Nursery admissions prioritising 30 hour eligibility

[TBC45678]

We've recently been denied a pre-school place at the school our elder children attend due to the fact that we don't have a 30 hour code. So the nursery prioritise 30 hour eligibility over siblings. Anyone experienced this? It seems so unfair to me but I know they can choose their own admissions policies for nursery places.

There are about 30 nursery places, and previously they have had morning/afternoon children who only get 15 hours, however we were not even offered that. So maybe they only want full time 30 hour children. They definitely do take payment because even 30 hour funded children pay a little extra for lunch time supervision or something like that. And until this year they've not been oversubscribed so other took 30 hour places and topped up the fees.

There are 90 reception places. I think they may be shooting themselves in the foot really because many of the 15 hours nursery children in the area have no English, and the year of nursery has really helped those children learn English before they start reception. I imagine all these children will still attend in reception but just have another year at home not speaking any English... It's important that children with only 15 hour eligibility due to non working parents still access pre school places, and whilst maybe not 'unfair' for me in our position, it definitely is on them. The vast majority of 15 hour children in the area is because of non working parents, not high earners. Does seem a bit discriminatory towards them, and I certainly hope this prioritisation of 30 hour eligibility isn't the nursery's way of getting an easier cohort..!

Also, I've been told explicitly (verbally) several times that the school prioritise 30 hour codes for nursery admissions, in case people are thinking I'm making a lot of assumptions!

Doesn't pre schools have nothing to do with sibling links? I thought that was the norm.

This could be relevant. Our Nursery attached to the primary school only takes 15 or 30 hour 3-4 year olds, there is no option at all to pay for anything other than that.

The screen grab is the 'nursery admissions guidance' from our LA. They are clear it's guidance though and nurseries can choose what they do. But just to show that it's definitely not the norm for siblings to not be a high priority for admission

@SayItLikeItIsLetsKeepItReal they definitely took payments from a few families last year who only had 15 funded hours and did full time. Plus they've told me many times it's the 30 hour eligibility they are prioritising, not people only accessing their funded hours.

Hence we need a lot more investment into school nurseries, staff and buildings too.