Anyone know how much the "free" nursery sessions for 3+ reduce nursery fees by?

[lizzythemonkey]

Title says it all really. Ds is at nursery in Sussex (part of chain - Early Years) - he is v happy but it is hugely expensive and we are thinking of moving to a highly recommended local preschool instead which is much cheaper. BUT he is 3 in July so from Sept would get 5 free 2.5hr sessions pw. Trying to work out what effect this would have on costs and if we could therfore afford to keep him where he is, but keep missing nursery manager when i go in as always in a rush! TIA

lizzy

It used to be some ridiculous fiqure like £7.97 per hour, based on the 5 x 2.5hr sessions, but don't quote me as I could be wrong.

Thanks Fimbo!

If your council have a childcare info service they could tell you.

It's just over £8 for two and half hours per day here (not per hour)spread over 5 sessions a week

Ah see I knew I would get it wrong!

Thanks hs, have just looked at council website but it gives no figures, just time/number of weeks etc. Will have to try harder to get hold of nursery manager!!

Roughly £8 per session x 5 per week but only 38 weeks of the year!

If you use a pre-school they will essentially give you a "free" session (ie 5 mornngs or 2.5 days per week) depending on their charges. But the hours might not suit as they are only open school hours & term time.

A nursery will just deduct the £40 per week from your bill-worth having but it is spread out over the year.

Before anyone howls yes I know that is not how all setings work it out but it's the basics!!

There is n't a flat rate , depends how much they charge and they pay the equivalent of those hours up to a maximum.

I get between £110 and £120 a month - it varies apparently as the council has a set amount so sometimes you get a bit more if there are less people claiming it.

I understand the state funding is £8 for 2.5 hour session.

So, for example, if your nursery charges £10 per hour: £10+£10+£5 for 2.5 hours = £25

£25 - £8 (state funding) = £17 for 2.5 hours.

The playgroups around here charge between £6-£8 for 2.5 hour session. Hence why playgroups often talk of "free" sessions. They actually mean the Nursery Education Grant of £8 per 2.5 hour session covers the cost of the session and therefore are 'free'.

Do you all realise that they are NOT allowed to charge anything for the 2.5 hour sessions? They can only charge you if they are offering more than 2.5 hours and even if they are doing more than 2.5 hours sessions you are actually entitled to go and collect your child after 2.5 hours and they are not permitted to charge you.

The government rules & regs are absolutely crazy.

That I'm really surprised. My previous post was an actually a quote although I have rounded off the actually cost per hour for simplification.

So that means that if I had signed up dd to this nursery, I would have been entitled to a £17 refund. I'm tempted to contact them again and question the example.

Does this mean that if a nursery charges me £31.00 for a 2.5 hour session for my 3 year old dd, I don't have to pay up? I could just say, "I understand I don't owe you a penny for the 2.5 hour session."

dd goes to F/T day nursery, the sort thats open all day every day, 51 weeks a year, not private but run by a local charity.
I can only tell you how it works for us, we pay the nursery the normal full time monthly rate , as we did before she reached the nursery grant age
Every couple of months they refund us what the nursery grant would be for that period, and it varies each time. All a bit of a mystery, to me!
good luck

Code of Practice on the Provision of Free Nursery Education Places for Three- and Four-Year-Olds - SureStart Publication, dated February 2006. This code is current... but is due to replacement for 2008/09 year.
On page 17 of the PDF, it says: "Parents cannot be charged for any part of the minimum free entitlement either directly or indirectly."
Page 37 says:
"Providers should not levy any fee in respect
of the free entitlement nor should they
charge parents fees in advance for the free
entitlement to be refunded at a later date.
Providers that normally charge fees should
reduce the fees by the amount that they
would normally charge for those sessions
if the child was not accessing a free place."
It continues to say that:
"Providers can charge for additional services. The level of such fees is a private matter for agreement between the provider and the parent. However, parents should not be required or expected to take up
additional services in order to access a
free place."

I would suggest reading the document in full. But certainly to me it looks like a provider can not charge at all for the Free 2.5 hour Session.

exactly nannynick - my CM accepts early years vouchers and we went around and around in circles trying to think of a way of her legally charging a "top up" finally we got around it by paying her a retainer for my older dd who she was in the holidays.

The reality is that nearly all nurseries etc cannot offer early year places unless they can charge a "top up" fee because certainly here in Surrey it is impossible for our charitable pre-school to provide the early year places without charing something so we pay for the extra half an hour. The whole thing is madness. Parents want pre-school places that are convenient and inexpensive and parents who work tend to need full time day care that is more costly and are happy to benefit from the reduction in fees. TEchnically they are not allowed to do that though.