Changes to preschool opening hours and fees

[AlwaysAnExcuseForEverything]

My DD just turned 3 and will qualify for 15 funded hours of childcare from September. I am planning to send her to the preschool in the same village as DS's primary school.

Preschool currently is open 8:50am-2:50am, comprising a 3 hour morning session and 3 hour afternoon session. They have been requesting a voluntary £1 donation per session to cover their additional expenses (happy to pay this).

However, I've just had an email saying that from September, the morning session will be 8:30-11:30, afternoon from 12:30-3:30. If you are in receipt of 15 hours' funding and want your child to stay for a full day, you have to pay £6 per day to cover the additional hour over lunchtime. (Children receiving 30 hours can be collected at 2:30pm if parents wish, with the option of a £6 top up to cover 2:30-3:30pm. This early pick up option is not open to children doing 15 hours. )

I could still send DD for 5 mornings or afternoons a week and pay nothing. However, the additional to-ing and fro-ing when I have another child to drop off and collect, not to mention the additional petrol, is really prohibitive. (We do not live within walking distance of the preschool or we would walk there in a heartbeat.) I was only envisaging sending DD for 2 full days a week, forgoing the extra half day she is entitled to, for this very reason.

I'm cheesed off that I'm now looking at paying £12 a week to cover the additional lunch hours but won't actually be using all her funded hours. I thought the govt crack down on top up fees was meant to make childcare more accessible, not less. It might not seem much money to some people but it will make a difference to us.

I'd be interested to hear what other preschools are doing in light of the top up fees ban.

The nurseries can’t afford to run the sessions on the funding they are given.

If they cannot charge for extra services, they will close down.

£14 a week for two days of childcare sounds pretty good OP.

My local nurseries are either not offering the extra 15 hours, else insist on 4 or 5 days a week attendance to use them.

They are very clear about the sessions and the options to use it without a charge is there. They are making changes to meet needs of the preschool and families.

@MidnightPatrol Ok, interesting - hadn't even considered that an establishment could opt out of offering funded hours. Guess I should count myself lucky in that case!

If the hours and the fees don't work for you and your family then you could always look for another setting.

The funding is ridiculously low.
£12 a week is a good win imo

I couldn’t begin to be concerned about £12 a week when I’m paying £800 a month with 30 hours. Seems like you have the option to bring her home for lunch so just do that if you don’t want to pay.

Agree with everyone else.

I know money is tight for a lot of families, but seriously, you can't be complaining about paying £12 for two days of childcare ??

Does it help to look at it and differentiate between provision and convenience.

They’re giving you various options that allow you to use the 15 hours at zero cost. Mornings, afternoons, or full days with lunch pick up or lunch paid for.

Yes, those might not be convenient for you - but the top up charge to add the extra that is convenient for you is pretty good value.

Also means that you can do pre school drop &
collect around school drop and pick, so it’s making that a bit more practical.

There are 4 nurseries near me, one has never offered funded places and one has withdrawn from any from September. They say it's simply not affordable for them

Ha yes I know this will not compare to what others are shelling out in nursery fees 😬 I'm trying to get a sense of what the preschool costs are elsewhere, assuming school opening hours and term time only provision.

When DS was at preschool 3 years ago doing 15 hours, we paid a nominal £5 consumables fee per term and the rest was covered by the funding. Then when his sister was born we paid for an additional afternoon at £18 a week, to give me 3 full days with DD. It did mount up and we decided we wouldn't bother this time round for DD and would just use the 2 free days. We are entitled to 15 hours of childcare, no more, no less, and not long ago these were available for free on terms that suited me! However, clearly times have changed and we will have to suck it up. At least the preschool is honouring the funded hours, which from PP I now realise is not guaranteed. It's all relative!

Cool, thanks all for the replies. Sounds like we're actually getting a pretty good deal compared with others these days (even if it's not as cheap as we're used to 😉) That's basically what I wanted to find out.

Don't have any practical alternatives anyway, other than not sending DD at all. Will just have to figure out what is the best combination of sessions to go for given the logistics. (We recently moved DS to a different primary school to which we have to drive when previously we walked. Feels like I'm constantly filling up the tank now.)

That sounds like a 'living rurally' issue rather than a Pre-school issue though.

It is sort of part and parcel of that choice you have made.

True - because we live in a village we have one choice of nursery and primary school within walking distance. DS used to attend the local school and DD was down to attend the attached nursery, but we became deeply unhappy with the school and were forced to look elsewhere. I know it's not the new preschool's fault that we aren't within walking distance. Just explaining why doing multiple runs to and from preschool/school during the day would be such a pain.

Same! You have a great deal, OP. Don't risk losing it over £6 per day.

Times have changed and unfortunately the nurseries don’t get the funding they need so parents have to top up. £12 is nothing in comparison to private nursery for under 3s. I pay £700 a month for 2 full days… it’s eye watering!

Apologies if it’s already been said, but you can likely use tax free childcare to reduce the cost a bit.

Feeling somewhat vindicated by a previous thread which points to these government guidelines:

"Local authorities should ensure that children are able to take up their free hours in continuous blocks if they wish to, and there should be no artificial breaks in the entitlement hours. For example a provider should not offer 10am to midday and 1pm to 3pm as entitlement hours and offer only private paid hours in between."

My preschool have done just that - extended their opening hours and inserted an artificial break over midday, whilst stipulating that those using 15 hours may not attend both morning and afternoon sessions uninterrupted without paying a top up fee for the bit in between.

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

2 days childcare for £12? Yes, outrageous.

Can you bring her home for lunch or are you working OP during this time? That could help. But also realise the to and fro would be a pain!

Have you thought about an electric car? I was doing these kinds of journeys all the time and petroleum of £200 a month for 400 miles which was ridiculous. Now using about £20 of electric. Might help?

The reality is the the "funding" is low, like ridiculously low. Like this low:
FH X C = less than RCH (FH=funded hours; C= children; RCH = running costs per hour)
In other words: If you take one hour, and you multiply the government funding per child for that hour, by the number of children there per hour, you get less money than running the nursery took for that hour. The nurseries aren't allow to charge even a reduced fee for care for that hour, so they have to make up the shortfall by charging for "other services", otherwise they will close.

Yeah it sounds like the whole system is deeply flawed tbh.

I can't help thinking if the OP is worried about paying £12 for 2 days a week of Nursery care, she doesn't have £45K tucked down the back of the sofa to buy an electric car.

Well, you can hound them about this - report to the LA etc if you want to but the end result will be that even more Nurseries will close down due to it not being worth running because they can't recoup their costs.
That leaves many areas without enough places for the dc that want / need a place. Then you get supply and demand for places, meaning the Nurseries that do remain open will be able to withdraw from the scheme altogether and your two days worth of Nursery will then cost you about £240 a week.

Seems like a cutting off nose to spite face situation to me.

Yeah I hear what you're saying - electric would make a lot of sense for us given the way our car is used day to day. We replaced our one family car the year before last and ruled out electric on the basis we don't have offroad parking so no easy way of charging at home. Was also unsure about battery life and whether we'd be able to manage the occasional 200 mile trip to the in-laws or holiday to France... Never really looked into that aspect properly, though. If we ever get a house with a driveway, I'll definitely consider it, or maybe a hybrid. I'm driving 10 mins each way, four times a day and it is absolutely guzzling petrol.