Term dates for funding after 9 months

[itsturtlesallthewaydown]

I keep reading that your child is eligible for funding "from the term after they turn 9 months old"

Our child will be 9 months in early April 2026, and the next term starts on 22 April 2026, so I would expect to get funding from then. However our nursery have said that they need to turn 9 months before 1st April, and so we can only get funding from September.

Is that correct? Where do these dates come from - everything I've read in many places always says "the term after they turn 9 months".

Nothing about specific cut off dates that don't relate to the actual term dates.

These are the term dates. Yellow is holidays, white is school term:

I think when you're not the one doing all the admin, it's easy to say it could be done weekly, but I'm not spending my evenings and weekend updating the portal weekly! There's a lot of information to check and upload and send off.

I think you're simplifying it to 'it's just my childs name and code they have to pop in to a computer, how hard can it be?' And I'm saying, the government want more info than that. And I want to be paid on time! I dont want to give you your free hours and then have to wait weeks on end to be paid.

Yes I'm sure in future they will devise a more cohesive system, but it's not there yet. And you need to make peace with that. Just as everyone who just missed out on funded childcare hours altogether has had to make peace with that.

Hello @itsturtlesallthewaydown you’re definitely not the only one trying to make sense of this and it’s something we’re seeing lots of posters ask about at the moment. We’ve got a couple of threads running in partnership with the Department for Education to help parents make sense of this, including a Q&A with an Early Years leader who’s answering exactly this kind of thing. Might be worth having a look or posting your question there. We also have a general discussion thread where users are sharing their own experiences. Hope that helps and fingers crossed you get some clarity.