30 free funded hours

[lovecoffee1]

Hi mums/dads,

I’m so confused and wondering if someone can help. So we are eligible for the 30 funded hours so that’s 22hours stretched over 52 weeks to include the school holidays however I have just been told I can only use 5.5 hours a day and since I only work part time I will only use 16.5 hours a week and not all of the 22 hours. The nursery has told me I can either leave them or use them elsewhere. I have never heard of this and am shocked they are allowed to cap the hours to 5.5 hrs a day as I feel this is discriminating part time working mums. I have spoken to head office and they basically told me it’s been like that for a really long time and those are the rules and there’s no negotiation. What are your thought on this? Are you in the same situation? Are nursery even allowed to do this?

The government funding is a fixed amount. The parents pay (often a lot) more. So it makes sense to cap the government hours as a lot of parents will pay the extra, which is more money for the nursery.

£91 a day?! Prince George’s nursery was half that. That is either made up or you’re being had.

@Ostryga

£91 a day?! Prince George’s nursery was half that. That is either made up or you’re being had.

Most of the nurseries around here charge about £60 per day. So i can totally believe that in London or the South East.

DD’s nursery (pre-prep, best in the area) was £60 a day, we’re in very expensive east.

Even the top London nursery you need to register before you’ve even had the baby isn’t £91 a day.

London private all dat nursery's- as opposed to preschool settings are now easily £90 - £100 per day. It just is what it is.

Nursery's still struggle to recruit and retain staff because even at those levels it hard to pay good salaries.

Nursery cap funding so that they can keep the top up hours cost to something vaguely reasonable and standard - you might be willing to pay a lot for an extra 2 hours but for someone needing to top up say 20 hours it would be too high a rate without the cap.

it would be better for parents in expensive areas if it were a flat subsidy as then the nursery could claim it all but I do understand why the govt wanted to avoid that - worried nurseries would just increase their fees by roughly that amount (over a couple of years) and make higher profits.

The problem is increases in funding have in no way matched increase in costs in early years and even though it is by nature a fairly attractive job, pay rates are so low and promotion / pay rises so little its hard to get decent staff.

My DD was part time at a nursery and when she got her 15 hours they just took them off nicely. When my DS was at a different nursery (I moved jobs) he was only doing about 16 hours as he had some time with grandma too. The discount I got when he got his free hours was about a tenner. They split the hours so you had to be there all day every day to get them: then charged extra for food. They split in into 8-12 then 1-5 then charged a lot extra for the 12-1 session in the middle. I just wished they'd been more up front and told me I wasn't getting them at the start.

@lovecoffee1

Pumpkinvines Yes same , my nursery already increased the daily rate by quite a bit £80 per day to £91.47 which I fully understand as I wouldn’t want them to cut corners due to the underfunded scheme. However I just didn’t understand the cap as I can’t see how this benefits the nursery.

It benefits the nursery because they charge parents £9 an hour, but the funding is only say £5 an hour. So if they let you have a 10 hour day funded they get £50 (instead of £90) so are losing £40 a day. If they let you have 5 hours funded and you pay the other 5 hours they get £70 so are only losing £20 a day. While you get the whole day for £25 instead of £90.

Sorry, £45 instead of £90.

@gogohm

How many hours a week do you work? You cannot claim more than the number of hours you work, they don't take the stretched hours into account

Yes you can....my daughter works 16 hours.... my GD attends 30 hours

DS1 nursery offered it as either 3 whole days term time only or 5 x 9-3 days term time only. you had to pay full fees during the holidays and couldn't amend the days, it worked for us as he did 3 days anyway so we just had to cover £5 a day for meals and then the school holiday prices (which we were allowed to use tax free childcare towards too) our bill went from £650/month down to about £65/month for most months.

I would look for another nursery. I work 24 hours a week, my child is at nursery 30 hours spread over 3 full days and a morning. No additional fees, all food included. Term time only. We are Kingston borough.

Prices are really that high in London. Ours is in Greenwich and is £90

Why not move to a childminder for all your funding? They offer exactly the same as have to work to the EYFS and are inspected by the same inspectors but tend to be more flexible about offering the hours you want. Then if you find the right one they do your school wrap around too.
Just like all settings they work on school readiness including independence, socialisation and building fine motor skills.