Funded Hours at a private nursery

[SarahJinx]

Hi. I'm hoping someone can can give me a bit of a steer on this please.

DS was three in May, so his free hours start in September. He attends a private nursery in a prep school, a full day is 8.30 - 3.30 and he goes twice a week, so fourteen hours. I expected to have to pay for lunch. I have just received the invoice for next term, they are charging us two hours every day. I've queried and the bursar has said that the maximum grant per day is five hours. Is that correct? And, if it isn't, what can I do about it?

Really appreciate any help.

Claim 5, just saw you said 10 hours, op!

I've not been given a form. The not sharing business is school policy apparently.

They can have whatever rules they like in reality if there is enough demand. They are a private business and they don't have to let a child in. I suspect the OP nursery can even fill the place with no funded hours. It is the nursery for an independent school after all.

All this talk about not asking for top ups. But in reality everyone I know pays for them. At my DD one I do get the 11/12 hours free because DD attends full time. But they work in a sliding scale of fees where each hour of the preschool is more expensive the less days you attend. So you will never be able to attend free anyway. The nursery still has a waiting list. A friend told me is over £200 for funded three days, and I will soon find out how much it is exactly when I go on maternity.

Reality - I'm in Scotland (so a little different) but the ability to split is down to the individual council.
So our council will split - as I said in my first post but you can't use just 2.5 hr funding - one session- in a setting. It is a minimum of 2 sessions - 5 hrs and I know that other councils in Scotland won't allow you to split at all ...because we complained when they introduced the minimum 2 session rule a couple of years ago ...

Our council also limit the number of funded children we can accept and have also been known to refuse to pay funding to us (a playgroup - so a 'private provider') if they have lots of space in a council run service...

That's the thing. It's a place where they hold all the cards because they can. And, as you say most parents can afford to not give a flying toss about funding but its principle to me ( plus am on mat leave myself and don't want to pay if i don't bloody have to!).

You really do need to speak to your local authority. You should be able to use the other 5 hours elsewhere.
In our county there's no way they could stop you doing this.

It sounds to mW if this nursery is claiming g all 15 hours but only passing on 10.
That is the only reason I can think of that would explain their refusal to share those hours with another provider.
The maximum hours a provider can claim for one day is 10 hours not 5

I bet you're right insancerre, cheeky effers.

I agree with insancerre. The only nurseries near me who refused to split were caught claiming all 15 hours for children who didn't do them all.

I don't understand how they are claiming at all without OP signing a form, unless they are signing it for her.

Ours is done electronically with no forms to sign

Going to discuss it with DH today but I feel like I'll say, yep fine claim the ten hours out of the fourteen he'll be attending and as is my right, we'll use the other five at the village pre school. They'll obviously say that I cant and it'll all come to a head.

We'll be moving him to the pre school after Christmas anyway.

Are you sure there are spaces at the village option?

Yes we were planning on moving him ready for this next term but changed our minds, he is going two mornings a week anyway, as a transition.

Yes, ask them about the form. Don't understand that at all.

Def ask about a form, I was given papers to sign plus a sheet explaining exactly what happens and whether I wanted to use it all in one place or split it out, etc. they were completely open about it all.

I've asked to split mine into 2 days of 7.5 (as he does 3 days but my employer pays for one day) and they said that was fine. Ours isn't a term time nursery however they follow term timings when it comes to the funding.

It isn't their policy to share funding either
well that's not up to them the cheeky sods.
By LAW you can split the funded hours between 2 settings. They CANNOT say they will not allow it .
Contact the LEA as they are clearly breaking their funding agreement.