Is this right?

[Runninggirls26]

I’m hoping someone can tell me if this is right or if I’m being swindled here.
We get the 15 funded hours for our 2 year old and is taken off the invoice. This month nursery ends on the 13th Dec and you can book in for the week starting the 16th Dec which they call holiday play scheme but it’s the same provision. We’ve booked 3 days for that week. We’ve been invoiced separately for the 1st Dec- 13th Dec and the week of the 16th. The 15 funded hours have not been applied to the week of the 16th and we’re being charged £250 for the 3 (short) days at their full rate.
Does anyone know if this is right? I was expecting the 15 funded hours for each week as the week of the 16th is still in term time for our LA. He only attends during term time so I don’t think we’ve run out of 15 hours across the year if that makes sense?

The funded hours are only term time (regardless of if you use them) it will be why the nursery have made a distinction between the holiday sessions because they will charge differently- is it too late to cancel them?

Yes it's right. It's not your nursery's term time, that's why they are offering holiday club.

“Free hours” are for 39 weeks of the year. Some settings stretch them out over the year, so about 11hrs per week,, but your setting sounds like it does 15hrs per week of term time. This is to do with how they claim the money so might not be able to change it at a whim. So yes they’d charge you full for out of term time.

My one gives me the choice to stretch or not, but you can’t change this at any time. It has to be a before the term starts for the full term as that’s how the money is claimed from the government.

They also can’t change the days you claim. So if you claim a Monday and they’re not open that day or bank holiday, the free hours can’t be claimed on another day. So if they go Mon-Thu you would still pay for Thu on a day that you don’t use the Mon.

Welcome to “free” hours!

Sorry it’s over 38 weeks https://www.gov.uk/apply-free-childcare-if-youre-working

Funding is 38 weeks. School terms are 39 weeks (they have 5 inset days), so funding may not cover a whole school term. You can check your bill, but I suspect it’s accurate, because they offered the extra week as a holiday play scheme.

Thanks everyone- I expect it’s the 38 weeks thing 😬

I'm a childminder and I'm charging full for that week because it's not funded. In my area there are only 14 funded weeks this term but it's a 15 week term.
You know, you can check on your council website how many weeks there are- it's on there for anyone to look at.