't be a problem.