Nursery charging top up fee £530 a term

[Amelia23]

Hi everyone my daughter will be starting Nursery in september. She will be 3 years 5 months and has never attended any kind of nursery before. Please be kind and advise me as I am completely clueless.
For the autumn term 12th sep-19th dec
the initial charge is £1333
minus nursery fund of £803 leaves me with £530 to pay.
the usual price of morning session 9-1 is £31

my daughter will be doing 12 hours her first term (3 days a week). the Nursery is open during half term and I told the nursery I cannot afford to pay for the whole week so I might send her two days a week at most, which they agreed to.
My daughter will not eat lunch there but will have snacks such as fruit and water and we were asked to pay extra for this and for certain activities, we agreed to this ( obviously I should have asked how much this would cost) as I was so overjoyed that she had got a place.

we were told that she would be able to have the full 15 hours after half term and now I think part of the cost of the £530 is the nursery charging me for an extra hour a week as they would have to let her do 16 hours as they have 4 hour sessions. If they are charging me fairly 1 hour should cost £7.75. This should come to £54 and if are charging me for the half term that should cost £155 but that still leaves over £300 to pay. Could they be charging over £300 for fruit and at most 2-3 activities.

I asked the nursery to send me a breakdown of the costs yesterday by email, but they haven't responded yet. If I find that they are charging over the odds for the extra hour am I within my rights to say I want my daughter to continue at only 12 hours a week. They have sent me the offer letter with a deposit of £200 to pay.
I spoke to the nursery yesterday before they sent the fees and she did sound a little like she was backing out of the deal for the two days a week, she just kept saying look at the fees then decide what you want to do.
Any advice would be appreciated

My understanding of the system is the pre-schools in village halls etc offer the 15 hours for free although may ask for donations whether financial or for things like craft stuff (paints etc rather than just old cereal boxes) or bits for snacks.
Private nurseries can also offer the 15 hours for free but it isn't actually in their interests to do so as they get paid less by the council than they need to charge to break even. So they usually add on extra hours which you have to pay for. For example, a morning session may be 8 - 12.30 but only 3 hours will be free so you have to pay for the extra 1.5 hours. You are only allowed to claim for 3 hours per morning or afternoon so, if you are not doing five sessions, you cannot claim the 15 hours. In your case, as she is only doing three sessions, you would only be able to claim for 9 hours.
Also private nurseries will work out the annual cost and then break it down into termly/monthly fees. So the bill you have been sent will cover a part of the Christmas holidays as well as half term.
Once you do sign up, bear in mind that, if you are claiming the funding, you are likely to be tied into a 12 week notice period so you should decide sooner rather than later whether you can afford this as otherwise you will need to pay the fees for not just this term but the term from Christmas to Easter too.

PS if I was a nursery owner or manager and a parent was already questioning the fees before the child started and childcare was in such short supply in your area as it is in ours, then I would probably sound as though as I was backing out of the deal as I would know that I could find someone to take the place quite easily and that that person would probably need more hours and thus be easier for me to manage. If you are only doing three mornings, they are going to have to find someone who wants to do the three afternoons to make it more cost effective for them...alternatively, they could find someone who wants three days and not have to worry about it.

Well to be fair, nursery fees are complicated, but they should have been upfront with you.
I would call them and say you only want xx hours, you don't want extras, you understand 15 hours weekly term time is free, so what are all these ££ hundreds.
Don't be afraid to ask. We've just got a new administrator, for example, but the last one made a zillion mistakes and more bills were wrong than right and staff spend a lot of time apologising.

Laundry angel has given you the gist of it.
It's even more complicated than that actually. Depending on children's ages etc.
Staffing can be a nightmare.
I really would look for a preschool if I were you. They're listed on Ofsted s site and you can search by postcode.

Hi laundry angel thank you for all that, we have spoken to the nursery 2-3 times and very early on I emailed them about the 3 hours a day 4 hour session thing and none of this was ever mentioned by them. I find that really strange and I hope it signals some negotiation might be possible.also I have spoken to them about not having enough money to pay for all of half term so I think they should of mentioned it then at least.

How do you mean you applied for schools and could only get full time place? They will only give you 15 hours maximum, usually 3 hours a day but some will do 2 days of 6 hours and a 1 day of 3 hours.

I applied to school nurseries and they sent me offers of 9-3.30 5 days a week, maybe I was stupid to turn it down but I believe my daughter is not mature enough to cope with that.

The letter I have says its a full time place and gives those hours and when I asked if they have part time they said we gave them to people with brothers and sisters at the nursery

Hi laundry angel I understand what you are saying and the last thing I want to be doing 1 month before my daughter starts nursery is dealing with this, honestly I feel so sad about it, but don't you feel the nursery should have been much more upfront about fees and such. If I knew there was the possibility of fees then that would have been the first thing I would have asked about. Thanks marcipex I hope I can negotiate a little the lady seems kind, but business is business I suppose

Are you sure the pre-schools only offered from 9.00 - 3.30? Unless attached to a private school, that seems unusual as they would only be able to get funding for half of that time from the council and, IME, parents using the village hall type pre-school tend to be using it for socialisation & learning for their children rather than childcare whilst they are at work so either wouldn't want or or couldn't afford to pay for the additional hours. From the style of your emails, I am guessing that English isn't your first language so am wondering if you have missed something in some of the communications.
IME, some village pre-schools offer five mornings only, others offer five afternoons only, others allow you to mix and match, some require you to do 15 hours from week one, others let you build up to it. Requiring 30 hours from the off is unusual.

It's not uncommon around here fit children to be offered full time places at school nurseries, but because the funding is only part time, parents then have to pay a top up of £30-60 per week to cover the extra hours. In these nurseries part time places are not offered at all.
Across the border in another council area, only part time places are offered.

It's a minefield.

Our preschool would let you do:

5 x 3 hours daily, so 9 until 12 five days a week.

Or 5x3 hours daily, 12 until 3pm. Bring own packed lunch.

Or 9 -3 ie 6 hours on one or two days, plus mornings/afternoons to total 15.

Or any combination of those.

Fruit, cheese, toast, milk, all free mid morning , smaller snack and milk free mid afternoon.
An extra hour eg lunchtime, to extend a morning session until 1 pm , costs £4 , bring packed lunch.

Thank you everyone, you have all been very kind to carry on this discussion with me. I'm sorry if it's been somewhat confusing. English actually is my first language laundryAngel, so now I feel worse than I did before...maybe I should join my daughter at the nursery to bring my English up to scratch.
My daughter was offered full-time places at two different school nurseries. There was absolutely no mention of fees nor contributions of any kind. I applied to one of the school nurseries for a part time place, but was offered full time instead and was told they only had 3 part time places and these were reserved for children with siblings already at the school.
This subject is beyond confusing and I have very little knowledge of the in and outs of nursery politics so thank you again everyone