Free nursery places for all 3 and 4 year olds?

[CountessDracula]

DD has recently had her 3rd birthday and is at a private nursery in the the borough of Richmond-upon-Thames. It was my belief that when she was 3 the govt would fund a number of sessions a week for her. One of the other mums at nursery told me that Richmond had been deemed not a poor enough area for this!!!!!!!!! WTF??

Bubble99 you may be able to help - or anyone else? Surely they can't discriminate like this? What about very poor people who live in the borough, it's not all millionaires fgs.

oh my nursery said £250 ish a term!

omg secur!!

Did you get my email?

Might depend on your fees as they work it out on a sessional basis. Suspect it is capped at a maximum too.

The amount also depends on how many days you have your child in Nursery! If they are only in 2 full days then you only get 4 of the 5 sessions.....and so on proportionally.

even if your child goes part time i thought you got the 2.5 hrs/day for the full 5 days (the term after they turn 3)

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Bundle - The Private Nursery dictates that you can only use 2 sessions a day and. And if your child is only in the Private Nursery 2 days then that equates to 4 sessions. THe other session you are still entitled to, but you couldn't just pur your child into the Private Nursery for 2.5 hrs in one day! Most Nurseries will say that if you want to use 1 free 2.5hr block, the child has to be in the Nursery for at least half a day..... therefore you would have to pay for some hours too. Hardly worth it.

OR

You could get your child into the school pre-school Nursery to use up your other sessions.

Actually if they have spaces our nursery will allow people to go for the 2.5 hours. My friend's DS does - but she had to wait an extra term before they had space.

I think some nurseries average out the reduction in fees over the whole year and some base it on the 11 week terms which is why it can seem as though different people are getting different amounts. Also your nursery hourly rate can be a factor.

CD it kicks in the term AFTER they turn 3, so for you it will be January.

My understnading is that the government will pay £7.75 (ish) a session, which if you are using 5 sessions a week equates to £38.75 a week. There are 33 weeks in a school year (or 11 weeks a term) according to DD's preschool who explained all this to me. So it works out at £426.25 a term. However CD, if you child goes holidays as well, some nurseries take this into account and averages out every month. So £426.25 x 3 = £1278.75 dividied by 12 months = £106.56 a month

Personally I would get your nursery to explain things fully to you as I KNOW some nurseries do the dodgy and hang onto money and STILL charge the parent!! Find out how much they are funded PER SESSION and work it out for yourself.

Our preschool gives bills with a full breakdown, our old private nursery didn't, and a friends nursery told her when she changed to a new nursery that the grant wouldn't be given for a full term as it had already been paid to the old nursery!! WTF - TRYING IT ON!! I told her to challange it and they backed down. Yet another nursery here still charges teh ful amount monthly then offers parent a rebate at the end of term!! All the practices are really naughty, so make sure you get a full understanding and breakdown of what they are claiming for you.

CD, this happened in Croydon last year too. DS2 eventually got his funding though.

Accredited childminders can also offer funded places (same hours/rates etc. as for nurseries). You are entitled to split the time between a minder and a nursery, although some nurseries might not want to.

If the child moved part way through a term the nursery might be right Crunchie - round here there is a date on which we submit all our numbers for the grant - if a child leaves after that date we don't have to return the money, but equally if another child turns up after that date we can't claim the money and have to give them a free place. I also didn't think they could charge a top-up just for the 2.5 hours - that charges could only be made for additional hours or meals etc.

I've just seen this CD. How did you get on?

The other mum is confusing Surestart nursery places with pre-school funding. Richmond has only one Surestart nursery as, yes, we are deemed to be a 'wealthy' area and therefore not in need of Surestart places. Funding for general special needs provision in schools (not statements of SEN, which are worked out on an individual basis) is also worked out in relation to the amount of children receiving free school meals, which equals families living on benefits.

Back to your question. All nurseries are assessed by the early years department to ensure that they are effectively delivering the pre-school curriculum. If yes, they then receive funding per child in the form of a grant which is paid to the nursery termly. It is paid termly even though full daycare nurseries do not operate in 'terms' unlike state nurseries.

Richmond funding should work out at £1200 per year, which should mean a £100 deduction from your bill each month. I'm sure your nursery is deducting the correct amount, but be aware that some nurseries (a well-known chain) have got previous for not passing the full amount (or even any of it) on to parents in the form of reduced bills.

Bit lost here guys. so forgive if I have the wrong end of the stick.

The Government is funding places for 3 and a half year olds and it is only for 2 and a half hours a day. The nursery must fit the criteria though. Your child can attend for longer but you must pay a top up fee to make up the dfference in fees. There is an upper limit so if your fees are greater than the grant you pay the extra. Area you live in is irrelevant.

I think bubble is right and this woman got the surestart thing mixed up with the nursery places.

Thing is Rainbow, around 1-2 years ago, both Croydon and Richmond, without openly admitting it, were saying to parents that they would not be able to get these free places for 3 yr olds until the term before they turned 4 (rather than the way it was supposed to work which is the term AFTER they turn 3) so effectively, in these boroughs, the children would have had one or so 'free' terms less than they should have done (I only know this because my child was affected by it). They claimed (I seem to remember) that they did not get enough money from the government to fund the same way as other areas.

Anyway, that's all changed now so everyone around here should get it!

The amount of £1200 per year is based on a child attending a Richmond nursery for 5 sessions per week. In practice, many children attend for 2 to five full days, but the grant can be applied as the child is attending for the required amount of hours, even without a 'break' between sessions. This was certainly the case when we investigated our DS2's funding a couple of years ago when he (briefly) attended a well-known chain nursery.
As I've mentioned already, we found out that the nursery had received a cheque for payment of our DS2's funding and were very concerned when the money was not deducted from our monthly bill. We put this down to human error, until we found out that three other families attending the same nursery had not received their grant either. Interestingly, not long after this happened, the manager left.

From April 2006: current minimum free entitlement of 12.5 hours per week will be extended from 33 to 38 weeks per year.

From 2010: new minimum entitlement of 15 hours per week for 38 weeks per year.

Long term: 20 hours per week for 38 weeks per year.

Details here

The nursery grant I get makes barely the slightest dent in the fees, sadly. He goes two days a week, 12 hours in total (9-4) and I don't even know how much the grant is - something poxy.

Thanks Bubble - she was 3 on 4 September so when should I start to get it do you think?

Aloha, if Bubble is right then the £100 per month plus the £90 a month each saving that Dh and I get from the nursery vouchers salary sacrifice thing means that almost half of our nursery costs are met (dd goes 4 days a week and it costs around £600 per month) Every little helps!

aloha, your grant would be 4 sessions @ £7.50 a week, for about 30 weeks of the year, averaged across your fees.

Gosh Tortoiseshell, I'd never have worked that out myself in a million years. So it's £225 in total over the year, but ds goes every week (private nursery no holidays) and it costs a fortune. So it doesn't seem to dent them much.

I'm sure a pre-school nursery place must cost FAR FAR more than that though. Which seems really unfair as 2.5 hours is absolutely useless to anyone who works.