3yrs funding curiousity!!!

[BaileyLadapa]

I'm currently took my daughter for 2 days a week (9-3pm) and recently I asked my nursery if they have a place for my daughter on Jan2018 if she wants to do full time (she is Oct2014 baby) I explained that when Jan arrived I will entitled for 15 hours free
However,Nursery said no it actually not free,I still have to pay for it but at the funding rate???? I was like whatttt!!! Mum I met at the playgroup took her son and said she did pay nothing and also his nursery is private same as mine.
Will be pleasure if anyone explain that to me please

Thank you x

Ok I don't completely understand your post but if you want her to go full time then you will need to pay some fees yes. If they accept EYEE (and they do not have to) then that will cover some but not all of her hours. If they do not accept funding then you will have to pay for it all.

Should be free for you but only if it is an approved childcare provider. An Ofsted registered nursery should fall into this category.

Print the gov.uk page out and query it with them:
www.gov.uk/help-with-childcare-costs/free-childcare-and-education-for-2-to-4-year-olds

The 15 hours should be free I mean.

Even if they are OFSTED registered they don't have to accept funding.

The 15 hours are free? The council pays it? I don't understand the question!!

The can also choose when to offer their free hours. So the free hours could be from 12.30 to 3.30 in the afternoon.

I don't understand your post. But yes 15 hours are free (30 if you and your partner work). Look it up on the govt website

Why would the parent pay the funding rate though? It would make no difference to the amount the nursery received?

are the expecting you to pay the diffrence between the funding rate and their hourly rate?

It's not free!! It's funded! The providers are picking up the shortfall in the government's poorly thought out and poorly financed idea.

Sorry for confusing guys, Basically I thought the next term after she turns 3 I will entitled for FREE 15 hours (and yes I do understand that I have to pay for full time) The nursery I took my daughter right now (OFSTED registed) said no There is no free 15 hours but instead of that I will received a funding rate

I asked some of Mums at the playgroup and they said they took their child to nurseries for 15 hours free (and 30 hours for both work) without paying anything except fee for securing the place in the nursery and some pay for extra if they want to do 3 days

Have you asked them wether they offer the free funded hours? They dont't have too. My dc goes 15 hours across two days. I only pay for lunch £1.10 per day. I pay the usual hourly rate during the holidays although I drop to 7 hours a week then ( one day I need childcare to work). It's a very welcome extra chunk of money in our budget. They are also bringing in the 30 hours funded hours from September. We qualify but don't think I'll up the hours. it's crap there's such a variation across the country. Could you find another nursery?

The problem with early years "free" hours is similar to that of adult social care. It's woefully underfunded. The nursery is not paid enough funding to cover the fees. So, many nurseries have to find ways to recoup the shortfall. One way of doing that is to charge higher fees for anything not included in the 15 hours.

I think you need to clarify with them what their policy is

• do they offer the 15 free hours?
• if they do how do they offer them? - the free 15 hours are only given for 38 weeks per year so some nurseries average the funding and give 10-11 hours for 50-52 weeks
• the 15 free hours exclude meals etc - so there might be a rate to pay for these

I hope you don't mind if I explained as in an actual rate
Full day (9-3pm) is £38
As they said if I want full time for 5 days a week after she turns 3 we will not get 15 hours free as me and my husband understand but we will get funding rate which £26 a day instead.

Well yes because that's for the other hours that aren't funded.

I don't know why this is so confusing for you

So 2 days at £38 is £76 a week
5 days would be £190
You will be paying £130 for 5 days at £26
So you are saving £60 a week
Sounds about right to me as the funding is generally around £4 an hour

You might want to watch this video, it explains perfectly how the underfunding is affecting nurseries
m.youtube.com/watch?v=0Zm-mYA6XpQ

The unsubsidised £38 for a full day will be quite close to the actual cost of providing the service - running a nursery isn't a high margin business so their costs must be at least £35 to provide the service they offer. That would be about £5.83 per hour.

The government subsidy for the 15 hours is much less than that - typically around £4 per hour.

Do you want the nursery to charge less than it costs to run, go bankrupt and close?
Or cut costs by having fewer toys, books, resources and staff and having the rooms more crowded, heating and lighting restricted as they are too expensive, till it seems an unpleasant place to leave your child?
Or do you want the nursery to have the money that it costs to provide the service you want?

You have to pick one of these three options. There isn't a magic money tree.

Nurseries manage this differently. My little ones nursery only offers the funded hours from 9-12 and 1-4, if you only want the funded hours you go to 5 of these sessions to make up your 15 hours.

If you want full time care from 8-6, you get a cheaper day rate than before but you are paying for the wrap around care of 8-9, 12-1, 4-6.

Not sure how the 30 hours will work - nurseries don't have to offer it and I completely get why they won't - would benefit hugely from it but it is seriously underfunded.

If I was running a nursery I would have the funded hours sessions being 8-11am and 3-6pm with hours of 11am-3pm always chargeable.

Thanks for that video, insancerre. That sums it up perfectly.

Peukpokicuzo some LAs are setting up funding rules which prevent that type of set up. We can't win.