Free Nursery education from 3rd birthday - how does it work?

[lottymadbird]

Ive read that children are entitled to up to 5 2.5hr sessions a week for term time but not sure how this works. The sessions at nursery are from 8.15 to 12.30 in the morning so that is obviously more than 2.5hrs.

Does the 2.5hrs entitlement mean my DS has to go to nursery 5 days a week or can I use the 12.5hrs for the week (spread over the year I worked it out to be about 9hrs) over two days and so pay nothing.

Am I making any sense???!!!

For us it is £7.95 per 2.5 hour session.

In fact, thinking on it, I think our LEA still must do sessions, they just make us fill in the form with hours per week instead of session per week.

Because they like to keep us on our toes.

are the local schools still in summer holidays on august 25? if so then funding should start when the schools go back

here in scotland most schools are back by then, so funding would start after christmas holidays

or maybe after tattie hols? i forget...

ChasingSquirrels - I thought that the 'free nursery places' referred to the place in a state nursery school that every child is entitled to after their 3rd b'day - often the nursery attached to the primary school. And that parents who do not use the free state nursery place are entitled to a sum of money in lieue of that place...but that doesn't mean that the session in the private nursery is free.
The two nurseries we dealt with used it as a subsidy set againt their regular charges, but we had to be paying for the right number of sessions to get the full 5 sessions worth of subsidy.

info is very useful.
In particular sec 13.5 addresses the fact that top-up fees should not be charged, and also that the fees should not be charged up front and refunded later when the grant cheque comes in.
There is also something in it that confirms (albeit be inference) that you can only have 2 sessions per day.

Our Local authority sends the nursery a form to fill in on the first day of term - they need to inform them how many children are three & over and the funding is then sent through for these children. The funding for our playgroup is done termly I believe it is the case for the nursery class at the primary school.

blu i dont udnerstand

!

dd's nursery is private - they ahve some funde places available - therefore if you get a funded place you get 12.5 hrs week free - i fyou want to sned your child for longer than that per week you pay the hurly rate (for us its £4.50 per hr)

why make it more complicated?

our nursery is great and they work it all out for us and just hand us a bill with it all broken down int owaht we pau and what the council pay

blu - x-posted, see the link I just posted.
the child does have to be there for 5 sessions to get the funding for 5 sessions - so this has to be at least 2.5 days. But they SHOULD NOT charge you anything for those 5 session / 12.5hrs.
ie is charge is £10ph and child goes for 50 hours per week (sinple maths) and the subsidy is £5ph then you should pay 50-12.5 = 37.5 x £10 = £375 not 50 x £10 = £500 - 12.5 x £5 = £437.50. If that makes sense.

well squirrels, i think its making it more complicated than is really necessary

why sessions@ if htey go all day?

argh

the funded place is FREE no matter what the nurseries hrly rate is

but if you send you child fro more than 12.5 hrs they can charge you waht they like

for the additional hrs i mean

because it isn't purely intended to to help with childcare costs, it is intended to give sessional early years education to 3 and 4 year olds.
You do get all the hours - because your daughter goes for 3 days. I do think you would find you wouldn't if she only went for 2 days, even if those 2 days in total were more than 12.5 hrs.

i think i would find that i would

she used to go 2 days - until a month ago - i got 12.5hrs of these free. i only paid 3.5hrs a week

i changed to 3 days a week last month as i now work 3 days instead of 2

Our nursery was completely private - we paid fees at their regular rates for 4 full days (i.e 8 sessions - but private nursery sessions are longer than the 2.5 hours stipulated fro the gvt subsidy).
The nursery charged us the rate for 4 days, minus the subsidy that they claimed from the LEA.

I also took advantage of the tax-free system too - my employer paid a certain amount in llieu of my wages - on which I was not charged tax. It is often done throug vouchers, but in fact the employer doesn't actually need to use vouchers - just have the nursery invoice them direct for the allowable amount.

the problem i will have is that each session at the nursery is from 8.15 to 12.30 (for mornings) and no matter how long DS is there you pay a set cost for the session. So if he had to go for five sessions to get the 12.5 hours free funding I'd have to pay for the extra hours myself (which i could not afford!). it seems so complicated !

and

"the funded place is FREE no matter what the nurseries hrly rate is

but if you send you child fro more than 12.5 hrs they can charge you waht they like"

I agree, I read an earlier posting (not yours) as saying that nurseries could charge top-ups for the funded hours if their normal hourly charges were more.

squirrel - dont think im starting an argument - im just saying its not set in stone - i htink its more flexible than people realise - it obviously depends on the nursery. ours is private (its a university nursery)

nailpolish - lucky you then, it certainly contravenes the rules as I have read them several times in the past.
blu - if you were efefectively paying top-up fees for the funded hours you shouldn't have been, see the link I posted earlier. If you aren't using them anymore I would be tempted to reclaim those fees!

Chasing - in effect, I suppose that's what our nusery did.

presumably private nurseries do charge more per hour than it costs cursery schools attached to schools - so I wonder how this can work?

lotty can i just stress to you

EVERY NURSERY is different - you will have to talk to them

some will be over 5 days some you can do over 2 ITS NOT UNIVERSAL

x-posted, I didn't think you were, I am just really really surprised.
And I think we are both singing from the same hymn sheet regarding the top-up fees.

yes i will talk to them next time DS goes, thanks everyone.

blu

the council know hte costs they will have to pa y if they offer funded places to privat e nurseries - therefore they wil obviously have agreed to pay the hrly rate

if they didnt want to pay that rate they wouldnt offer the private nursery the funded places

some private nurseries have no funded places - could be for this reason

squirrel - yes i believe im v lucky - its a great nursery in lots of ways and tbh its no great hassle to them - i dont see why more nurseries cant do it

Well, tbh, I think you should take no notice of me because we did all this up until the date when the system seems to have changed on 2006!

But I think that in effect they still charge the same amount which comes out as the full time place minus whatever the LEA pays! they would have to, wouldn't they?

councils have a set rate - the private nursery can choose to accept that rate or not (ie offer funded places or not), the council doesn't pay different rates to different nurseries - although different areas have different rates.
most nurseries WILL offer funded places though, as parents will go elsewhere if they don't.