funded hours and six weeks notice period

[stainesmassif]

DS1 has been at his nursery for just over a year. He started there when i returned to work from mat leave, and swapped over to funded hours only in December last year when I left work to childmind.

DH and I noticed immediately a change in the attitude of the management to us when we did this, but DS was happy at the nursery and had settled in really well so it didn't bother us.

Now we've come back from the summer holiday and three things have changed that I'm not happy about. They have changed the hours from 9-11.50 to 9.25 to 12.25 - bit of a pain due to mindee pick up times and drop off. Apparently they wrote to advise us - maybe they did, maybe they didn't, I can't find anything either way.
They've changed the room to an outdoor mobile that is used for after school club. It looks a bit like a storage room, apparently there are plans to move things around and make it a bit more toddler friendly, but at present, not impressive.

What I am least happy about is that DS is 1 of only 3 children at each session. I know lots of people might like him to have closer attention from his carers, but he wants lots of friends! Last year there were 6-7 children at each session, which was fine. Some sessions there may be only 1 other child besides ds this year. According to ds's key worker, the management of the nursery refuse to promote the funded hours provision that the nursery offer - children that are attending only funded hours are placed in a separate room to children that are on mixed funding.

According to the contract that we signed when we joined the nursery (and were fee paying) we have to give six weeks notice or can lose our deposit. Obviously we don't have a deposit to lose, but I guess we could lose our funded hours altogether if we can't resolve this with the nursery.

Are my objections valid to negate the six week notice? change of hours that I can't find notice for, though it's possible they included it in a newsletter over the summer and I didn't notice, change of room that is not as pleasant, but probably adequate, but mostly, a lack of classmates, and a lack of commitment on the part of the nursery to fill the funded places that they offer.

god, that's long.

I'd have thought your only grounds would be possibly the change of hours ( although they've not changed it to the early hours of the morning so you might still struggle to justify it). The other reasons are frankly a bit odd to think you can not give the notice. Surely it's up to the nursery if they advertise or not. As for there being too few children there, unless your contract states how many playmates are there each day you haven't got a leg to stand on.
Have a little think about how you'd feel if the parent of one of your mindees pulled out without notice due to reasons such as those.

It does sound inefficient not to integrate all the children of the same age group . However funded children are probably not profitable and it would make economic sense to run the preschool sessions in an otherwise unused space to maximise that available to fee payers, althoguh I'd still expect them to want that at capacity. If you have no deposit to lose (and you may want to check that they didn't carry one over from before you changed hours or ask you to pay in lieu) then you presumably could just leave now but they haven't actually breached the contract.

I thought as much, they are minor irritations in the scheme of things and ds is perfectly happy at the moment. But would I lose my funded hours with the local authority if I withdrew DS from nursery without agreed notice?
Moogster, if i changed the location and hours of my setting wtihout notice and lost other children over the summer holidays, I would look at what might be going wrong with my business if I then lost more parents without agreed notice.

There is normally a specific date for them to submit details of the relevant children. If you can move him before then it should be ok but whether you will find anywhere better at short notice is a potential issue.

that's why i'm in a hurry, there's a space for him at an ace community run pre school across the park from our house.

i think they're going to stick with the six week notice period unless I kick up a real fuss, but my objections are so petty i find it hard to justify them. my main objection has little to do with the contractual terms.

There is a 'cut off' day - 20th Sept this term in our LA, and on that day wherever you are gets the funding.

Did/do you sign a funding form supplied by the LA but given via the setting? If so that should have all 'contractual' details on it. Again I suppose all LAs may differ, but we have one form a term to sigh and return- so 3 per year.

If you no longer need full-day care, would he be better off in a more traditional pre-school environment? As a previous poster said- nurseries cannot really afford to run with funded only children. Not nice, but I can see where they are coming from.

x-posted!

Get him out quick before cut off date :) :)

I handed the bloody funding form in this morning before I went into his new room. Am writing to them and pleading.

If he's not on their register on headcount day - and you have no intention of taking up the place they cannot claim the funding. Once they get it, they have it for the whole term whether you leave or not. (in our LA anyway)
Not sure how the six weeks notice works to be honest. HOWEVER funded places cannot have conditions set on them, so this may be your loop-hole.
Get on your LA website and check it out toot-sweet. Ring children's services for advice.