Is it acceptable for a nursery to restrict the 15 hours of free provision to mornings or afternoons only?

[Kitewizard]

Hi All,
My daughter's nursery (which is the best in the area) restricts the times when you can use HMG's 15 hours' free nursery provision - parents can choose only mornings or afternoons to obtain the free entitlement. We can't mix one morning, then an afternoon. So, to get the full 15 hour entitlement, a child would need to be at the nursery every morning or every afternoon in a week.

As a working parent, I find this policy really difficult to stomach. It seems to discriminate against working mothers. For example, there aren't many part-time jobs for just three hours a day, every morning a week.

I work three full days a week, so I would have to put my child into two nurseries, in order to benefit from the full 15 hours free entitlement. How am I going to get my child from one nursery to the other in a working day, given I work in London, but live in Lincoln? Even people who work locally would find that difficult. Otherwise, I could benefit from the full entitlement by taking my child into nursery for the full five mornings, but then instead of just leaving her there, I've got to get someone to pick her up at 12:20 on the days that I'm working and organise some other childcare system for afterwards. None of this seems sensible in terms of petrol consumption, either. Is there any pressure I could bring to bear on the nursery to allow the free entitlement to be spread across full days, rather than mornings or afternoons solely? Any thoughts gratefully received...

I think that this is common in some state nurseries, as they split the age groups between morning and afternoon.

The 15 hours is meant to be about education for the child rather than childcare, so while it is frustrating trying to pay for childcare, that isn't what it is meant for. There aren't many part time jobs that can be done in 15 hours once you have dropped off at nursery and then go to pick up anyway.

Does your nursery give a reason for it having to be mornings or afternoons?

Some nurseries do this and some don't.

My sisters private nursery did, so she would pay for 2 full days and they would subtract 15 free hours. My one didn't, so I used to work 3 full weekdays plus Saturday and I used the 2 weekday sessions for a bit of me time for haircuts etc, or just to catchup on housework and grocery shopping. It was great! They would charge me 3 full days minus 3 free sessions and I was able to use the other sessions if I wanted them or not.

Agree with rookanga, it is for education rather than childcare. It is a great set up for school.

What do you do now with childcare?

Thanks so much for your responses. I didn't realise it was a common approach. All the other nurseries around here will subtract 15 hours free time, regardless of when the child attends (provided he/she attends for more than 15 hours, of course).

Childcare is a bit difficult for me, since I've got three kids, each three years apart. Helpers, including my mother, struggle to be in the right place at the right time!
I saw an announcement on the BBC which stated that free nursery education is to be made "more flexible", but I wasn't clear whether it is going to tackle this situation.
I understand that the issue is about child education, not free care, but if a nursery renders it harder for working mothers to avail themselves of the education, it's an odd tactic to help children get educated...
Thanks again.

The increased flexibility I think is to allow day nurseries who wish to to offer longer days.

Some areas used to pay settings a premium for being flexible but most if not all have stopped doing that now so most settings organise things in such a way as to maximise revenue, not through greed but because the funding is too low to do otherwise without risk of gong under. In many areas the funding paid to settings is surprisingly low.

If other settings in the area offer the hours you need then maybe you need to get on the waiting list for one of those.

I disagree, it's not just about education, it's about childcare also. If the nursery you are looking at only splits over 5 days, then have a shop around for one that will split over 3 days, and pay the extra. That's what we have to do - still not ideal and I agree that the funding could easily be more flexible to help working parents, but 15 hours is better than nothing.....

The problem is OP, the nurseries have to specify to the local authority/Childrens service what hours they are going to offer as "free" , they have to ringfence those hours in order to qualify for funding.

Was one of my biggest bug bears as a nursery owner, when it initially started I just used to deduct the voucher value from the overall bill & the parents could have what suited them.

Its a complete PITA from the admin side but that's the rules,sadly.

(At the moment but they movde the goalposts annually ity seems)

Cant you book her in all mornings (free) and all afternoons (paid by you) there myst be some full time nursery children?

It seems like a few areas are starting to try to grab back funding if a child doesn't use it too i.e. term time holidays or more than average sickness. Early Years funding seems to be being torn apart.

billgrangers - the 15 hours is for education. That is why it has been made available.

Thanks very much everyone. Seems there is little that can be done, given I only want to work three full days and I would like to see my daughter the other days.

I did debate internally whether all the mothers could sign a petition requesting that the nursery (pre-school might be a better description) allow parents to use their free hours when we wish to use them. If everyone signed it (and it is likely that they would), the nursery might feel obliged to alter its approach. That written, I'm probably the least organised person in the universe, so the idea will not materialise into action!

What about a CM, OP? A lot of them do the free 15 hrs and could do three days.

Rookanga - I disagree. It's about education but also about helping parents back to work. Added evidence for this is the government now talking about extending the scheme to 2 year olds, to further help low income families back to work.
Unless you are the education secretary, I'm not sure you can tell me you're right and I'm wrong, I'm afraid.

You might get somewhere with that if it were the only nursery in the area but as you say there are others offering the flexibility you want then you probably wouldn't have much luck.

OP I say again...it is not down to the individual nursery!

They can choose several different ways to access the funding to get the best "fit" for all their clients, but the actual limitations are set by the Birth to Five service, in Lincolnshire, so by all means get a petition going (individual letters or emails are even better) but don't shoot the messenger send it the paper-shufflers who issue these edicts!

Is it a pre-school nursery (attached to a school) or a private nursery, and can you pay for extra sessions on top of the free ones?

It's very common for nursery's to offer only mornings or afternoons to cover the free 15 hours. People who work full time when faced with this situation either pay for the extra sessions at the nursery (if they can) or use childminders to cover the extra time.
I'm faced with the same situation next year and I'll be using a childminder for the afternoons of the 3 days I'm at work and taking advantage of 2 mornings peace on the 2 days I'm not at work.

Our nursery allow free sessions between 8-11 and 3-6 if a child is in for a full day then the parent has to pay a premium for the hours in the middle of the day 11-3.

DC goes 2 mornings a week and 1 full day during term time and my boss only pays the premium on the 11-3 on the full day. During holidays DC only goes on the full day and then my boss is charged a full day rate as the 15 hours are term time only.