30 funded hours from September - nursery changing their policy

[am316]

Our 2 year old son goes to a nursery that only offer 10.5 hour days (7.30-6pm), no half days. He attends 3 days a week and we're two working parents so from September last year he's been getting the 15 free hours. It's stretched across the whole year so works out as 11 hours per week, essentially one day for free.

I recently asked the nursery about the upcoming increase in September and they said they have changed their policy, we can only use the 30 free hours if he attends 4 or 5 days per week. If he stays doing 3 days then we can only have the 15 hours.

Can they do that?! They also haven't told parents about this policy change and it's not anywhere on their website. I was only told verbally because I asked.

It's not the money that bothers me as such (although it is depressing to have been looking forward to a reduction in our nursery bill for so long and now that won't happen). The bill will basically stay the same as if we do 4 days and get 30 hours that extra day will be free. It's more than I don't want him to do 4 x10.5 hour days that feels SO long! 42 hours a week is longer than the 37.5 hours I work! I'm happy with our current 3 day arrangement and he has family the other two days.

What are other nurseries out there doing about the September 30 hours? And are they allowed to stipulate a minimum number of hours to attend in order to claim the 30 free? It doesn't feel right to me...

I would move nurseries if thats the case thats appalling. My child attends nursery just for the free 15 hours and eventually 30 hours. I had to visit a lot of nurseries however that refused to just accept the free funded hours and term time only.

Hi OP,

They can’t insist you do more hours to qualify:
A childcare provider cannot insist that a parent pays for additional hours in excess of the funded hours. Providers will need to be clear with parents on the pattern of funded hours they are able to offer. Obviously, if a parent wants additional hours they must
pay for them but parents must not be required to take any additional hours as a condition of taking up their child’s free entitlement place.

what they can do is choose when to offer free hour sessions. So they can split the 22.5 hours across 5 days which means he would get 13.5 hours if he attends 3 days a week. You could put him in for the free hours on the additional days if you would like to use the full amount but nursery cannot insist you pay for the additional hours on those days. Nursery should be able to confirm the times the free hours can cover.

Yes they can charge how they like, DD’s nursery only yet you use up to 5.5hours a day of funded hours. Any extra hours to make up a full day were charged so to get the 30hrs (22 hours stretched) they had to go at least 4 days. Fortunately I needed 4 days!

The preschool we moved to for the final year let you use it anyway you liked though.

Yes, they are allowed to stipulate a minimum number of hours in order to get the free hours.

Back in the early days of the scheme when it was only 15h, our 8-6 nursery offered them 9-12 and 12-3 every day. So no one going less than 2.5 days could use them. 9-3 is more or less in line with school nurseries so this seemed pretty reasonable.

From the childcare choices website

Thanks all! This is what I'm finding so confusing though is a complete split in what different people (and nurseries) think they can and can't do. I found this sentence in government guidance:

"Providers can also charge parents for any additional, private paid hours according to their usual terms and conditions provided taking up private paid hours is not a condition of accessing a free place."

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-education-and-childcare--2/early-education-and-childcare-effective-from-1-april-2025

So I interpret that as nurseries can't stipulate minimum hours. But when I've showed this to the nursery they said that's talking about children that are entitled to a "free place" as in only attending for free hours because of low parental income.

Contact your local authority. They most likely have a family information service and can advise you on the legalities of the funding

OP

would you want to drop him off at 9 and pick him up at 3 on the fourth day (or whatever the sessions are) if this was allowed?

@SheilaFentimanthe nursery don't offer that, its full days only

@EweSurnameI did! They pointed me to that guidance I posted, but they were also very uncertain about it

Lots of nurseries are doing random things with the hours as they just cannot afford them.

We have two locally and one (owned by a very rich family) have basically said "if you want 3 free days, then you have to book 2 paid days" with an air of "if you don't like it fuck off" (they've always had that air with things).

The other is only offering funded places 10am-3pm Monday to Friday. If you need extra hours, which obviously most do, they need paid for and are pricey. The two people I know who've applied for the 10-3 places have been told there are no spaces left - so basically unless you pay you're not getting a space.

Each nursery is setting up rules like this in order to have a chance at surviving as a business. If they don't find ways to charge you extra money they will go out of business. Every time a complaint leads to a nursery having to remove a way of getting income, it makes that closure more likely. Organisations whose running costs are greater than their income cannot survive, and the government funding for these 30 hours is woefully inadequate.

Please, either comply with the rules as set by the nursery, or find a different nursery. Some nurseries can get by without so much extra charges because they get free rent/bills due to being in council-owner premises.

I know of multiple nurseries locally who have a 4/5 day a week rule to use the hours.

I also know of multiple nurseries who do not offer the additional 15 hours at any age.

They cannot afford to cover their costs with just the free hours, so they need to find some way to make the difference up.

The policy has been terribly implemented by the government.

The stricter they become on how the funding can be applied, the less nurseries will allow it at all. They aren’t going to lose money just to provide a service - they’re private businesses.

Yeah, I wish Labour had got into power and said “look, we know the Tories came up with this “free” hours thing but the world and his wife know it underfunds 80% of settings (or whatever the actual %) so we are going to convert it into a subsidy of £x per hour and give each family y hours to spend each year” or similar.

Then parents would know they had £Z in their budget to support their costs.

Of course your child doesn't have to be in for 10.5 hours every day he is in! My nursery do full days of that length, but my DC are never in that long, often it's much shorter eg 9:30 to 4 depending on work. You pay the same, but there's no way they expect every child in there on the dot of half seven and not be collected until 6. If you choose to do that, that's on you not the nursery.

You can’t do that anymore from September (I do admin for a nursery!

so we are giving the 22 hours free

then charge for food and activities (we have a lot of external teachers come in for activities) and we charge for outings (all of these have to be optional)

however no child in the nursery brings packed lunch or doesn’t join the activities - it’s just never been a thing! The price includes everything normally!!

so it would be a crap nursery experience for a child if they just accept the free hours as they will be very left out !

but it has to be an option and if someone wants that we will be offering it from September.

childcare settings need to submit a claim form every term detailing the child, number of hours and number of weeks. When it was just the 3-4 year olds for max 15 hours it was much easier to be flexible as numbers of children involved were smaller. Come September when virtually all attendees will be claiming funding it’ll much easier for the settings to have same number of hours funded for every child then x by days per week each child attends. It would take too long to calculate individual hours for each part time child when the nursery could have 80 + children, plus the invoicing for additional hours would become a huge task.